holiday fun...

We had way to much Christmas at this house, 4 celebrations in all. I was so over it by the time new years came around.

I didn't blog much around the holidays, but have a huge back log of pictures so here we go...

Before all the snowy weather hit, we made it out to the zoo lights for a fun night of holiday cheer. The boys loved it... It wasn't that busy, so we got to walk all around without huge mobs of people, we got to ride the train, and only had to wait in line for 15 minutes, the last zoo lights we went to, we waited in line for 1.5 hours... so this was awesome.

At the end of the night we hung out by the elephant exhibit. The elephants were super close, closer than I have ever been able to see them. It was really cool, it was really dark so we didn't take any photos, but so amazing to be able to see the huge animals up so close.

burdyflyaway, may fly away....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWsrvOjQvSo

http://milagrosboutique.com/2009/01/02/help-support-responsible-manufacturers-and-local-jobs/

http://www.etsy.com/storque/craftivism/cpsia-updates-and-calls-to-action-3157/


check out the links above....



Because of all the problems with overseas production of unsafe toys for kids (mainly produced in china), congress is trying to keep our kids safe by adding more regulations. In the middle they are nudging out a ton of small local businesses, burdyflyaway included.



please read and sign the petition...



http://www.handmadetoyalliance.org/

plans out the window...

last night I had a plan for this morning... I spent the evening pouring over my new cookbook, veganomicon (which is awesome). I had the whole weeks meals planned out, and my grocery list made.

Here was my schedule, perfected in my head before I fell asleep:

• 7 a.m. get out of bed, throw on some clothes, and get to the grocery store before B heads off to work. Get everything I could get at freddys, later with the boys head to the produce market and trader joes, for the items freddys does not carry and is way cheaper and better at the produce market...
• 8:30 a.m. expected time home from the grocery with coffee in hand for b and me.
• 8:45 a.m. boys should be up, get them dressed, fed, and ready to go.
• 9:30 a.m. get to the gym, get ollie signed in for his kid fit class, and pass max off to the daycare.
• 10:30 a.m. have done my nike o.k. go treadmill interval training, that I love. Have lifted weights and am feeling great because I worked out before lunch.
• 10:45 a.m. run home wash up and change my clothes, get to the produce market for all my other groceries needed for the week.

by noon I wanted to be at my mom's, grocery shopping done, work out done, showered and feeling great. All ready to hang out and make potato kale enchiladas, for my dinner and hers, and meet her new cat.

Reality is, my alarm went off, I rolled out of bed with a horrible sore throat. Went to the kitchen downed an airborne, 4 advil, and a liquid multi-vitamin. Had to change a little 4 year old out of pottied wet jammies (can't wait to strip that bed, again, blah) and curled back up in my comfy warm bed, with my cleaned up 4 year old and went back to sleep.

Sesame street is almost over, I am still in my jammies.... freddys play land doesn't open till 11 a.m.... I am trying to muster my energy to head out to the gym.....

If only my fantasy time lines and schedules could join up with me in the reality of my world. Than I would get so much done, and life would be so much easier, all my meals would be out of this world, and I would be much thinner. heee hee he




.

california sun....

We made it to cali for a quick little visit.. more on that later...

look at my little men...he heee

sushi...

What a nice ending to such a bummer day!

christmas road trip failure...

Today we were supposed to be finishing up our drive to California. We were supposed to be in Modesto for a week, wake up Christmas morning and celebrate with B's mom, grandpa, and uncle Lee. It was supposed to be super fun, and super special, since it would be the first Christmas we spent in California with the kids. Stupid Weather ruined our plans, but we put up a good fight, only to end in defeat last night... here is the rundown....

When the weather turned bad, we thought hmmm, maybe we should get train tickets? Nope totally sold out, good thing since train service shut down...

soooo... back to the original driving plan...

• Decided to get a 4wd rental car, our goal was to leave town between noon and 1pm...
• Getting the rental car should have taken, what, 20 minutes? took 2 hours... ughhh!
• Left my Mom's house loaded with half our stuff at 2:00pm...
• Ran down I-205, not really a problem and had to stop at our house... in record time had all presents loaded, snacks packed, and movie started for the boys...
• 3:00pm hit the road... goal was to make it to Medford to stay with my brother for the night by 9pm, 6 hours gave us plenty of time.
• 3:15 heard from my sister they would be closing I-5 at 4pm to de-ice the roads, so we needed to be fast.
• Didn't stop for gas, figured we would make it to I-5 before they closed it down and would stop to get gas than.
• 4pm sitting on I-205 going 5 miles an hour... sucks...
• 4:30pm have gone not even a mile...
• 5:30pm still on I-205 not moving at all...
• 6:30pm... still sitting, people are out of the cars, trying to figure out what the heck is going on.
• ...We have only a quarter a tank of gas left...
• 7:45pm barely moving along, we finally make it to the stafford road exit... we get off of I-205 south, and get right back on I-205 North... we are going home!
• 4 and a half hours we made it 2.6 miles...
• It took us 11 minutes to make it back to our exit for home, that was traveling at a high speed of 30mph.
• We threw in the towel! There are now winter advisories on both sexton and the siskiyou pass, plus a storm is supposed to hit Northern California... we are done. the universe is telling us it is No Go....

after almost 5 hours in the car to only turn around, we decided to go out to dinner (I have no groceries at home, thought we were going to be gone for the week).... we ended up having a very lovely dinner at 8pm at our local sushi-go-round place...

Totally bummed!

all hung by the "chimney" with care...

My stocking is 30 years old, so crazy. My Great Grandma made every child in my family a stocking and they are the only ones we have ever used.It is so fun to carry on the tradition and make ones for my family. B's is from our first Christmas together, Ollie's was of course his first Christmas. Max did'nt get one for his first two years, poor guy, I finally got my stuff together and got his made... so fun....