T Day and other awesome things

^^^The thing that has made my life complete, my friend, is the discovery of our camera's (which we've had for years...) SELF FREAKIN' TIMER! That thing is the best! OMG. So here I was on Thanksgiving morning giving it a test run. Once the kids refused to join me in said testing mode, I began a series of awkward robotic movements. I mean. It is THEEE best!

But anyhoo! T Day was gosh darn great! Mother Paplia hosted, so that automatically meant extreme relaxation on ours and the sister's family's end. My brother was granted leave from 29 Palms where he's killing it at life. I mean seriously? He's so cool. In his own words, he summed up his life: "I go to school, I work out, I sleep, I eat and I drink." Can I be you in my next life, Vince? JK, I would never pass those math classes you're taking, you electrical engineer in the making, you!

Okay. So we picked up Grandma Berniece, as we are the lone IE-er's of the Paplia family, freeing my Dad up from driving to Chino then back to MV before the celebration even started. I have to say, women in their 80's are the jam. I really love talking to my grandma! She's got strong political and religious views and is very with it. So the 5 of us, Grandma, Chad, the kids and I, heave-ho'd down the 241 to the parental's home, where we arrived quite early (of course on Thanksgiving the 91 chooses to open up westward. That freeway is like the 8th wonder of the world. No one understands it). We then proceeded to eat, drink and merry-make until we felt close to explosion. It was great! Carter did as he does, latched onto the day's activity and didn't stop until the sun was no'mo (he was a bad mitten badass, I daresay). Kota cuddled up with her older cousins and Chad and I were all about hangin'.

At the end of the night, we made the drive back home, Grandma in tow. So all in all, a great holiday. On Saturday, we made our 7th annual gigantor Thanksgiving dinner at home for leftovers, and I have to say, it was one of the best yet! We had super awesome company and hey-o! They were of the same familia! Super SUPER cool! I'm still chowing down on those leftovers and it's 7 days later. Success.

Sunday we got the tree, which was great. Once we put the kids to bed, I laid down on the couch and took about 1,000 pictures of Chad stringing the lights. The next day I went to upload the rest of November's pictures to the computer and guess freakin' what? I placed the memory card thing down for one minute and who decides to destroy it? SNOW. I was fuming mad. I mean really? Out of all the things in a room to destroy, he chose my 1"x1" memory card? The only thing that was on there was Chad stringing the lights, but still! Thankfully Amazon should be delivering a new one in the next few hours. One CANNOT enter December sans memory card. THAT would be a tragedy.

2 days ago, on December 1st, I thought "hey, prooooooobably a good idea to get on planning the kids' birthday party.... just a small thought..." The reason I was postponing the process was because a) my brain seemed to be packed with Thanksgiving thoughts, and b) I seriously was having anxiety about who to invite from Carter's class. I sincerely would have liked to invite the whole lot to avoid any hurt feelings, but that's 30 kids. If even half of them showed up, the house would burst given our other people who were confirmed guests. Can you imagine if some of their parent's would want to stay? That would be a potential 60 person addition to family and other friends! I was FREAKING OUT about it. Like going nuts. My first go at the problem was to ask Carter who he wanted to invite. Mainly it was his best guy friends and a few nice girls, but then I had no idea how to get the invitation to those kids. We don't have a class roster with addresses. HOW?! Corner the parents? I barely knew some of them! Then a light bulb went off - I decided to just invite the kids who's parents I talk to regularly. I told Carter which kids that included and he was like "sure!" So all my worrying was in vain, the only thing he really cared about were that SOME kids from his class showed up. I shot those moms a text and told Carter repeatedly to not talk about his party at school because we didn't want to hurt any feelings. Success! Kota's school situation was easy. In her class, if one kid is invited, everyone must be included. That was a fast and easy "no," haha! No way.

Now that that nightmare has been tackled and resolved, I can think about how FREAKING fun this party is going to be. PEOPLE. I have not one, but TWO December children and never EVER have I thrown a holiday themed party. I always wanted to it to be THEIR BIRTHDAYS, and then CHRISTMAS. Never combined. But this year, we already have our Xmas decor up so why not embrace it and do holiday activities?! BEST IDEA EVER. Now guess what that means? The party decor shall be purchased from Hobby Lobby where one can buy endless Christmas goodies, not from Party City! Literally the party things will be real decorations for Christmas, things we can KEEP FOREVER, not throw away after the party has taken place! What have I been thinking all these years! I should have done this from the get-go!

