We were on vacation at grandma’s house last month and the kids had been outfitted with about all the candy and treats their bodies could handle. They were enjoying life immensely.

One night, after brushing his teeth, Magoo asked if he could eat more candy, specifically Nerds.

“But Buddy,” I explained, “You already brushed your teeth.”

“I know. It’s okay because I have a plan. I don’t even need to chew or suck on them. I’ll just swallow them down. Then they won’t get on my teeth.”

“But then you wouldn’t even enjoy them.”

“That’s okay,” he said.

Dan and I laughed about this and suggested that maybe we should just inject sugar directly into his veins, bypassing his digestive system altogether.

A couple of weeks later we were back home from vacation and I was multi-tasking when Dan arrived home from work. I was cleaning the kitchen like mad with my laptop on the stove, playing So You Think You Can Dance. It’s my favorite show but I wasn’t watching it, not even really listening to the music. I was checking it off my to-do list.

“What are you doing?” Dan asked.

With a sheepish grin, I responded, “I think I’m swallowing my Nerds.”

If you’re gonna eat something yummy, eat it. If you’re gonna watch a show, watch it. If you’re gonna spend time with your kids, be present. Make sure you at least taste the candy on its way down.

When they got home from school, the kids found a soccer ball on the front lawn and got into a game that involved Laylee and Magoo kicking the ball back and forth while Wanda screamed and tried to intercept it from them.

It was cool and cloudy with lots of mud.

When they finally decided to include Wanda in the game and pass her the ball, she picked it up and ran. She’s no fool. She knew she likely wouldn’t get the ball again.

And we have a new camera, thanks to tax return season. Hopefully there will be many more pictures to share and many more soccer balls to not share.

My parents and sister came to visit us for Christmas and it was so fun to have them here. It’s the first time we’ve ever had family up for the holiday and we wanted to make it special so we each chose a gift for each of our visitors. This year for the first time I asked the kids to use their own allowance money to pay for half of the gifts. It made the gifts more meaningful and it caused them to think more seriously about what to give.

Both kids got Auntie Meg jewelry because she is fashionable like that. Magoo got Papa a laser pointer and Grammy some chapstick.

After hours of looking, Laylee was browsing the little red boxed gift items on the end cap at Target when she came upon the Perfect Present for Grammy. She held the box up triumphantly.

Me: It’s a mini megaphone.
Laylee [grinning and nodding]: WITH siren!

I had to let her buy it, because who won’t remember the year that Grammy received a mini megaphone WITH siren for Christmas?

The gift was especially poignant considering Grammy suffered from migraines off and on for the first few days they were at our house. Yes, a siren will come in very handy for Grammy.

I love the part a few seconds in when she points to herself in the mirror and then points to Magoo as if to say, “Did you see that? Did you see that? I did that. That was me!”

For our anniversary this December, I got Dan a bowtie, a real bowtie that you have to tie yourself and that you can pull lose at the end of the day and it hangs down on either side of your neck, a man’s bowtie.

It was my version of giving him anniversary jewelry. Plus I thought it would look hot on him. Plus it reminds me of the beginning sequence of Up, the sequence that makes every woman in America cry her brains out, where the couple grows old together and can never have kids and then (SPOILER ALERT!!) she dies and (DOUBLE SPOILER ALERT!!!) he ends up wearing bowties.

I thought it would be a sweet symbol of my wanting to grow old together with Dan and (SPOILER ALERT!!) eventually die, but mostly just grow old together and he would look all hot and distinguished and such while we were doing it.

He loved the tie but neither of us knew how to tie it and we didn’t take the time to get our YouTube on and figure it out until a couple of weeks ago.

It just so happens that on the Sunday we learned to tie it and he wore it for the first time, they announced in church that he would be the new choir director. He’d never worn a bowtie before and it looked suspiciously like he was wearing it as some sort of uniform for his new job. Little did everyone know, he was wearing it as some sort of uniform for romance.

Then this weekend Laylee and I walked down the hill from our house to buy groceries. I packed some reusable sacks in our little red wagon and we went on our merry way, holding hands and talking with very little carbon footprint.

On the way back up the hill, or as I like to call it, THE CLIFFS OF INSANITY, we got hot and sweaty. We got so hot and sweaty that my lungs nearly exploded and I had to restrain myself from showing Laylee how to dial 911 if I passed out on the side of the road. Let’s just say the wagon was a teensy bit heavier now that it contained 3 gallons of milk, several pounds of produce and a couple of loaves of bread.

I was stopped for one of our many rest breaks and I got to thinking about how the two of us must look, carting our groceries home from market, Laylee’s hair blowing uncombed behind her, our wagon full of organic milk and vegetables in their cloth sacks. “I’m totally playing the role of earth mother today.”

Then I looked down and noticed I was wearing a tie-dyed shirt, a tie-dyed shirt that I made myself with a group of neighbors under a tent outside last summer, all communal-like. The perfect touch.

