When Steve is home, all of the attention is on him.  The girls and the dog are beside themselves trying to get attention first.  He is so good about immediately engaging with the girls - it allows me to disengage a little and start dinner.  They don’t leave him alone until he puts them to bed.  I can’t imagine a better partner in parenting.

With some slight modifications to account for the shortest (and grabbiest) person in the house, the tree is up.  We left off the ribbon we usually use as garland because we felt Tessa might see it as a pull cord.  We have tree blocked off by furniture and a large toy basket - Tessa has been trying to army crawl around the basket all morning.  Sabrina is overjoyed to have the tree up - she keeps thanking me.  She was thrilled to put the last few ornaments on it all by herself after her nap yesterday.

Saturday we took the girls to breakfast with Santa - only Santa failed to show up.  What kind of person agrees to be Santa’s helper and then just doesn’t show for a room full of kids?  The ladies from my MOMs Club scrambled around and managed to find another helper pretty darn quick.  The girls’ reactions were pretty typical.  Sabrina, who had been so excited about seeing Santa, said nary a word but did sit on his lap.  Tessa sat on his lap for a second and studied him then looked at Steve and started sobbing.  I would post photos but I used 1 for the Christmas card so I’ll keep it under wraps until those have been received.  I’m not thrilled with our photos for the card this year but this is a hard age to get decent photos of 2 children together so it is what it is.

I don’t notice most of the year but at Christmas it bugs me that we don’t have a mantel.  I’m so used to having one to decorate and hang stockings from…making a note to myself that when we buy a house it will have a mantel to decorate.  So the stocking were hung by the hutch with care in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there…

The holidays are so much fun this year since Sabrina is able to participate and be excited!

**Alternate title: Screw the neighbors

I was browsing around a couple of weeks ago and came across this post about a home made advent tree.  I was enchanted!  What a fun tradition to start with the girls - and so cute!  I had to make one for our home.  I messaged my husband with the link.  He also loved it and said we should make one.  A trip to Hobby Lobby was quickly scheduled.

As you can see, our interpretation is very, um, loose.   I couldn’t find manzanita branches at my local craft stores…and I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend the money on having them shipped.  So we drove around looking for branches.  We brought home many and finally settled on some from a tree on our walking path that had recently been cut down.  We obviously ended up with a hodge podge of containers…I think in future years I might look for a little more consistency.  But Steve and I had fun decorating it together.  I haven’t finished filling the containers with things - there are some items from the dollar section at Target and some items from the party favor section at Hobby Lobby and some left over Halloween candy and a few days with slips stating the girls can stay up and watch a movie with Mommy and Daddy before bed and other little treats like that.  (Thanks Malia for the last idea.)  I got the disks with the numbers from an Etsy shop and tied them on with ribbon.

Here is another view:

The girls love looking at it and Sabrina is really excited to start discovering the surprises in the boxes.  Tessa just wants to destroy touch it.  All in all, I’m happy with how it turned out but I will probably do some tweaking each year until I am completely satisfied.

While commenting on a blog tonight, I was reminded of something that has been bugging me.  Courtney Cox has (had?) a new show this season called Cougartown.  I watched it once.  I didn’t watch it again for a few reasons: it is on against something else I watch, it wasn’t that great, and GAH what the hell do you mean Courtney Cox is old enough to be a cougar?

Friends came out a couple of months after I graduated from college.  It felt like it was about me - if I was hot and living in NYC with great friends and could afford an amazing apartment and clothes while never seeming to go to work.  (Seriously, Rachel was the only one who seemed to work the for first few years because she was bringing them all coffee.)  They were all around my age - maybe a couple of years older.  They were single.  They were funny.  They were friends.  Awesome.  Anyway, thanks to denial and reruns on cable Friends lives on.  The friends, much like me in my own head, haven’t aged much.

Then the new fall line up starts.  I catch 1 episode of Courtney’s new show - Cougartown.  I spent the first 23 minutes of the 30 minute show trying to wrap my brain around the fact that this gorgeous woman who is essentially my age can possible be a COUGAR with a TEENAGE SON worrying that she is TOO OLD to date the hot guy she is sleeping with.  I can’t identify with that.  I want to continue pretending that my life is closer to her single, carefree life in NYC than her single mother life in the ‘burbs.  I resent TV for making me face the fact that I am getting older.  Stop it.  Now.

And someone please make a decent sitcom again.

We had a great week with Steve home.  The girls loved having Daddy around full time.  I have no idea where the week went.  I wanted to go check out the Opryland Hotel in all of its Christmas glory and take our Christmas card photo while Steve was off…I didn’t do either.  We just enjoyed being together.  And we walked and drove around picking up sticks.  It is for a project I will share soon.  But the neighbors are starting to look at us odd.  While they are all decorating for Christmas, we have a pile of dead tree branches in the driveway.  And we keep coming home with more - because I have to have the perfect dead tree branches.  Because I have a little OCD streak that I work hard to keep in check. (Anyone who knows me in real life knows that I refuse to decorate for Christmas prior to December 1st.  Blame my mother.)

