365 in 2014: 01/01/14
So, after taking a year off, I’ve decided to do my fourth 365 project. So, here we go!
At Whitman’s birthday party, where Uncle Mike used his height to his advantage in a game of hoops with the kids.
Author: Pam
Live in New Orleans. Married to George. Have identical triplet boys, born 12/4/07. Love to sew.
Merry Christmas!
I’m on a high, coming off the “BEST BIRTHDAY EVARRRR” according to the boys, and guess what? Today was the BEST CHRISTMAS EVARRRR! Yes, yes, thank you, thank you.
I feel like I kind of slacked doing Christmassy stuff this year, like, not digging Maury-Frank up until the 15th or so. We didn’t go see lights anywhere, I never watched Elf, and I don’t know, for some reason, it just didn’t feel the same. I think maybe it was because Thanksgiving was so late. Yeah, I’m blaming the turkey.
But, apparently it didn’t matter anyway. The boys had a great day, and after all, we did do the LEGO advent calendar (thank god 24 days is divisible by 3), we built numerous gingerbread structures, and I had my traditional Christmas Eve eggnog daiquiri, which I drank while wrapping presents and weeping over the end of It’s A Wonderful Life.
By the way. Most romantic scene of any movie, ever? This one:
Since we have no storage at our house, I had to hide the boys’ bikes at a friend’s house, so last night, I went to pick them up after the boys went to bed at 7:15. Note to self: tell them Santa comes every night so they go to bed as early as humanly possible. I put big bows on them, and this morning, when they went downstairs, Miles immediately said, “you did this, didn’t you?”
I have a feeling this might be our last Santa year. Especially after some fighting/whining later, when I told one of them that I was going to take his bike back to the store and get my money back. Whoops. I mean, Santa was going to get his money back. Or the elves were going to it for parts. Whatever.
If this post is all over the place, it’s because I’m exhausted after being up late wrapping/drinking frozen eggnog/swooning over Jimmy Stewart and then getting woken at the crack of dawn by three little monkeys who disregarded my instruction to stay in bed until the first number is 7. Sigh.
Our parents came over today, which was a nice change from driving around. Even better, my mom cooked. I did make a flourless chocolate cake, though, and my accidental quintupling of the heavy cream in the cake made it approximately five times better than it would have been otherwise. It was goooood.
We all got a ton of great gifts today. George got me this cool wine decanter thing that also saves your wine if you don’t finish a bottle (bless his heart, as if!) and the boys each got me a bottle of wine. I’m glad their taste is better than mine was at that age.
Okay, I’m exhausted. More pictures…
Bikes!
Monsters University toys
Presents presents presents!
Practicing
practicing
Practicing
Falling
Practicing
Practicing
Struggling
Merry Christmas, y’all!
Merry Christmas (Eve)!
I just never learn
I have to keep this vague since it’s Christmas-gift related, but I also feel the need to vent.
Last year at about this time, I bought a certain something from Walmart. I ordered it online, and when I went to pick it up, it wasn’t there. The poor dude who worked in the relevant department was as helpful as he could be, and eventually, we got it all straightened out.
This year, I ordered a similar certain something and the exact same thing happened. Even the same Walmart employee was working. However, this time, I had to leave the store without the item. Hopefully I will be able to get it before Christmas.
Argh. When will I learn?
(Stay tuned next year for the same post. Again.)
Goings on
Hey hey hey, it’s the holiday season! Say what? Today is my mom’s birthday. Happy birthday, Grandee!
So what’s been going on? Nothing huge, really. Work and fun, and what else is there? Oh yeah, a new brake job. Nothing says, “sorry, kids, Christmas is cancelled” like a new brake job. Kids like homemade gifts, right? Ha ha, yeah, mostly kidding.
We went to the zoo, and it was kinda rainy, so there weren’t many people there. That was nice.
I got a new chair for work, and my posture is now excellent.
Tomorrow I have to take my after pics with my surgeon. Not totally looking forward to that.
In not much of a coincidence, I’ve been to the gym a lot this week.
Christmas is next week! Yikes. The boys are getting bikes. It’s a poem right there!
Kiki is coming after Christmas, which is awesome, and I signed the boys up for a few days of zoo camp (which they loved over Thanksgiving) so we should be all set there.
And in really, really, really exciting news (but less exciting than Kiki coming to visit), I’m going to San Francisco for 5 days in January to meet up with some work folks. I’m super excited, and so is George. Lots of quality father-son bonding time they’re going to get. Heh. I’ll be there for my birthday, which is fun, and handy, as it gives George and the boys more time to shop for my gifts. Ha. I’m so thoughtful!
6 tries was all it took
Every year, I’ve stressed about the boys’ birthday party. I enjoyed stressing about it, don’t get me wrong. I was one of those people who loved planning all the silly details of my wedding, and because that went off so well, I always expect their birthday party to as well. But it never turns out like I had hoped. (I should say that the boys’ party guests are unlikely to have ever been too concerned that the cake pops were wonky or that I forgot to put out the hummus. But I did, dangit.
But this year, I don’t know, it all went off as well as I could have hoped. Even though the weather forecast was forbidding. Even though I had no real activities planned for the kids. Even though I was worried no one would want to cross the bridge in the pea-soup fog.
In the end, it was perfectly fun. I rented a bounce house even though the boys never want to go into them at parties. I figured, at least the other kids would have fun. But turns out, the boys loved having one at their house. And from the same company, I rented a popcorn machine. So fun! A huge hit with adults and kids alike.