Sometimes you dress the part without even thinking about it.

My sister KayLynn is guest posting today to talk about the National Day of Listening. I am a huge proponent of capturing the stories of those we love and I think this is a great way to spend our time on Friday. If you have contact with your parents or grandparents, take some time to listen and record what they have to say.

Thanksgiving is a wonderful time of year. Good food, family, and reminders all around of all that we have to be thankful for. One thing that has been on my mind lately is how grateful I am for my wonderful family and how they have impacted me in my life. I have shared so many good times, been supported through hard times, and been blessed so much because of my parents and siblings.

This year, as I sit around the dinner table for our Thanksgiving feast, I want it to last longer than just a day. I want to always remember the stories my dad tells about his college days, or the stories my mom tells about her parents and growing up on the farm. More than always remembering the stories, I want my children to be able to know their grandparents and great-grandparents, to know where they got their blonde hair or short legs or patience or ability to make others feel loved. I want to read them bedtime stories of their great-grandfather’s escapades in the Air Force or of their great-grandmother’s love of gardening.

Preserving the stories of our parents and grandparents can seem a monumental task. However, as I have started writing and reading the histories of my family members, I realize that this task is completely worth it—not to mention extremely fulfilling. And to help in the task of recording and preserving your family’s stories, StoryCorps (starting in 2008) instigated a National Day of Listening on the day after Thanksgiving: November 26, 2010. This Day of Listening is basically a day set aside as a time for you to record (in any format) the stories of your loved ones. If you are hesitant on how to begin, read more at myunwrittenlegacy.wordpress.com/, or you can find many resources at nationaldayoflistening.org/.

As we sat down to breakfast this morning, Laylee expressed her happiness with her situation in life:

“Everything is going great for me right now. My hair is turning curly, I have a loose tooth, and I brushed my teeth with my timer this morning.”

Right on, sweetie.

Yesterday was a tough one. I sort of blogged it out over at at Parenting.com.

But today is a new day. I was nicer to the kids. The fridge situation got all sorted out and the new one is lovely and spacious and if we were gonna cash in our life savings for a fridge, then I’m glad it was this one.

Laylee’s hearing aids are still under warranty and will be replaced by the manufacturer. I told her that they “gave us one more chance.”

Yesterday was bad. Today was better. Tomorrow my in-laws are coming and we’re gonna have all kinds of fun.

I stayed home from church today with a pathetic sickly Wanda. She’s got a snuffly nose, a cough, a rattle and a roll. She can’t sleep without a binky but she can’t breathe WITH a binky so we are at an impasse. There is a lot of crying and snarfling going on.

I’m just getting over something similar to what she has, although I looked a lot less cute when it was my turn so I tried to nap in between rescuing her from the suffocating bink and alternately calming her with it.

When I woke up from my nap, the kids were watching a movie, something we don’t do much of on Sundays and Dan and I decided it wasn’t a great Sabbath day movie choice. I’m not sure that there’s anything religiously wrong with Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus, although the male/female relations are somewhat of an archetypal muddle. I think we decided it wasn’t a great Sunday movie because it sucks.

So we let them watch a movie that does not suck. According to my Grandpa, who saw it around one hundred times in the theatre when it was released, it’s about the un-suckingest movie that has ever and will ever be made. The hills are alive with it. You guessed it. We watched The Sound of Music.

I cried when they sang about the problem with a certain young novitiate named Maria. I cried when she had confidence in sunshine. I bawled my eyes out when she taught the children how to verbalize Solfège and don’t get me started on Maria’s favorite things. It is too much. I love that movie. It’s in my blood.

I love it because it reminds me of how happy my childhood was, even though my sister made me be Rolf when we danced along with “Sixteen Going on Seventeen.” It was a charmed childhood. Tonight I proclaimed that when Dan and I dress up as Rolf and Liesel for Halloween, I get to be the girl, all pretty in pink and he can be the pre-Nazi messenger boy.

Laylee was enthralled, talking about what an amazing governess Maria was. As I child I liked Maria, but I don’t remember thinking she was all that amazing. Weren’t all moms kind of like that? She very much reminded me of my own mom but with shorter hair and a guitar.

The best comment of the night came when the nuns were singing about Maria at the beginning of the movie and Magoo sat with a disgusted look on his face and said, “Why do they just go on and ON and ON and ON about it?”

We stopped for bed just as the Von Trapp family singers were climbing trees, about 5 minutes pre-firing, about 7 minutes pre-Edelweiss, somewhere near 20 minutes pre-most-romantic-dance-scene-ever.

So far my kids think it’s a happy movie with lots of singing and too many nun parts. But wait. It gets better. Tomorrow we get to finish up with icky romantic love and Nazis. Maybe we should just watch the first half again.

P.S. “Favorite Things” is still not a Christmas song.

“Wanda just sat there in her swing like an INFANT and offered no insight whatsoever. She’s kind of been acting like the family freeloader lately.”

[read more at Parenting.com]