So yes, stoked. AND, since the party's theme is Pancakes and Pajamas, the Cisneros pair will NEED legit Christmas jammies. Tears of happiness, tears! Literally the pictures from this party will be my favorite of all TIME. Wooo!

Okay, this has turned into a very lengthy post. Tonight we are going to put the ornaments up on the tree and Chad's officially going to back up the family videos on a USB thing. Pret-ty excited. Wooooooo! (What a peppy tone considering we are all sick as dogs! Well Kota and I are, Carter is borderline and Chad is okay. Tis the season!)

Carter and Kota - isms

Kota: SNOW! SNOW! SNOW!
Me: Let's let the poor guy sleep. He's tired!
Kota (serious expression): NEVER.

Carter (while watching our annual T Day week Star Wars marathon): Well, Annikin! If you hadn't turned over to the dark side, Obi Wan Kenobi wouldn't have had to chop off your legs and you wouldn't have caught on fire!

Kota: Mom! Snow Snow is going to sit on me! He's going to put his butt on me!!!!!

Carter (24 hours a day, 7 days a week): Mom, I'm hungry.
Me: No you're not.

Me: Kota! Can you not kick me!
Kota (while lying underneath my fire hydrant leg lift position thing): IT'S PART OF MY WORKOUT, MOM!

^^^Best video EVER.

Oak Glen de Gloriousness

2015 marks 5 years of trekkin' on up the mountain to Oak Glen and I have to say, each year gets betta. The first time we ever went, I was pregnant with Kota! The whole experience is so gosh darn beautiful, we MUST repeat yearly. It is imperative to our well beings.

We always wait until the hot, real apple picking season ends, opting instead to buy our apps from the ole' barrels at Los Rios Ranch. So hey. Not exactly the most authentic fall time experience, but a heck of a lot more enjoyable sans sweat.

 ^^^If this isn't the definition of "trying to capture a nice moment with three children," I have no idea what is!

 ^^^Carter's photog skills! Not bad, eh?

Tis such a happy time of year! Yay for chaotic mountain picture attempts, kids running wild and everything in between!

Hindsight: two kids in school is freakin' nuts!

You always hear about how nice and fun it will be when your babies are both off and away, living their little independent school lives like the champions they are. Brunch with your girlfriends on a Tuesday? Sure, why not?! Pedicure mid-Thursday afternoon? Yes! It really is nice! Not to say that we are officially "there" yet; Kota goes to preschool just two days per week and Carter does 5 half days of kindergarten, but hey, both kids are living lives separately, and all four of us are away from each other for at least a few hours per week.

What sounds to be completed unrelated... one time my cousin told me that with a large family, you always have to make sure everyone is "okay" at all times. Like the emotional state of everyone needs to be paid attention to. Are they happy? Is one sad? Is one feeling on top of the world? Is one feeling left out? What am I being told about this whole school thing? What am I not being told? She was basically saying that having two kids is just as weighty and wonderful as having more because the emotional state of each individual of the family is just as important whether you have a family of four or a family of ten! Wise freakin' words because it's damn true!

There is so much to think about! Are we getting places on time? -- LEAST OF THE WORRIES. Let me repeat: LEAST OF THE WORRIES. Is Kota getting along with her girlfriends? Am I jiving with the moms of Kota's buddies? Does Carter feel as great about everything as I'm guessing he does? Am I putting in as much effort with Kota's circle as I did and am with Carter's circle? Are there things happening that I don't know about? Do I even want to know these hypothetical "things I don't know about," based on this extreme level of "hearts outside of my body walking around out there in the world" protectiveness I feel?

I know that literally every mom in the world feels these same feeeeeeels. I totally know it's normal. It's like a good type of anxiousness - "I just want everything to be okay for everyone, got it?!" ... it's a reflection of how much one cares about the foundation of their child's whole entire life (...I'm sure I'll look back at that statement in a few years and be like "Nicole, it was kindergarten and preschool - there was no reason to worry! Everyone is fine"). And "worry" really is the wrong word for it, although I know Chad would totally tease me about being a direct descendant of Mother Paplia right now - the OG of worriers. It's just a high def com level of concern over the social well being of your babies, even though on the surface everything is 100% great, man!

So I guess when I titled this thought bubble "two kids in school is freakin' nuts," what I meant was:

"My emotional well being with having my two Lights of Life in school where they are to be working members of society can, at times, be too much for Mama to handle so I must write about it or else I will explode."

