Teenage drivers

I fell asleep watching movies at my parents house the other night. The kids were all crashed, so I figured it was easier to just stay the night than to load all the sleeping banshees into the car. My eyes felt like sandpaper so I had to go home to get my contact lens case and stuff. Chelsey has her drivers permit so she drove. She has had it for a while now, but has just recently started driving with me. Am I that old? Please, don't answer that. I remember her just being born yesterday. A little frightening. She does really well, but it tends to bring out the control freak in me. I imagine it comes out in anyone riding as passenger with a teenager. Gotta love the airbrake! We've only had one slightly scary, life flashing before my eyes incident. I remember my mom teaching me to drive. After one lesson we both raced into the house only to shout in unison "I'll never drive with her again!" Dad did the remainder of driving lessons. I better have a significant other by time my kids are driving age, I don't think I can handle it alone. They are great backseat drivers already, imagine them with a permit. More gray hairs - fun!

Thanksgiving 2005

Well, my plan for Thanksgiving didn't quite work out. I just wanted to stay in my p.j.'s, not shower, and watch some movies, maybe put up Christmas decorations. Heather and Angie invited me down to the Springs to celebrate with their family. Not really in the mood for other people lately, you know? I'm fast on my way to becoming a hermit. I love that family a lot, but it gets complicated. I didn't want to drive down there only to get the hairy eyeball from Hoss. One of these days he and I will finally work things out. But he has to be speaking to me for that to happen :) We ended up going to Mom and Dad's about 6:30. Had a nice time. Aunt Lin was there, yea!. We played Cranium and surprising my team lost. Hard. Very disappointing. So, I'm not that good at charades. Simone was there with her fiance and future brother-in-law, got to hear a little about their upcoming wedding. Dad seemed very happy to have her there, and hey- there was no bloodshed between anyone! Everyone gave 2 things we were each Thankful for. Anakin was thankful for Jesus and the Bible, Akira was thankful for her Mommy and her Daddy, and E was thankful for outer space and Emily. We watched Christmas with the Kranks, everybody laughed hysterically. I thought it was cute, but certainly not going to watch it again. My favorite holiday movie is Home for the Holidays. Really gets me prepped for the season. Can't wait to put up my Christmas lights. Going to put some outside this year. The kids want all blue, I'm not so sure about that. Much rather stick with plain old white lights. They are my favorite. They look just like twinkling stars, especially when they are covered in snow. I love staying up late, just looking at those lights. So peaceful.

A Bakers' Dozen

Heather invited me to a cookie exchange. My first one, I've finally arrived. It does make me wonder though...Does she know me at all? I can't bake. I CAN'T BAKE. I have to bake 5 dozen cookies and take 20 copies of the recipe with me to this event. After a frantic phone call to Stacey,(and the explanation of the difference between Cream of Tartar and Tartar Sauce) I've got the confidence to do this. Just the girls and I are going so I let E help me with the baking tonight. He doesn't understand why it's a girls only get-together. I don't understand either. All the men in our lives will help eat the cookies, why shouldn't they help exchange the cookies? I'm supposed to share why I chose this special recipe. Should I say I chose it simply because I had all the ingredients already in my cupboards? Great, my first exchange and I'm going to be kicked out. Can't wait to see how this turns out.

The Concert Event of the Year

All day last Saturday, Anakin shamelessly begged me to call our local radio station to win Clay Aiken tickets. As I was dialing the phone # to the radio station, I had a feeling we were going to win. We won. Ana couldn't sleep the night before, she was so excited. Except for getting stranded downtown after the show, we had a lot of fun together. She's a cool little girl. It was definitely an experience. We didn't get home until 2 a.m., but she got up for school the next morning. We got to go backstage afterwards for autographs and pictures with him. I said to Anakin "It's our turn, lets take our picture with him." She said right back to me, without even blinking- "No Mom, I'll just have my own picture with him" Hmmm...