Photos from our walk and playground stop yesterday:

I didn’t notice until we got home and I looked at the photos that Daddy put her shoes on the wrong feet.

Tessa passed out on the way to the playground

Everyone on my Christmas card list can expect individual photos of the girls rather than one of them together if my attempts at taking their photo last night was any indication.  I took 40 photos.  I have photos of them rolling over each other, falling off the chair, kicking each other, blocking kisses from each other - but not 1 of them looking at me at the same time.  I promised myself I would take the Christmas card photo before Steve goes back to work on Monday but I really am not looking forward to trying to get a decent shot.

Tessa enjoyed her pasta shells and cheese - the wall next to her will never look the same again

Thanksgiving is over which makes me sad - it is my favorite holiday.  My mom already headed back to Texas.  She had an accident on the way here for Thanksgiving.  Amazingly, was able to drive her car away after being hit by 2 cars while they were all traveling at 65+ MPH but still needs to get some body work done so she left early to tend to that business.

Steve decided he wanted to check out some of the Black Friday craziness so we got up at 5am and headed to Sam’s Club to check out their deals.  Sam’s is like Black Friday Lite - very civilized compared to some of the others.  We saw some great deals on flat screen TVs but our big non-flat screen is still working fine so we bought chicken breast and hamburger since we were there.  We were the only people back in the grocery section and likely the only people who got up at 5am and didn’t return home with anything that plugged in or required batteries.  But it was fun to drive by all of the other stores and see the full parking lots and lines of people.

I’ve spent my evening painting ornaments for those of you who have ordered.  It is a fun way to get into the Christmas spirit!

Sabrina was sad to see Abuela and Abuela’s dog head home this morning.

I’m thankful for the usual things: the health, happiness, security, and success of my family and my friends.  But this year I am thankful for one additional thing: there were no angry octopus at dinner this year because you know I love to taunt…

Thanks to oddlyspecific.com

I hope you all had a holiday as warm and fuzzy and octopus free as mine.

I saw some really cute Christmas ornaments on Etsy last year but couldn’t bring myself to pay the price tag that many were asking (the one I bookmarked was $25).  I was sure I could do it myself for much less.  How hard could it be?  Anyone who has ever walked into Hobby Lobby/Michael’s/JoAnn Fabrics has probably had the same thought.  Others have probably also found that making 1 ends up costing exponentially more than the original item might have cost if you purchased it from someone else.  Many have probably also had my experience and found yourself returning 4 or 5 times trying to get things right because it was a little more difficult than you anticipated.  I finally got the right materials and have enjoyed painting ornaments for friends and family.

I’m going to offer them up for sale here if anyone is interested.  They are 4″ glass ornaments.  I have frosted and white ornaments.  The white are topped with a clear glossy glaze.  The frosted are not gloss coated because it interferes with the frosted finish (as you can see on the Amanda and the Jackie - this was all a learning process). Each ornament is on a ribbon for hanging.

I’m naming each ornament for the person to whom the original belongs to help with identification.  You can request some swapping of colors - I will show you the colors available at the end of the post.

They can be personalized with whatever name you specify.  I did a lot of first names but also did one a family one “The B*****’s est. 2004″.

Each ornament will be $12 plus shipping.  I will only charge what it costs me to ship so it will be a case by case…it looks like it should be less than $6 (I did a few quotes on USPS and they were all around $5).  If I run out of boxes, I might have to purchase a few and add $.50 or $.75 to the shipping costs to offset that.  If you order more than one, I will do my best to ship them all together assuming I can get them wrapped up safely and still shipped cheaply.  Payment will be via PayPal.

If you want to order one, leave me a comment with your email and we can discuss the details via email.

On to the ornaments.

The Tessa: white ornament, fuchsia & lime stripes and dots

The Adam: snowflakes on a frosted ornaments

The Abuela: red and green stripes with silver and gold polka dots

The Jameson: frosted ornament with Christmas lights

The Polka Dot: white ornament with polka dots in a variety of colors

The Sabrina: fuchsia stripes, lime dots, with purple and turquoise squiggles

The Amanda: 4 flowers ring the top of the ornament and vine trails down and around the bottom

The Jackie: Fuchsia & turquoise stripes with a line of lime stripes and silver swirls

The Avadar: ladybugs and butterflies

Okay now for the paint colors.  These are available for stripes.  The turquoise and the lime are too transparent to make good thick stripes - they work best for the thinner accent stripes.  The fuchsia, red, and dark green are opaque enough for the bold stripes.

These colors are available for things other than the thick and thin stripes: silver, gold, apple green, bright pink, red, green, turquoise, magenta (the pinkish purple cap), purple, yellow, and black.

Tessa expressing her joy that Daddy took this week off to hang out at home with his girls.

I don’t use my little corner of the internet to rant very often anymore but today I will.