And by, "where they are to be working members of society," I also mean "where I too am to be a working member of this new, wild society of mothers that remind me 100% of my time spent on my sorority's exec board." So yes, many feels at the moment, now that I can throw the last few months of "multiple children in school" into the almighty hindsight lenses.

But hey! Really, everything IS great - I'm not just saying that! It's just crazy to think that this level of insanity I feel over their lives outside of our home is to be felt ...probably until they graduate high school. And then after that I'm sure my worry will transition to an even more insane level of anxiety (but let's not think of that right now, eh?).

More weird things I did while Chad was in Germany

7 days of just me and the kiddos was going to be easy peasy, I decided. I certainly was not going to take on too much - in fact, I planned on taking on NOTHING at ALL! As mentioned, cleaning and general house aesthetics was to be thrown by the wayside for the period of where I was single-mama-ing it up, and cooking? What cooking? It was to be a glorious time where the kids and I laughed, ate doughnuts, watched movies until 8:30 or, dare I say it, 9:00, and facetimed with the man every mid morning and around 11:30 pm when it was convenient for him and for us. It was to be wonderful! Here is what we filled our time with while I took a break from life:

* There was no checking of the email. Sounds glorious, right? It was. It was glorious right up until I took Carter to school on the Monday after Chad got home and learned I had played hooky from my assistant room mom duties! OH EM GEE, incompetence! Luckily the room mom and my assistant buddies laughed it off, but I'm not kidding, I cursed my email-vacation for a full 24 hours! The cursing was followed by extreme scrambling around like a hooligan trying to get time sensitive things done! Bahaha!

* OUR BEDROOM. OUR. BED. ROOM. Do you know how many times it's possible for a person to switch things around within a 7 day period of time? I "styled" our main dresser no less than 17 times because our wedding album arrived and it must look PERFECT. Snow's ugly crate has been moved from my side of the bed to Chad's side of the bed, back to my side, then back to Chad's side again because I wondered if the computer would look good on top of it in that particular corner, then back to my side where it originally stood. Do you know how many trips to Target can be made in pursuit of prettying-up said crate? Several, let me tell you. Now his boudoir boasts white curtains so it's not so ugly. Do you know how many times one can look online and text friends and family members regarding a comforter set? Hundreds. Do you know how many minutes a person can stand at her master bedroom's doorway and stare at all the "work" she's been doing? Thousands, surely. It was madness! And it's hilarious because the only real changes that I kept were the two things I bought at Hobby Lobby to help adorn our beautiful wedding album, the white curtain I put up on Snow's crate and then re-hooking up the computer RIGHT WHERE IT USED TO BE! Bahahaha. But still, an awesome time was had spending 7 days pretending like I was making a lot of progress!

* Furthering my adventures in the I'm-just-going-to-go-ahead-and-do-this-while-Chad's-gone-so-I-can-make-all-the-decisions, I almost, ALMOST did two very dumb things (hahaha!). In our bedroom, I almost man-handled down the not-vibing-with-what-I'm-trying-to-do blinds myself! I wanted to take them down to FORCE us to have to swing through IKEA for curtains when the kids and I picked Chad up from the airport after HE FLEW 11,000 MILES HOME - WHO WOULD WANT TO GO TO IKEA AFTER A 19 HOUR TRAVEL DAY? I had a brief moment where I thought it was all possible, then decided against it, mainly because I knew I would get scared at night with no blinds. My second ALMOST dumb thing, was unscrewing our bathroom mirror. So Chad and I keep talking about the entryway and how we want to take the outdated mirror in our bathroom off the wall, frame it, then hang it in the entryway along with a beautiful entry way table. So to FORCE the situation to happen sooner rather than later, I thought about unscrewing the humongous mirror myself! So what if we had to live with NO MIRROR IN OUR BATHROOM for a few days? At least it would light a fire under our butts to start the shopping process for an entryway table/bathroom renovation! WHAT ON EARTH GOES THROUGH MY MIND SOMETIMES??!! Hahahahaha - glad neither one of those things happened. Chad would have shot me!

So that's what happened in between coloring books, biking in the backyard, consuming tons of Sprouts muffins, Larabars and Cliff bars, texting the sister morning, noon and night, researching 6 and 4 year old birthday party themes, opening my father-in-law's $15 bottle of wine on night 6 and just overall relaxing! It was cool fool! Now I feel ready to bring on holiday themed everything. Play dates, birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Oak Glen - everything! Woo!

