We just packed up our tree and moved our table back to where it goes in the dining room. We are in the Christmas aftermath - toys everywhere, tons of recycling to do, ect.
Christmas is my favorite holiday. For me, it's a magic time of year. Honestly I don't celebrate any religious beliefs during Christmas - it's the magic of childhood, the believing in magic, the hope for good, and for peace. That is Christmas for me.
For Christmas Eve we went to Uncle Pickle and Aunty Abra's house for an amazing feast. They gifted the kids with amazing presents. Kai got a dump truck with legos, Cruz got a fire station with a car and fire truck (that he sleeps with), and Ryenne got a rock dig. These are the overall favorite gifts of the holiday!
We also baked some homemade oatmeal cookies and left them out for Santa. Peter and I got to work on the last minute touches for the tree and everyone slept in until 8am (can you believe it?)
Just before I went to bed Christmas Eve
Christmas morning video:
Christmas morning took me right back to being a kid. Ryenne, like me, helped to hand out presents. I, like my mom, gathered all the wrapping paper in a big rubbish bag. Every gift was enjoyed before moving on to the next. It was really great. After the gifts were opened, the kids headed outside for their last gift - razor scooters!
Video:
The scooters have already gotten quite a bit of mileage on our tiny street. They are a huge hit!
Some other gifts that were huge hits are the garden shovels, the magnifying glasses (which are used mainly to check out roly poly's in the garden), and the warm jammies from Grandma and Papa.
Treasures Ry is finding in the rock dig kit
Cruz putting the shovel to good use
Ry and Daddy
On Christmas Peter had to work in the afternoon, but me and the monkeys headed out to Napili to spend the rest of Christmas with Grandma, Papa, and the Dagupion side. It was so much fun. I even got a nap! The kids were spoiled with more presents. Christmas was a ton of fun.
It does feel nice to have my dining room back and now I can work on cleaning up and getting a little more organized. This is a goal for 2013.
Speaking of 2013, I can't believe that it's going to be a new year soon. 2012 was a great year for us. I do have goals for 2013...
2013 is going to be awesome. I’ve been thinking about my goals and what I want to achieve in all aspects of my life.
WORK LIFE -
2012 was my busiest year yet - and my 10th year in business. I want
to launch my new website by February 1st. I’d like to exceed this years
revenues by $15,000 next year. I will be investing more time in getting my work published and I hope to launch a fine art sight to sell Maui prints. On Peter's end, I'm really hoping that he'll be able to slide into a valet position at Mama's.
HOME LIFE -
I would really, really love to get my kids to help me clean more.
They are getting to the age where I shouldn’t have to clean up every
little thing. I'm tired of being a maid. I also want to give Ryenne a beautiful room of her
own - she has asked not to room with her brothers anymore and I would
love to create something lovely just for her. I would like to have the playroom transformed by March 1st (I need to save up for a mattress).
FINANCIAL LIFE -
I’d like to save money, but more importantly I want to pay down our debts as much as possible this year. I want a vacation to Yellowstone with the family and Pops. I want to fly my mom out for Christmas vacation. Daily basis living will be extremely simple and frugal. I have a 3 year plan to be free of our credit card debt. LOVE LIFE -
I want to go out on dates with Peter more often. Once every 3 - 4 months isn’t enough.
MY BODY -
Right now I’m hurt. Really hurt. I want to give myself time to heal
in 2013. Fitness wise I would love to be able to do deadlifts again at
some point. It would be great to rejoin my CrossFit family. But for now,
I am concentrating on intermittent fasting, eating mostly paleo, and
watching my calories.
MY MIND -
Read more, more, more. Make time to read. I love to read. And WRITE! I'm writing a book! I had some really awesome characters come to me in a dream so I'm writing about them. It's not a profound novel - more like really entertaining smut. Wouldn't it be neat if it ever got published?
Where did December go? I mean, really? I can't believe that it's almost Christmas! I haven't even finished wrapping yet.
All is pretty good over here. We hit up Makawao's annual Christmas event as well as Makawao School's visit with Santa. Kai Boy just had his preschool event as well and now everyone is home from school. It has been getting COLD at night. Our thermometer in the house says 63 degrees. I know for people on the mainland that is NOTHING, but that's the temp in the house and we are all freezing our booties off!
Saying Hello to Makawao Santa
The kids art on the fence in town drying
Makawao visit to Santa - we bribed the kids with cupcakes to all look at the camera!
Ry's beautiful new jacket from Gams
Kai's drawings are getting more and more detailed! This is him and me he says.
This is so funny! The kids wanted to make a gingerbread house, so I bought a kit - they didn't want to wait for the frosting to dry to keep the pieces together. So they each decorated a big slab of cookie.
This is the time out spot in the house. We have a chicken timer and this spot has been getting WAY too much use by the boys lately.
Kai Boy's preschool Christmas show (video below!)
Peter is loving his new job at Mama's Fish House. It's so nice that he's working so close to home and I'm not worrying about him driving the Pali all the time. I'm keeping busy - December wasn't very busy, but busy enough to keep me on the computer editing quite a bit.
I am still really sore and recovering from my accident with Cruz. I don't know if my shoulder will ever be 100%. I've been off from CrossFit for a month and miss working out. Right now I can't lift much at all and it sucks. I'll just keep babying it so it can heal as much as possible. I wonder how Cruz will feel later when he finds out how much he hurt me as a toddler. Reminds me of those Kung-Fu movies where the guy puts his arm out and the other guy grabs it and twists it and you hear those crunching noises. That is SO my shoulder right now!
Christmas is almost here and I'm as ready as I ever will be. I think the kids will be happy. I love that they believe so deeply in the magic of this holiday.
This morning, as I am every morning, I rolled over in bed and asked Peter to get up and take Ryenne to school. I am not a morning person. He knows that I have been really sore lately and he took Ry to school and let me sleep.
When I woke up, he told me that something terrible happened on the mainland. Like the rest of the nation, I was horrified to learn that a gunman went on a killing spree in an elementary school. 20 small children. 7 adults. My brain cannot even wrap itself around this.
I have been overcome with such a deep grief today. I cannot imagine the pain that the parents are going through and the pain of the children who watched as their classmates were hurt. My stomach turns and rolls realizing that there was such an incredibly sick person that could look a child in the face and harm them - kill them. How can that possibly be?
Ryenne is at school today celebrating the last day of class for Christmas break. She gets off in half an hour and I am pretty sure that I'm going to tackle her when she walks out of her classroom.
At what point in time did we as parents have to ask ourselves, "How do we tell our children? Do we teach them about the possibility of someone coming to harm them? What to do if you see a gunman at school?" Do we say nothing and pretend that it can't happen ever again? How do you explain to a 6 year old that children their age were murdered for no reason?
I hate guns. I don't believe that an American needs to have a gun that can spit out 100 rounds in minutes. Why? What do we need that for? Why is it that crazy people can go get a gun with no problem? I am so sickened and so heart broken.