Where I’m From

I am from the newspaper being delivered twice a day, from a house full of GE appliances and musicals on PBS on Sunday afternoons.

I am from the organized home where everything except my room was always neat and tidy, where bathrooms were cleaned by Comet cleaner.

I am from the pine trees and pine cones and oak trees, the leaves and needles used to cushion our bodies when we jumped into them.

I am from traveling to Rhode Island for Thanksgiving and hiding Thin Mints for my grandparents to find, and short tempers, from Lucretia and Betty and Lizzie Borden.

I am from the high expectations and the never lets go.

From poll your friends and you’re not their kid, you’re mine.

I am from Sunday school and Christmas Eve services, from not really knowing what I believe and where I belong.

I’m from the rocky coast of Maine and the tiny state of Rhode Island, of coffee milk and hot buttered biscuits.

From the Lizzie Borden gave her mother 40 whacks, the aunt who survived polio and living in an iron lung, and the life of a young girl without her father.

I am from albums full of photos, of so few photos of my mom’s family, of my dad’s report cards we’d laugh at, of the special Christmas ornaments we made that hung on the tree for years and now adorn my tree.

I got this from Jennifer over at Playgroups are No Place for Children. If you want to create your own, head here to get the template.

Vacation Dreams

I want to go on a vacation. Alone. It’s not that I don’t love my children or husband, but given the opportunity to go away, alone, I would take it in a heartbeat. I’m sure I’d miss them, but as I’ve had a child attached to me every day for the last 5 1/2 years and everything I do is for or about my kids, I want a little alone time.

I want to rent a house by the ocean, a  little cottage. I want to pack my van full of my scrapbooking supplies, a couple of years’ worth of photos, and make albums. I want to wake up when I feel like it, sip hot coffee by the pounding surf, and relax. I want to listen to my IPod and not hear the same Taylor Swift songs over and over and over (while all four of my kids sing along), take walks, eat seafood (I married a man who eats nothing from the sea and it KILLS me), take new photos. I want to take a nap without someone waking me up by crying. I want to sit at a table and put our family memories into the albums I’ve purchased. I want to read a stack of books and hang out in my jammies if I feel like it and take long, luxurious showers. I don’t want to deal with mounds of laundry or boo boos or bills needing to be paid or tantrums, just for a little bit of time.  I want to relax, enjoy my surroundings and be me.

What about you? Would you take a vacation alone? What would you do?

Happy Things

It’s school vacation week. Again. If you’re keeping track, here in the Northeast the kids have vacation at Christmas, again in February, and one last time in April. I would love to say that I enjoy school vacations, but I simply do not. I enjoy not having to rush out the door every morning to either drive Meg and Drew to school or get Meg on the bus, but that is where the enjoyment ends. Meg hates school vacations. She’d rather be at school. So she is miserable for days on end and drags the rest of us down. It’s really hard to be cheerful when your child is screaming how much she hates being home with you.

Today on this Patriot’s Day (a holiday only for people in Maine and Massachusetts), here are happy things that make me cheerful:

Coffee
My cell phone

Sharpies (and yes, I have almost every color imaginable)
My camera (Canon Rebel xsi DSLR)
Books
Clean laundry
Smiling kids
Big hugs
This blog
Scrapbooking (this is all I use)
Coffee
Did I mention coffee?

Do you have a list of happy things? I’d love to read about them!

Ultimate Blog Party!

It’s that time again! 5MinutesforMom’s Ultimate Blog Party is here!

Welcome! I’m Kristin and I’m the relatively sane Mama of four kids~Meg, Drew, Annie and Izzie. I love a good book, hot coffee and peace and quiet (so, two out of three isn’t bad!).  I’ve been married to my husband Doug for almost 12 years, but we’ve been together for 19 years.We live in Maine, surrounded by trees and not much else, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Meg is 9 years old, a 3rd grader with a love of books, music, hockey and softball.  She’s pretty well-rounded for such a young thing.

Drew is 5 years old and will be entering kindergarten in the fall. He loves hockey, dogs, cars, dinosaurs and dirt, like any good boy should.

Annie is 3 and loves giving hugs, snuggling her stuffed cow Mooie and coloring.

Izzie is Annie’s twin sister. She loves lambs. I mean, really, really loves lambs.

It’s a crazy life, but it’s my life. Won’t you stay awhile and visit?

I Heart Faces "Angles"

It’s another photo challenge at I Heart Faces and this week’s theme is Angles (which of course I read as “angels” and was all confused at first).