Life discoveries while the hubby was out of town

1. Not having any window treatments is freakin' terrifying. The blinds that I forced us to take down a few months ago could have come in reallllllll handy when dealing with my imagination. Let's just say that it's been a mission to combat the scary zombie robber people who were surely going to jump over our backyard fence and break into our home through the wide open, see-through back slider.

2. I wish Snow could speak! Oh my gosh, several nights in a row last week, after the kids went down to bed, him and I were just laying there on the couch being lazy, when he would jump up and start barking like crazy at the front door! Was it a possum? A rat? OR A SCARY PERSON?!!! Terrified the first time it happened, I asked my neighbor if her dogs were barking at anything out there. She said no, and then came and checked it all out. Beforehand though, I text messaged my mom and sister to let them know what was happening, which caused a "should I call the cops" conversation, terrifying me even more. Bahahaha.

3. I've been a bad disciplinarian and have let Snow sleep in bed with me. What a cuddle monster! I love him. Also, I've sort of given into his vacuum ways. A few crumbs left on the floor? Oh well, Snow's got it. Luckily he wasn't too bitter at Chad when he got home though. When over there in Germ, Chad was like uhhhhhhh, he's going back in his crate at night when I get there. To which I responded Well.... we'll see how Snow and I do when we're separated at night once again. It's been a smooth transition back into his crate, but surely he misses spooning with his mama and I've missed his 50,000 pound body sleeping on my legs. What a great third child he is!

4. This has been a known fact for ages, but this trip has really proven to me that an extremely messy home is a product of happy children. You should have seen their rooms! TOTAL DISASTERS AND. I. LOVED. IT. The cushions were stripped from the "white room's" couch for all the days. Why put it back together when it will become disheveled again after one night's sleep? Blankets were draped over the family room's couch for several days as well, something that usually drives me nuts. Oh well! It's comfy and the kids are massive cuddlers so hey, whatevs.

Okay, we must start getting ready for school! Carter was out with a fever last week, which cut into his Star Student time, which surprisingly made me very sad for him. So anyhoo! Off to put some clothes on, get Snow Snow in his crate, smack some clothes onto my forever-nude children, grab a toy to share and be off!

Confessions of a photo addicted human

Okay, the photo addiction is real. I should be getting the 8x8 January - July 2015 Shutterfly book next week, to accompany the 400 prints already in their beautiful little 4x6 album sleeves for this year. I'm chomping at the bit to continue on with the OTHER 8x8 book for 2015, July - December (literally wanting November to hurry up so I can add more pictures to that book. Hahaha chill out, Nicole). And guess what I just ordered? ANOTHER 8x8 book of all of our family's professional photoshoots from Carter's newborn pics right on down to December of 2014. Just a swift, 38 page book of professionally edited pictures - BECAUSE I'M ADDICTED. But truly, that book is going to be badass. I'm thinking coffee table type material.

Which brings me to my next point. As said, I got photo sessions for every large family thing, as one does (minus maternity pics for the eldest - oops!): Carter's NEWBORN, Carter's ONE, Carter's TWO and Mommy is 9 months pregnant with Kota, Kota is BORN, Carter is THREE and Kota is ONE, Carter is FOUR and Kota is TWO. No big deal, right? Well for FIVE and THREE, I decided to take a year off from hiring someone to take our pictures, believing that spending the dough was getting sort of dumb. Afterall! I had a nifty not-exactly-cheap camera and hey, I was sure I could figure out the whole editing thing on my own in the name of 2014's Christmas card.

BIG MISTAKE.

That was a dumb decision! The difference between my quick little "editing session" and the other photos of the years is pretty dramatic. I never actually got 2014's Christmas card out, but I sure did create it on Shutterfly - it's a nice reminder that I didn't pull together a cute little wardrobe for my two bambinos and how I didn't do Carter's hair for the occasion of my "shoot." Not okay! Now I really do see the importance of marking the ages one time per year. It's important!

Okay, I swear, I'm not trying to be a big ol' deuche with the over-the-top dedication to this whole preservation of memories thing. (Which reminds me of the lengthy discussion I had last night with a friend regarding her camcorder and how that needs to be the next thing on my list...) But it's just so fun! So freakin' fun!

OB to the SESSED.