It snowed in phoenix

Just Drew and I were home that night, two nights before Christmas, when our Christmas tree fell to its doom. The little hooligan was at it again playing with the ornaments, and again it fell over, scattering miniscule styrofoam snowballs all over my carpet.

The first time it was kind of funny. Drew had a mouth full of snowballs and was very remorseful. The second time her mouth was clean as a whistle and she acted like the tree falling down was old news ("What's the big deal mom?") I guess you learn after the first time a plastic tree falls down on you to move out of the way. If she only had a few snowballs on her body I might have felt better about the whole thing.

Apparently artificial trees are only manufactured to fall down once. After the second fall, our tree was never to stand again. The plastic base was snapped in two places and no amount of duck tape was holding the thing together.

This Christmas our tree looked beaten to a pulp and leaned against the wall, breathing its last breaths. We might have let that break our Christmas spirit, but we didn't...



Drew was still an angel in the family Christmas Eve nativity play. Although the halo she is wearing is a fake! I promise.




She still got showered with the best gifts (like furry princess boots) that she plays with EVERY day.




We still got to spend time with tons of family.




Drew still got the new pajamas I made for her.




And Christmas morning was still a joy. Although I can't say the same for our sad tree in the background.




And the final tally this year comes in:

Drew- 2
Christmas tree- 0

Presents

Christmas time has been so much fun this year. Drew doesn't understand all the ins and outs yet of the holiday, but she is crystal clear on one thing. She knows that Santa only brings presents to nice boys and girls. What she has failed to understand is that she is not the authority who brings down law regarding this Christmas rule. At one time or another Jason, myself, and all 200 of her stuffed animals have had their presents taken away this year.

She has always taken the liberty to tell us to "be nice!" Especially when we're doing something really mean like giving her a bath when she doesn't want to. Lately she tacks on to that a cool, calm, and collected "You get no presents." Luckily she is very forgiving and if handled right, the judge will change her sentence. I can't remember at this point if I am or am not getting presents for Christmas this year.

And I believe every resident of the Phoenix valley was at the temple Monday night. And we were smack dab in the middle of them.

Behind the Scenes

I love my model and heaven knows she is sweet, but sometimes taking pictures of Drew is like working with a wild raccoon.

She works best with no direction.

I must follow her around in her natural habitat.

It's as though she doesn't understand my language.

Food rewards are helpful. A single blue M&M can get her in a dress and out the door ready for a photo shoot pretty quickly.


I organized all my picture folders the other day and through the bazillion modeling pictures of Drew. Out of the bazillion are a handful of good shots and the rest are made up of the following...


playing with rocks,




eyes closed,




crying,




playing with more rocks,




that wild hair in the face,




mid sentence,




"if you take another picture of me I will make you pay" face,




and the final, "I'm done."



I just snap pictures through it all.

Kitchen Plans

Erica remodeled my kitchen here! It's all perfect. This should convince Jason to put the plan into action.

How to enjoy a Christmas tree

One night we find her sitting in her rocking chair, reading Christmas books by tree-light.

The next night we find her on the ground, underneath the tree she just pulled over, with a mouth and hair full of snowballs. She wasn't hurt so I am still laughing at the image.

Thankful

This Thanksgiving I was most thankful for my two frenemies. Both my best friends. Both my enemies when they combine forces against me. Which is most of the time.

See how they enjoy their Thanksgiving dessert.

Backyard Before and After

When we were house hunting back in May and we saw this house, I completely fell in love with it. And like most brand new loves I looked past its flaws. It's main flaw being the backyard which was just small and ugly. "This yard is the perfect size for a two-year-old and we can just take out those bushes, take out all the rock, plant a garden here, plant grass, plant citrus trees here, add a swing here.... It won't be that hard to make it look good." This was coming from a rookie who had never done yard work in her life.

Six months later and we're basically done. All of the work on our house has been on our front and back yard. We've planted so many trees, shrubs, vines that I've lost count. And for each one we had to dig deep holes in our cement dirt with a pick axe and shovel. By "we" I mean "mainly Jason". We love our backyard now though and it is the perfect weather to be outside playing.


So the past couple of weeks almost killed me. I was sewing so much I barely slept, hardly sat at the computer, almost forgot my husband, child, and home, and developed a horrible twitch in my right eye. I hope to never do that to myself again. Or my family. Or to my eye that is still twitching. Seriously, Jason will hardly look at me anymore because it freaks him out.