I took this photo ages ago, before I had a new camera. My kids are in the photo, as are my three nieces and my nephew. I rarely take photos looking down, so this one was fun.

There’s nothing technically special about the photo, other than the fun the kids were having (well, except the twins who were totally oblivious to what was happening). Note: My nieces wearing the “Nick is Dreamy” shirts made those for their friend from home, but it also happens to be my nephew’s name, which made the wearing of them all the more hysterical.

I can’t wait to see the other photos this week! Head to http://www.iheartfaces.blogspot.com to check out the fun!

I Heart Faces "Bundled Up"

Even though it’s pouring outside right now and we don’t have much snow left, I wanted to enter this week’s I Heart Faces “Bundled Up” contest. I took this picture back in January when we still had FEET of snow in the yard (we live in Maine where feet of snow are the norm). Doug had taken the kids down our driveway to slide and I followed later with the camera. It’s rare to get photos of Annabelle and Isabelle hugging, so I couldn’t resist catching this one when Annabelle snagged Isabelle from behind:

Go check out the other entries over at I Heart Faces!

I Heart Faces "We are Family"

I’m entering another photo at I Heart Faces this week. The theme is “We are Family” so I thought I’d enter a candid shot from our visit with my grandmother last month. My grandmother’s Alzheimer’s is pretty advanced, so she doesn’t always speak coherently. My parents say she laughs, a lot, and that is what I caught her doing in this photo while my dad was introducing the kids to her. Drew and Annie weren’t quite sure what to make of their GG, but I just love that while her mind isn’t what it used to be, she’s healthy and happy.

Check out the other entries at I Heart Faces!

Delurk! Please?

It’s that time of year again. You know:

Will you stop by, say hi, have some coffee and riddle me this:

What is your favorite blog to read?

I Heart Faces Best Face Photo

I thought I’d playing along at I Heart Faces again this week. This week’s theme is “Best Face Photo” and I’m entering this little photo of Annabelle outside on my porch in the snow in early December 2009:

I hope you’ll go check out all the other entries!

Holiday Meme

I am totally stealing this from Swistle and Jess because my mind is mush from all the holiday cheer. Here goes.

Eggnog or hot chocolate? I love hot chocolate. And if I’m going to have eggnog, I have tiny little glasses of Hood Eggnog. I’ve never had it with the alcohol in it.

Does Santa wrap the presents or leave them open under the tree? Santa wraps presents in special Santa paper, and some gifts end up in the stockings, and then the larger gifts are placed under the tree. For the last few years Santa used the same special wrap but started to believe that Meg was going to figure that one out so switched to new wrap this year.

Colored lights on a tree or white? Ok, this a sore spot for me. I grew up with colored lights, then my parents switched to white, which I much prefer. However, Doug only likes colored lights. So, I relented with one condition~I have white lights outside. The kids like the colored lights so I can deal with it.

Do you hang mistletoe? No.

When do you put your decorations up? It has all depended on my pregnancies (I mean, really, I was pregnant at Christmas in 2000, 2004 and 2006). This year we put up our tree early, so that we’ve been enjoying it for almost 3 weeks now.

What is your favorite holiday dish? I don’t have a favorite dish. I love Christmas cookies.

Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? We usually give the kids one gift to open on Christmas Eve (jammies) but that isn’t happening this year as Meg and Drew still have their jammies from last year and quite frankly I’m behind the eight ball on this one.

How do you decorate your Christmas tree? It’s a mish mash of ornaments that belong to me, Doug and the kids. We have some of the ornaments the kids have made at school, ornaments they’ve received, plus others that we’ve gotten over the years. We have a Winter Warlock at the top of our tree (that’s what he totally looks like too!).

Snow: love it or hate it? Yeah, I live in Maine. I either love it or move.

Can you ice skate? You’d think being the wife of a hockey player and coach and the mother of two hockey players that I could skate, but you’d be so wrong. I lack grace. Enough said.

What is your favorite holiday dessert? Besides Christmas cookies, my mother-in-law makes a great Christmas cake (and if you want the recipe email me because it’s so darn easy!).

What is your favorite holiday tradition? We like to take the kids to look at the Christmas lights around the neighborhoods. There is one neighborhood in the next town over that the neighbors must be in cahoots to compete for the biggest, loudest and brightest displays, and the kids love it.

Candy canes: yum or yuck? Yum, but within reason.

Favorite Christmas show? Charlie Brown Christmas and The Grinch (original cartoon version).

So, what about you? Want to play along?