Yes, looking back I can sense the latent hostility of my last post. Evidently someone turned off my filter - you know the one that censors your offensive thoughts and inappropriate comments, thus allowing you to make friends and other such social stuff. But, I will not delete it. Sometimes it help to be a hag. You feel in the mood to be lots nicer afterwards, right?

So behind

Yes, I know. I'm really backed up in my blogging. All you die-hards are secretly judging and chastising my lack of commitment to my blog.


Well, here's the deal.


In addition to the really busy life that is swirling around me, my attempts to live more efficiently in this new year have shaken up my priorities a wee bit - bumping blogging a little lower on the totem. Don't get me wrong, it's fun to do all this posting WHEN I magically get 5 consecutive minutes to sit at my computer before midnight - but realistically that rarely happens in the absence of other, higher priority activities demanding my attention.

Thus I have to roll up the nagging guilt incurred over not posting lately, place it in my hand, and blow it away. I will post perhaps in binge episodes when the kids are whisked away by daddy for a few minutes or when I get post-bedtime computer access (Darren is done with part 2 boards, so that might happen again soon :) ) But otherwise - don't give up on me, just lower your expectations a bit. I'm not going for "loser" status, just upper-end mediocrity. I try not to kill my self esteem by holding myself to perfection level standards in all areas of my life - just the super important ones - you know, like . . . um, the "hair fixing" area, the "faucet cleaning" area, and above all the "using a blinker" area.

And while I'm soap-boxing, I must add that I am a little - well, repulsed is a strong term, but it's along those lines - by all those blogs out there that seem to have been contracted out by a public relations firm. Are they selling something, i.e. the idea that they are perfect and their life is so utterly idyllic that they don't even need to shop for deodorant or mouthwash? I can't even attempt to market that idea because anyone who knows me is aware that I am REAL and mercilessly self-depricating if anything. So consequently my blog is as well. No offense to those of you attempting to perpetuate the modern myth of the perfect hot mom, but I'm not gonna read your blog. It's boring. Truthfully, I have no time for bloghopping anymore, but if I did I wouldn't read it. (Feel the love JLC).

ENUF!!!! Time to let go of this thrice saved draft. Blow away!

Poor Baby

Diagnosis: RSV and double ear infections.

I almost took him in last Friday, but didn't make enough effort. What a bad Mommy.

Recovery Complete

Is it just me or is it hard to recover from a vacation? Getting back to normal takes a little time. I always try to leave my house in tip top shape when we leave town so that I can come home to cleanliness and order - but why? It turns into chaos within 15 minutes of being home.
First there's the laundry volcano that erupts from the crammed suitcases - even though I did it all before we packed up to come home! Then there's the creative meal whipped together from the meager cupboard contents and the impending HUGE grocery trip to restock. Sprinkled throughout is the messed up sleep schedule - translating into overtired kids who don't sleep in and are suddenly bored out of their tree because there are no cousins to play with 'round the clock. Then you deal with mail and bills and emails and all the stuff you ignored while you were gone. Then, my favorite part . . . your husband has to go back to his normal routine, abandoning you with the children!!!!!!

It's rough. But - it is predictable, so you just deal and get back into it. That's how Stacie got her groove back.

Yesterday was Plain Awful

You can say that again.

Yesterday was plane awful.

It was. And you may say, "Stacie, you're prone to exaggeration." And I'll rightly admit I have a dramatic flair for storytelling - but this time it's just a black and white fact: yesterday was plain awful. Because of a plane. Well, actually multiple planes. I suppose I should expound even though my shoulders tense up just remembering the harrowing details.

Let's just say it involved a rowdy drive in heavy snow, security check (which I hate!!! love the end, hate the means. must we take all of our shoes off? must I remove the peacefully sleeping baby from his carseat and put his blankets in the scummy gray bins? do we have to toss all of our water? it's so annoying!) hours of delayed flights, kids sleeping on the Vegas airport floor, paying a taxi for a ride home so our friend could go to bed, and hitting the pillow at 2:15am.

That should suffice. Seriously, in the taxi on the way home - with soft armenian chatter in the background, watching the meter go from 26.75 to 28. 85 - I felt my jaw slacken and realized that it had been clenched for the previous 13 hours. And although deep down I know this isn't true, it just makes me feel better to say that I will never fly again!!! Curse Southwest Airlines and whoever made the decision to give our plane to the flight heading into Orange County because they have a curfew and LAX doesn't!!!

Phew! I feel better. My back still hurts, but I'm over the rest. Ya know why? Because . . .

The sun'll come out . . . tomorrow!!! So ya gotta hang on 'til tomorrow!

Long December

It's been a long December and there's reason to believe maybe this year will be better than the last.

Love that song.

Yes, my sporadic and lackluster blogging is finally coming to an end. Somehow I don't think I'm alone in the dryspell, or at least the decreased frequency in posts. And I seriously doubt we've all been checking on one another that much lately with the holiday mayhem and all. Onward and upward, eh.

