almost christmas!

as a first disclaimer: know that soon you will see our christmas card on this blog. we have been a bit frugal this year & decided to do the christmas card on the blog, facebook, & email. uh, maybe next year?

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we have this cold virus going around our family. amelia had it a few weeks ago. then adeline had it over the weekend & is still recovering. i was struck on monday; wes, this morning. so UGH & bummer. yesterday i decided to take some cold medicine to stop the flow of snot...in a rush to take my pills plus the cold medicine before putting amelia down for a nap, i grabbed the tylenol *nighttime* box instead of the tylenol daytime. so unknowingly, yea--i took a sleeping pill at 1:30 in the afternoon. as i was rocking amelia i closed my eyes & nearly fell asleep, but put her in bed & then walked around the house in a daze for awhile. finally, i was in the kitchen & saw the daytime tylenol cold box & it hit me--DRATS! EGADS! SHIT!

then i drank a few cups of coffee, took more b vitamins (they give energy), & another adrenal pill...it sorta worked. i stayed awake through it! but when it was finally time to hit the hay, i was conked out in a matter of seconds. so take this story as a warning...?

end thought about this situation: what's weird about having this stupid cold right now is that i don't feel like cooking or baking in any way. highly unusual for me around any holiday. just thought i'd throw that in there.

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here's another story to reflect our bad luck recently: wes decided to be nice & take the aztek to a mechanic to fix the alignment that i'd been saying was off for awhile. well, it wasn't just the alignment, but priced at around $900 to fix something in that area of the car (i am very much NOT mechanical). somehow the price went down a bit after some haggling. so instead of that new patio door, we have a car that won't crap out on me while driving. which is okay...

then we got wes' new car saturday! joy! delight! awe & wonder! on our first drive--the check engine light came on...i think i saw wes grow on ulcer on the spot... but according to some autozone engine light machine, it's fine. something to do with a gas cap or something maybe. *sigh of relief*

before that, i had signed over the title to thelma in the wrong place on the actual title paper....so we had to go down to the very busy title bureau & get a new title, then wait for the new owners (who had to drive back into columbus from about 45 minutes away--oops!) to sign it over to them again....but in the correct place this time. so maybe this past year has not been our luckiest, but i think we're learning some important life lessons. like, don't give your kids markers unsupervised. or leave cereal out. or sign a title to a car over to someone without knowing where to sign. or don't blame yourself for things that are out of your control.

what's weird about having this stupid cold right now is that i don't feel like cooking or baking in any way. highly unusual for me around any holiday.

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addy misses school already. she wants to do homework & then pretends that each piece of paper i give her is homework. she plays school with amelia--which is filled with fun time & stretching & addy sounding nearly exactly like her teacher. it's hilarious!

 adeline dancing to her own tune before her school christmas party.

 we have about 8 more pictures of her dancing like this...i need to put them to music. or maybe just record her dancing. she starts her dance/ballet class in a few weeks & is counting down the days. she will tell me that 'i have to practik forrr my dank class' (i'm sorry, i love the way she talks. do i really want her to catch up in language?! b/c her mis-words make my heart melt). then she will begin to twirl & do some dance moves, then she will stretch & count. *adore*

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last weekend was the gerbick family christmas here!

 my mother in law gave me a cake-pop recipe book & then brought all the goodies to make a reindeer (gf!) cake-pop. here's the 2nd stage: mixing baked cake with icing.

eating more than mixing?

the end result

 we didn't get too fancy with the eyes & to be truthful, i had a glass or two of wine before putting on the antlers (gf pretzels) & the icing markers weren't working very well. so we just went with it & made some sort of misfit reindeer pops. we made so many of them, though! the girls aren't so sure if they like them. me: i love them. i have limited myself to two a day...

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more gerbick christmas last weekend: gifts!

here we have paw-paw bruce, bri, cliff, & amelia in front

i now have a family-size george foreman to make hot sandwiches or grill chicken or whatever! no more making one sandwich at a time, me eating 10 minutes after everyone is finished with their's... (thanks, sue & bruce!)

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so yesterday, amelia was a bit naughty. this is her 2nd bag or cereal that she dumped (one for wes to clean up, one for me). she's 2 & has been really showing off that naughty side...but she usually juxtaposes the naughty with the totally cute/adorable 2 year old charm.

here's a picture of the mom-in-charge cereal dump on the couch. by the time i noticed what she was up to she was crumbling the corn flakes & mushing them into the cushions--shouting with delight & throwing pieces up into the air.

then she saw my face & mumbled, with her head down low: me sit in time out. & then walked to her time out place & sat down for nearly 10 minutes (since she put herself there, i just let her sit as long as she deemed necessary! plus, i was vacuuming it all up).

 

& not sure what's up with the camera--i think wes has switched some setting & i forgot to adjust it??

anyway. today we are focusing on dancing to christmas music, coloring, then decorating some wooden ornaments with some markers & glitter glue (that is set for later this morning, once my tylenol pm from last night wears off--i am sooo bad with cold meds! they linger in me forever...but are oh-so-helpful).