Now A Family of *gulp* Six.

I am not a fan of birds. But this summer, I was possessed with the desire to own a birdfeeder & attract them. I'm not sure why. And of course, being a beginner, I ended up attracting a squirrel. Not just any squirrel - Jumpy. Jumpy has been hanging around our house since before Charlie was born, hiding his nuts in our yard & basically being a nuisance. Roman is the one who named him. Well, the arrival of the birdfeeders appeared to be the challenge Jumpy was looking for. It doesn't matter what kind of feeder I buy, Jumpy figures out how to get seeds from it. He destroyed the one pictured below within 2 weeks. The thing is, I don't really mind feeding Jumpy. Of course, he's getting quite fat and may not make it up to his nest in the tree across the street eventually, but I like seeing him. But I do miss seeing birds strangely, so yesterday I bought a magazine from Birds & Blooms with tips on what to put in feeders to attract certain kinds of birds. And it daw...

When I have free time, which isn't often, I cruise around the Internet to scrapbooking sites & blogs. There are certain people I like to "drop in" on. The other day I popped over to Ali Edwards' blog. I'm not a big fan of her style, but often she will provide some inspiration that gets me thinking. And so it was this day - her "one little word." The idea - to take a word and embrace it for the year. Let it guide your decisions, let it give you direction. I love this idea. So many words bounced around in my head, but it only took a couple days to settle on the one I will use. TIME. Spend it, squander it, find it, make it, it goes too fast, it goes too slow... so each month I plan to do a little page about how TIME is affecting me but more important, how I am using my TIME. I want to spend more with my kids without thinking of the zillion other things I have to do. I want to carve some out each week so I can be creative. I want to use my TIME better. ...

Already I have a bunch of videos I could share of bouncing, sledding, snow angels, and general goofing off (not to mention 2 of our "pet" squirrel!). But this one just shows the joy they had on Day One of break. Watch it a couple times to keep an eye on both boys.

I have avoided listening to the radio station that play Christmas songs this year. I have stuck to the traditional favorite CDs that we have & am not disappointed to have missed "I want a hippopatamus for Christmas." In rotation has been Trans-Siberian Orchestra's "Christmas Attic," Roger Whittaker's Christmas Album , Domestic Problem's old Christmas CD, and tonight I broke out Bing Crosby & the Andrews Sisters . Oh yes, I was belting out the backup vocals with those ladies. Anyhoo, we've also been trying to focus more on the "Reason for the Season" with our advent calendar and general discussions. Of course, Santa Claus is very exciting to a 3-year-old so we had to go see him this afternoon. We thought Roman would take it more in stride, but he was just as excited as his brother. Charlie asked for candy & cars; Roman asked for the Lego Hogwart's Castle (no way, it's $130!), a DSi-XL (no way, he already has a DS!) and...

This Thanksgiving weekend has been a Godsend. We were running at breakneck speed, just keeping up with daily life - appointments, meetings, even our pleasure events felt like they were flying at us and speeding by. It's amazing what a few extra days does for one's sanity. Of course, it has helped that my boys have been AWESOME the past few days. I was home with them on Wednesday (no school for anyone) and it was a rough go, but we found our footing. Friday and today they have just been great - aside from the constant talking from not one, but both. Thursday evening Doug and I hopped online and bought all of Roman's, and almost all of Charlie's, Christmas gifts. Thank goodness for Amazon.com. Free shipping helps too. Then Friday I went out to Toys-R-Us and got all but one last gift for Charlie. Got my parents' gifts purchased too. I'm way ahead of where I usually am - hopefully I can keep this up! Christmas decor went up today too, and the boys were great with t...

Charlie has begun to express his creative side. On the floor, with a Sharpie. On the wall, with a pink crayon. Thank goodness for Mr. Clean Magic Eraser!

On Friday afternoon I opened the fridge to get Roman something to drink. When I tried to close the door, it wouldn't. It just hung there. Turns out that the washers that cause it to stay closedn & sealed had completely worn through. Luckily, I have a handy husband who spent $1.50 and fixed it. Definitely lucky - because on Saturday he broke the washing machine. One load ran smooth, and when Doug tried to put the 2nd load in it started to fill and then "error." After a lot of time fiddling around, he thinks its the sensors. Whatever that means. So we had to order some online & we're without washer until at least Wednesday. And we hope that it IS the sensors, or there will be some scratch-and-ding shopping in our future.