Happy New Year

Truthfully, I've never been a big fan of New Year's Eve. It always sounds like a good time but in reality it's usually just a bunch people sitting around and waiting for midnight so they can finally go home. The past three New Year's have been particularly bad because The Man was in Vermont. It's hard to be jolly when your sweetie is so far away and won't be home for another week.


But this year The Man is here and in about an hour we are headed out to once again spend the evening with our oldest friends. Even if we are driving home by 12:15, this will be the best New Year's in quite awhile.

Happy 2009 to everyone!

Presenting...The Girl

This summer The Girl surpassed me in height. It was such a relief. The relief comes not that she'll end up being a tad bit taller than the U.S. average, but that the constant comparing of our heights was finally at an end. The months leading up to last growth spurt, I would find her frequently standing too close to me asking anyone nearby who was taller. If I was picked then we would both have to take off our shoes and be compared again. Finally she was the taller one, even with both of us in bare feet. A new mark on the wall where we've been measuring the kids since they could stand commemorated the moment.

I knew she would end up taller than me eventually. She's got these crazy long legs. I don't even know where they came from. Nobody in either of our families has legs like she has. But I do know where she got this hair from.

The perfect combination of her mommy and daddy; the color is Weigl and those waves and curls are all Anderson. Just check out this eighteen year old and you'll see for certain...

But what does she do to this almost every morning? She uses this...

...and makes it look like this.

That's what my hair looks like every damn day. Flat and limp. Why would she take waves and body and flatten it?

"I just like it that way! Geeze! If I let it just go normal it's too....too..."(hands fly wildly about her head).

Fair enough. We get the idea.

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Like every other young woman in America, The Girl is currently in midst of the Twilight series. She finished Twilight and is about halfway through New Moon. I'm about a chapter behind her. While it's a wonderful thing to see your kids really get into a book, these vampires are seriously cutting into her sleeping time making her not so cheerful come morning. Many a night I've busted her reading in bed way too late.

She takes the book to school with her so I can't read it during the day. At night she's reading and reading and reading, so I have to wait until she finally turns out the light, sneak into her room (because if she catches me I get scolded) and take the book so I can get some reading done.

A sad situation I know. I COULD go get my own copy from the library. I COULD just wait for her to finish and then read it. I could. But I won't.

Presenting... The Boy

The Christmas cards are getting mailed today and I always put a "Come see our blog" sticker in each one. In preparation of the oodles of new visitors The Cafe is sure to receive, here's the first in a series of spotlights on us.

The Boy

Last Saturday, the Boy Scout troop was headed out to a Lake Erie Monsters game at The Q. Somehow our Troop Master got 12 loge tickets and decided to take the troop instead of his beer drinking buddies. The Boy was pretty vanilla about this whole trip.


You are going to have such a good time! Those loges are cool!


Whatever.


I've never even been in loge! You're going to have to tell us all about it!


Yeah.


You wait and see. You are going to be really impressed!


Hmph.


Five and half hours later, The Boy burst through the front door filled with news. That-loge-had-a-special-elevator-you-went-up-into-a-carpeted-hall-and-a-little-room-that-had-couches-and-tables-and-a-balcony-with-more-seats-where-you-could-watch-the-game-and-it-had-it's-OWN-BATHROOM!

Cool.

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Do you remember taking Health in the eighth grade? I'll give everyone a chance to shudder now.

The Boy is in Health right now and this past week was the project where an egg becomes your baby and you have to keep it safe for five school days. The Boy ended up with a pretty little pink egg, a girl named Alice, which he carried around in the bottom half of a juice container.

The first day of the project was Monday and that night was the Winter Concert at school. Very politely The Boy asked if I would babysit Alice during the concert. Of course I would! The Girl found a little Christmas basket with ribbons on it and padded it with a Christmas towel. There was no way I was taking Alice out in a plastic box to her first concert. She looked very pretty. The Boy looked like we had all lost our minds.

But he needn't have worried. At the concert I saw at least seven other parents with eggs in little baskets. Two other "grandparents" sat with me and we all showed off our babies. I spent the concert sewing the edges of new Christmas ornament together. (Just sitting at school events makes me antsy.) A friend leaned over and asked it I was making an outfit for the egg!

Everyday during the week the Boy would come home with an update on who dropped their egg and killed their baby. There was even a death certificate that they would have to fill out. The Boy made it all the way until Friday afternoon and then he dropped her. But she didn't break. She only got a crack. The Boy was reported to "Egg Services" for potential abuse. Harsh project! I asked him if he learned anything about being a parent.

Not really, he said. It's just an egg.

It's all in the cards

About a week ago I was trying to fall asleep but my head kept running to-do lists about Christmas. One of the things that still needed done was the Christmas cards. By this time of year my cards are long since sent. This year I just wasn't feeling the drive to write out cards. While I laid there, I made a decision. I was going to give myself permission to skip doing cards this year. As I came to this moment, I felt a small twinge of stress untie and I fell asleep with a smile.

The next day, we got four cards in the mail.

"When are you sending out our cards?" asked The Man.

"I'm not. I'm letting myself skip it this year."

