Thursday, January 28, 2010

Christmas Oranges

Alternate title- The Irony of it All



I call them Christmas Oranges, the little easy-to-peel oranges that are in the stores in December. The smell when you first dig into the peel is Christmas to me. When I was a child they would come in a box individually wrapped in paper. I love them, I hate peeling regular oranges and usually only eat grapefruit, but I love the little Christmas oranges.

My boys love them too, or at least they love the first box of oranges. The first box lasted three days. They scarfed them down 4-5 oranges a day. They begged me to buy some more, so I did. Those oranges have been sitting on the counter moulding and turning hard at the same time. They won't touch them. The other day I asked Marcus to bring up a can of fruit for dinner from the garage. I expected peaches or pears. What does he bring up? A can of Mandarin oranges. When I asked the boys what was wrong with this picture, they all looked at me slack-jawed.

I guess I better start eating Christmas oranges.

Sunday, January 17, 2010

It is So Hard!

I have finally met my match. After toilet training three boys, and teaching them to ride a bike, I have finally found something that may be impossible to do.

Teaching my 6-year-old lefty to tie his shoes.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Movie Critic

We have a couple of "manly" movies from Netflix in the house right now. One of them is a G.I. Joe movie. When Marcus heard the title of the movie he said,

"Tyler (a friend of Marcus') saw that movie! He said it was so bad. It has people getting their heads cut off and kissing!"

Bert and I exchange looks.

"Which is worse, the heads or the kissing?" asked Bert.

Marcus pondered for a moment. "Both are really bad! I so serious!"

I didn't realize kissing was so bad!

Friday, January 8, 2010

Rethinking Snow

Everyone who knows me knows I don't like snow, because of all that dangerous driving stuff and everything. That is one of the reasons I love living in the Pacific Northwest. Give me rain any day over snow! But lately I been doing some deep thinking (I know, hard to believe) and I have decided I would love some snow. Wouldn't it be nice to have a lovely blanket of about 5" of snow covering your lawn and ugly flowerbeds for 3-4 months? I want the snow only on the yards. The roads need to stay snow/ice free.

Think about it.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Family Home Evening

I will admit that FHE in the Wagner home are sometime inconsistent. So every new year I vow to try harder. Last night I decided to ask everyone what they thought would be some good goals to set as a family. Here are the answers.

Marcus- He won't pick his nose.

Nathan- Different chores, more family activities, and more bagels with cream cheese.

Travis- Take more responsibly (bless his heart!)

Dad- More camping and go to Canada.

Me- Do your chores and less fighting.

I then asked Marcus what we could do as a family to help him stop screaming all the time at his brothers. I expected him to say that he wanted them to be nicer to him or something like that.

Marcus' answer- Earplugs for everyone.

Awesome.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Our Christmas Time

Last year my blog was new to me and I blogged a lot during the month of December, this year not so much, so I have a few things to catch up on.

It is Sunday afternoon and I am at the computer blogging and listening to my three boys messing around with each other upstairs. I hear laughter, screaming and yelling. It is awesome. I think I am looking forward to them all going back to school tomorrow. So now I am reflecting on our Christmas time and the good and not so great moments we experienced.

The month of December started with my husband, Bert, leaving for a 17 day long detachment to Bahrain. Bahrain is in the Middle East. We didn't expect him home until Christmas day. This left me feeling rather bah-hum buggy about Christmas again this year. I will admit that I haven't been as excited about Christmas for the last few years because of Bert's jobs. Don't get me wrong, I am grateful he has his jobs, paying bills and eating is nice, but the holidays aren't the same anymore. He is usually gone for most of the Christmas season and I can't help feeling bummed about it.

Lucky for me, I had the boys to help put me in the Christmas mood. They reminded me of the all of our traditions and we did St. Nick's day, the advent calendars and candles, decorated the house, and baked.

Christmas Eve Eve I took the boys to the movies. When we got home the lights were on in the house and the front door was unlocked. I asked the boys why they hadn't made sure all the lights were turned off and the door was locked before we had left for the movies. They were so confused! When Nathan went down to the family room he discovered Daddy was home! The boys were so excited that Dad had come home two days earlier. I knew he was coming home early, but we wanted to surprise the boys.

Christmas morning started way too early at the Wagner's house. At 3:00 am, Marcus ran into our bedroom and announced "Santa came!" Nathan, Travis, and Marcus were staring at their Santa present and looking longingly at their stockings. We told them to go back to bed for mercy sakes. They agreed too easily, and Bert and I went back to bed too. An hour later Bert got up again and said "I hear them moving around downstairs." The boys couldn't stay in their beds and were laying on the sofas looking at the Christmas tree. I rolled out of bed and we opened our gifts. An hour later I was back in bed. Bert stayed up with the boys and they played with their toys.

The boys loved their presents. Santa gave Nathan an IPod, Travis a big huge Nerf gun, and Marcus a bike that wasn't a hand-me-down.

We had our traditional Christmas breakfast of Farmer's casserole, cinnamon rolls, sausage and orange juice. Christmas dinner was delicious too, unfortunately everyone was either too tired or too full of candy, and cookies to care. I don't think I will bother making a fancy dinner on Christmas day next year.

We didn't get together with my parents, brothers and their families until New Year's Day. It turned out fun since New Year's Day is usually very boring.

Here are some of our awesome pictures.

Bert and I dressed up and on our way to VR-61's holiday party.



Marcus loves the Christmas tree.



St. Nick came by December 5th.







The boys with Santa. This was our Christmas card picture.



Christmas Eve with my nieces and Nephew.



Travis wanted to leave Santa a cheeseburger and Nathan wanted to leave him a ginormous cookie.



Christmas morning, notice how dark it is outside.





I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year!!!