So it basically all went off without a hitch, I think. There was enough food (but not TOO too much), enough to drink, enough activities, and it didn’t rain! (It was just kinda damp the whole time, but no biggie!)
My only regret is that we had to limit the number of attendees. I just couldn’t do the “invite everyone in all of their classes plus all the neighborhood kids plus all the kids they’re friends with that are in other classes” thing like I did last year. So I told the boys they could invite 7-8 friends each, plus a few others, and that was just right. I guess we ended up having about 20 kids there plus their parents, which was probably just short of a fire hazard.
My most glowing reviews came at the end of the party when the boys proclaimed it was “the best day ever!” Can’t ask for more than that.
Happy 6th birthday!
Here it is, the 72nd monthly picture. I will write a more in-depth post later, but for now, enjoy.
Oh, and Linus isn’t flipping off the camera, I don’t think. Hmm.
Six years ago
Okay, look, you know how I am. I get very nostalgic, but at least I only started it today, not weeks ago.
To be honest, the memories of “six years ago today” are getting a little fuzzy. (Good thing I have a blog. Ha!) I do remember being…itchy. Exhausted. Swollen. Uncomfortable (to put it mildly.) But ecstatic that I only had, you know, 24 hours left. And end in sight. In retrospect, I wish they hadn’t had an opening in the OR on December 4. I wish they’d forced me to wait a few more days, even a week. I just needed a goal. Anyway, I’m rambling. The boys were healthy and even though they were born nearly 7 weeks early, I hardly considered them preemies.
No one wants to see pictures from that day, they’re really not pretty. I mean, look. I took no pictures that day, and in fact the only picture I took in the days before the delivery was this comically bad selfie in the hospital bathroom.
Anyway, I’m not sure what the point of this post is. Today is the last day of my little boys being 5. I thought 5 seemed old, but 6 is like…really old. I’m pretty sure I feel like that every year, but for real this time. Six. Six. SIX. Oops. Shouldn’t say it like that.
Thanksgiving 2013
Let’s just pretend that Thanksgiving wasn’t a million days ago, okay? There was a lot of driving back and forth last week, and working, and with the boys out of school, well, excuses, excuses.
There were 43 people (give or take, I didn’t count or anything) at my aunt and uncle’s house. That’s a lot. So much yummy food!
Here are some photos for your perusal.
This week is going to be slightly less busy, but not much. The boys’ birthday is Wednesday (!!!) and their party is Sunday, and lots is going on in between. Mostly involving me hoping and praying it doesn’t rain for their party. Ugh.
Cross fingers!
A new post
I’ve been a blogging slacker lately, which is truly pathetic considering my new job…
Evan, Jennifer, and Ellie are in town for thanksgiving, which is fun. Ellie and the boys have had a blast playing, which is beyond sweet.
More pics from the weekend…
The Tilt-a-Whirl was a big hit, but I was mighty nauseated after the second go-round.
Mr Bingle!
We even took them to see Santa on Sunday because there were no lines. Was I ashamed of myself? Yes, yes I was, a little. Ah well, on to Thanksgiving!
The first day
I started my new job yesterday! I can’t tell you how exciting it is to see my picture and bio on the Automattic “about us” page. It’s literally a dream come true. (I mean, literally in the sense that this is my dream job. I don’t know that I dreamed about it. But I know I had dreams during my trial of employment, so I guess I can use literally. Okay.)
Check this out:
A big welcome to new Automatticians @pyjammy, Omar & @davidwatkis! We’re happy to have you in our number 🙂 http://t.co/gJHjifpNvJ
— Automattic (@automattic) November 19, 2013
Okay, enough tomfoolery. I need to go engineer some happiness now. 🙂
Race Report: Crescent City Fall Classic 5K
The last 5k I did was the CCFC last year, and this year, I was determined to beat my time. If you recall, I came within seconds of beating my PR last year, and I was not going to let it slip from my grasp again. Not that I’d done much training, but in the week prior, I’d run two miles in under 20 minutes twice (yes, practically faster than the speed of sound I am) so I thought I had a chance.
I kept an eye on the weather all week, since I think last year, the heat was partly to blame for my time (I have to blame something other than myself, of course.) I was pleased to see it was supposed to be cool and cloudy. Perfect running weather!
Much like the half-marathon last month, the weather ended up being picnic-perfect, but a bit sunnier than I’d like for a race. But at least it was cooler than last year. Plus, they changed the route so it seemed to me a bit shadier than last year.
I went to the race with some friends – Chris, Steph, Heather, and Stacy. Chris was going for 28 minutes, and Heather, Stacy, and Steph were not going for a specific time. My real goal was to finish in under 32 minutes. A pretty tall order, considering I only needed to finish in under 32:26 to set a new PR.
As the race started, I cued up the playlist I created, and then spent the first mile dodging walkers and people with strollers. Very frustrating. I wish the race organizers did more to remedy this. Alas.
I wish I knew what my splits were, but turns out the app I chose to use won’t let you look at them? Weird. We’ll see. Anyway, the upshot is…I set a new PR! By a lot!
After the race, we had bananas and Chee-Wees (best post-race food ever) and tiny Subway sandwiches. I beat these ladies! Woo! Ha ha!
Now I’m even more determined to run more 5ks and fewer half marathons (as in, no more.) I may do one in December and see if I can…gasp…go even faster?!?
pyjammy dot blog 