He looked a bit confused by this announcement, but I must have sounded unbendable about it because that was as far as the conversation went. A few days later, The Girl asked about cards.

"What do you mean you're just not doing cards? Scrooge!" She pouted her cute face at me.

"I just don't want to. It doesn't sound like fun and it's supposed to be a holiday, not a giant obligation fest."

"Party pooper!"

"Hey, it's my decision and my time. If you want to do cards, feel free."

"Grinch!"

Seeing that I was completely outwitted, I took my leave.

Then three things happened. First I found a box and half of cards left over from last year. More than enough to cover the tight part of the family and a few on the side. Hmmm.

Then I found five sheets of labels from last year, two signature label sheets, one return address, and then two blog promotion sheets. Last year I seriously over made labels. Double hmmmm.

Then The Man came home with stamps. Christmas stamps. One book of twenty.

Okay, fine. Twenty (or so) lucky people will get a real, mailed Christmas card from the Andersons. As for the rest of you, I actually found an e-card that I like. It's quite a piece of work. And one of you out there will be getting both a real card AND the e-card. Who is the lucky person? Wait and see.

It's good...It's good

As a Christmas treat I offer you my favorite scene from my favorite Christmas movie!

A not-so-sweet gift

I recently got a Christmas survey from a dear friend of mine. It asked things like what was my favorite Christmas song and my favorite Christmas dinner food. One of the questions stumped me though. "What was the worst Christmas gift you ever got?"

The worst? What was the worst? I really couldn't think of anything. I know that every gift giving holiday that went by without getting the Millennium Falcon was always a bummer. One year I got a little die cast Falcon that I guess was suppose to shut me up but instead made me really mad, but I think that was a birthday gift. And then there was one year that I got almost exclusively clothes, but that wasn't terrible, just disappointing.

In the end, I can't think of one Christmas gift that would rate as the worst. That said, while I was searching online for gift ideas I found this item.
It's the All Edges Brownie Pan. If someone were to give this to me it would immediately become the worst gift ever! In this house, when I make brownie the edges only get eaten after all of the middle pieces are long gone. The corners usually end up getting pitched because no one likes them at all. This pan has TEN CORNERS! Never has there been a pan that has been so anti me and my family!

Now it's your turn to share a bad gift story. 'Tis the season to be ungrateful!

Day of the Christmas Tree

Yesterday was the kick off to the Anderson Christmas around here. Yes, it was Christmas Tree Day, otherwise known as our anniversary. Every year we break the the kids out from school and head out to the woods to find the perfect tree.

It was just a tad bit too cold for this trip yesterday, but at least we weren't trudging through knee-deep snow like we have in past years. We trekked all over that tree farm searching. The kids are wise to the slow shutter speed of my camera. Trying to get a picture of them lately is impossible.

The Girl...

The Boy

We were just starting to give up hope. We've been coming to the same tree farm for sixteen years. Every year we wonder if THIS will be the year when we can't find anything. And then every year...

we find it.

The Girl lent a hand by dragging it back to the truck. The tree is so fat this year it kept rolling out of the cart.

To make up for always dodging my camera they finally posed for a shot.

They posed for this one too, but only because I promised I wouldn't put it out for the world to see.


It's hard to make out, but the Girl found the top of a tree on the ground. A perfect tiny tree that she wanted to bring home but then changed her mind.




We got the tree up, put on the lights, angel and garland and then called it a day. Instead of putting on ornaments we settled in and watched two episodes of "Lost". We're watching the entire show from Netflix. Yesterday we started Season 2. Love it! Check out the Boy in this picture trying to get out of the shot!

Here's the tree this morning. It made it through the night without falling down so it's safe to put on ornaments. Marco and the cats are not fond of all this extra stuff in their house. Too much chaos for them.

Happy Anniversary Weaver and Brewer! I hope found a way to make your day special as well!

HalloMasGiving

The Sister hosted all of the family for Thanksgiving. She's my hero. She called me Wednesday night while she was cooking cabbage rolls. I was making an apple pie. Neither of us knew the other was drinking and cooking at the same time. Does this account for our overly long and giggly conversation? Perhaps. Here's a snippet.

We've got all the tables up and set in the basement. I feel bad though. It's all Halloween down there. I have no Thanksgiving decorations at all.

Ah, nobody's going to care. A Halloween Thanksgiving is cool.

We went ahead and put up the Christmas tree in the living room to balance it out.

So it will be Halloween downstairs and Christmas upstairs.

And Thanksgiving nowhere.

It's exactly like the stores treat Thanksgiving! They take down the Halloween decorations and put up the Christmas on the same shelves. *hiccup* If you look close you might find a package of napkins with turkeys on them tucked off to the side.

Should we turned the black lights on?

Hell yeah! And light the candles in the heads of those creepy dolls so their eyes glow!

We've loaded the Ipod with mostly Christmas music for dinner.

Keep Monster Mash in the mix... (something slurred)

It's already in.

I was just finishing the lattice work on the pie when we got off the phone. We always put some kind of cut out on the top. This year, in honor of our Halloween-Christmas-and no Thanksgiving, The Girl and I decorated the pie with a jack-o-lantern and a Christmas tree with a big space between them. And yes, the edges are burnt! Ugh!