We pay over $500 a month for health insurance with Cigna.  It isn’t top tier insurance but I would say it is pretty good (until Jan 1st when it changes and will cost us the same for significantly less coverage).  This year, Steve’s employer opted to save money by requiring all ongoing prescriptions (anything lasting more than 2 months) be filled by Cigna Tel-Drug home delivery pharmacy.  They deliver all drugs in 3 month supplies.  It irritates me because I have to be on top of things to trigger my refill a week or 2 before I need it to allow processing and mailing time and requires I pay 3 months worth of drug co-pays all at once but otherwise it isn’t wasn’t a big deal.

I don’t talk about my health issues on my blog - my choice.  Suffice it to say, I require 1 particular drug each month.  Without it, I could suffer life altering (or ending depending on the severity) consequences.

A little back story - after covering us for the previous two years, a few months ago Steve’s employer required more documentation than the IRS does to prove that we are his dependents.  (Seriously, I had less trouble passing the background check from the Secret Service the time I met Hillary Clinton.)  We faxed our marriage license, Tessa’s birth certificate (they payed for her freaking birth), and Sabrina’s adoption decree.  Out of irritation, I might have sent them the Spanish version - I’ll never tell.  Steve gets an email later stating that the only one accepted as a dependent was Sabrina.  We call.  We fax further documentation.  We are told it is all taken care of.

Over 2 weeks ago, I call to re-order my prescription.  I am given a confirmation number and told it will be mailed soon.  I wait.  And wait.  And wait.  I am now out of this drug that I require.  Last Tuesday, I call the mail order pharmacy to ask where the f*ck my drug is and am told that my order was canceled because my coverage was terminated at the end of September.  After berating the representative for the company not notifying me that they canceled my order (they claim they sent a letter - one was not received and later it is confirmed that one was never sent), I call my husband in hysterics and ask him to fix it.  He calls HR.  They tell him all 3 dependents are active.  HR and Steve call Cigna.  They say all 3 dependents are active.  HR, Steve, and Cigna call Cigna Tel-Drug.  They fix things in their system and re-order my refill stating it will take 2-3 days to process and then be overnighted.  I’m not thrilled with the time line but glad it is straightened out.

Saturday evening, after the last UPS, FexEx, and UPSP truck has rumbled by our house without stopping, I call Cigna Tel-Drug again.  A very nice but powerless man tells me that my order was canceled because my coverage was terminated in September.  My head promptly explodes.  I ask why this company would continue to cancel life saving drug orders without notifying the recipient.  He states that they don’t notify recipients (meaning they lied about the letter) because when the system says terminated it is “almost never wrong” and the people know they have been terminated.  He is sympathetic but says there is nothing he can do and tells me to call Cigna.  I asked if he wasn’t in fact Cigna.  He said yes but not the right department.  We call Cigna.  There is nothing they can do because their system is down.  The woman says she will escalate it to an account manager on Monday morning.  Meanwhile, I have been without this very necessary drug for a week.

This morning, Steve calls all of the parties again.  Four separate people assure him that it is now fixed.  They tell him they will process my order and send it overnight on Wednesday.  My head explodes again.  I offer to call back but Steve wisely feels he should make the call.  I tell him to communicate that is completely unacceptable because it means I won’t get the drug until Friday which is another 4 days away.  I demand that I either be able to go to the pharmacy down the street or that it arrives on my doorstep tomorrow.  He calls back and they agree to expedite it and have it on my doorstep tomorrow.

Moral of the story the first: Cigna sucks.

Moral of the story the second: Cigna Tel-Drug really sucks.

Moral of the story the third:  Steve’s employer kind of sucks for starting this whole cluster by holding us to a higher standard than the IRS to prove that we deserve the privilege of paying $500+ a month for health coverage.

Moral of the story the fourth: I’m not entirely sure how I feel about the proposed national health plan but I have to wonder if the government can really do much worse than some of the private insurance companies are doing now.

Moral of the story the fifth: You really have to be your own advocate so don’t be shy.

UPDATE: My drug did finally arrive this (Tuesday) afternoon. Thanks for all of the well wishes.

It is really only Wednesday?  We’ve been having a long week here filled with much 3 year old angst.  Nothing serious - just lots of sass, attitude, bullying of the little sister, and talking back to momma.

Steve left for a 3 day business trip before dawn this morning so this momma is digging deep into the patience reserves (and the booze reserves in the back of the frig).

Fortunately, they make me laugh as often as they make me count to 10 to avoid stroking out.  We (mostly Steve - hey it’s my blog so I can blame whomever I wish) don’t always watch our language as well as we should.  Tessa just gives us these looks some days that cause us to declare “She is so damn cute!”.  Well, Sabrina decided to get in on that action and has declared Tessa damn cute too.  I explained it was a grown up word.  Now she tells people as we shop in Target “I say Tessa is so cute.  Mommy and Daddy say she is so damn cute.”  Heh.  Following the letter of the law if not the spirit I suppose.