So the boys are back in town. After 12 days in Canada, we've resumed our post in Los Angeles. It was a winter wonderland in the Great White North, and we partook of all the Creston Valley has to offer. Grandma Rennaker's homemade goods are unparalelled - and she pretty much has a store in the basement. I wish we lived closer so I could shop there. Unfortunately we can't take much across the border or I'd fill a box with home canned everything, fresh steaks, ground beef, big ol' brown eggs, delish dried apples, and the lastest of Marie's wonders - homemade soaps. I told her that wherever we move after school she has to come and help me put in a garden. Perhaps it's being here the city, feeling vulnerable with little space for food storage - but lately I've been feeling this urgency to become more self reliant. I also want more whole food for my family - and nothing beats home grown.

But I digress. Didn't we just have a major holiday? Oh yeah! Christmas was like, only 5 days ago! How was the haul?

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Sorry times up. S'pose I'll have to finish this story tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Long time no blog

I feel like I'm standing windwhipped and dazed on the platform. Life is flying past me before I can even get out my ticket.

The holidays? kids? life? I swear I am savouring to the best of my ability, I'm just not blogging about it.

Legoland tomorrow and maybe, probably, hopefully I'll post the pictures. Heaven knows I'll take a million.

Dalton Bradley

Happy 7th Birthday Dalton!!!

How quickly they grow. I used to shrug off older people telling me that, but now I really understand that it's true! You have to savor every moment of their little lives; they grow so gradually that you don't even realize it's happening. I always think of the movie Finding Neverland, where Johnny Depp says, "Little boys should never be put to bed, because when they wake up they're a whole day older. "

So here are some random pictures from the life of Dalton, about one per year.

Happy Birthday to Dalton, happy birthday to Dalton . . .

Here is a little update on our firstborn son as he rings in his lucky 7th year!

favorite color- back to BLUE, the original favorite (he went with green for a couple years out of

loyalty to his buddy Aidan)

favorite food - corn on the cob

favorite toy - legos, especially the new bionicle and underwater explorer sets he just got

favorite place - zimmer museum, disneyland

favorite movie - Pirates of the Carribean #3 "which I haven't seen, but I know must be really

cool!"

favorite thing at school - "take away", aka: subtraction (go figure!)

favorite sport - baseball (with dad at the park by our house and Dodger games)

favorite book - How I Became a Pirate

favorite scripture story - Ammon and the Sheep thieves (dismemberment? of course it's a fav!)

Seven Years. Also an anniversary of a different kind.

Seven years ago today I became a mother. Our lives were changed when Dalton was born. How do you even begin to express or comprehend the significance of this? The beginning of a new life? the beginning of a new part of yourself? an entirely different way of living and thinking? I remember sitting in the hospital hours after giving birth and feeling the weight of the parental mantel falling on me. It was actually a tangible experience, for me. I can recall the dawning of realization of what it truly means to be responsible for another life in every way - and honestly, it was stressful!

AAAaaahhhh, parenthood.

Well, I'll post about the festivities later. For now, I'm just happy to be Dalton's mom.

California Dreamin'

On Saturday we all headed out to one of my favorite spots, the beach - a place I've been missing because I didn't get to spend much time there over the summer. (I was rather huge pregnant and then purdy busy with a newborn) Well, since it's clearly too chilly now to do the waterplay, it's time for other kinds of fun - like strollerblading. It's been years since I got Darren to put on his rollerblades, so this was a treat.

Baby Davis and I enjoying the sunset by Venice playground.

Mom: "Dalton, look at me and smile."
Dalton: "Not now mom, I need to watch the road."
He's learning bike path ettiquette.

Dane and Davis all snuggly in the stroller. Dane was pretty upset at first that he couldn't ride his trike (holy smokes, that would take forever!), but we finally convinced him it would be more fun this way. He sure doesn't look like he's having fun, but that's only because he's almost asleep. Just a nice side effect of a stroller ride.

So nice that Dalton can ride his bike. He was cranky earlier in the afternoon and was in such a better mood as we got going. Reminds me of that part in Legally Blonde when she says "Exercise gives people endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. And happy people just don't kill their husbands. They just don't." Classic.

Goodbye Halloween

It's been done for days, but here are the boys in their costumes.

1. Davis the "Jack-o-Lantern", minus the interior candle - although he does have a radiant inner light ;). He wanted to be Freddy Krueger, but I thought it might scare Dane.

2. Dane, aka - "Harry Potter". I had to take away the spectacles a few weeks ago to keep him from breaking them (from constant handling), so he hasn't been impersonating the wizard lately. (phew!) But when his Harry alterego reemerged, it was very cute.

3. Dalton as "Indiana Jones". Not a lot of kids knew exactly who this was this year, but I'm sure with the new movie coming out next year we'll see Dr. Jones a lot more. Now that Dalton is tall enough to ride the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland, he thinks he's pretty cool (although the ride freaked him out a little).

4. Darren - Daddy gone Mummy. We had our friends the Merrells over and all the boys (they have 3 as well) mummified their dads. This is Aaron and Darren hamming it up for them as they all ran away screaming.

Goodbye Halloween! See you next year.