The Im Family

mimi asked for cheese pizza for dinner.  i told her she could have it if she had it with one veggie.  when it comes to pizza, mimi is a purist...only cheese and nothing else.  but i guess she was really in the mood for some pizza because she quickly agreed.  after perusing the options, she grudgingly obliged to have mushrooms on her pizza. when the pizza arrived, she stared down at the dark brown shriveled masses on her pristine white cheese and says, i feel like the mushrooms look yucky and i dont want to eat them. i went over to her side, picked off a mushroom and popped it in my mouth, chewed thoughtfully and then announced that they were delicious.  and then told her that yes, i agree they dont look good, but sometimes things that look yucky actually taste good. to which she responds, the table looks yucky, would you eat the table?!  SLUGS look yucky!  WOULD YOU EAT A SLUG??!!  WOULD YOU?!  she screams.  HOW ABOUT A... i cut ...

Christmas came and went, and boy did i feel like it went especially fast this year!  rob was saying he felt like we only just put the tree up and already we are faced with the job of taking down all the lights and decorations...i hate that part.  and mimi wants us to put up even more lights and decorations next year.  she has decided that what our front yard really needs is a light up santa, sleigh and reindeers.  i missed the kids' expressions when they came downstairs and saw the presents :(.  rob woke up with the kids and brought them downstairs.  i heard their voices in the haze of sleep, and i sprang out of bed, afraid to miss out on seeing their excitement when they opened their presents, and stumbled down the stairs, eyes partially glued shut still with sleep, mumbling out loud, "wait for me!!!"   when i got downstairs and blindly grabbed my camera, here's how i found them.  i didnt adjust the camera settings to the low light of dawn, so ...

after much consideration, after clearly not considering how the hell i was gonna get that big honking truck from santa down to my parents house without the kids noticing before christmas, i decided that christmas will just have to arrive one day earlier in the Im household.  since we didnt do an advent calendar this year, i am REALLY hoping that mimi wont notice that it's not really christmas tomorrow.  (fingers crossed).  the other alternative was to just wait until we got home from visiting my parents and have them open them when we come back, but i really wanted mimi to be able to take her gift from santa with her.  it'll keep her busy in the car ride down there and back.  i showed mimi the video message from santa the other day.  if you havent seen it from a previous post , i've linked it here as well.  i told her santa got her letter and sent her a video response (on the portable north pole).  i thought she was gonna cry when she saw/hea...

we FINALLY got our santa pictures done.  usually i get it done in the week following thanksgiving, but since mimi started full day kindergarten, it's been very difficult to get the kids out there for pictures.  we tried to get it done the other weekend, but, unbeknownst to me, the person i spoke to at the mall when i called for santa hours gave me the wrong information.  so i scurried to get my five year old and one year old fed, washed,  dressed in coordinating outfits and ready to go early that morning and rob took them to the mall, only to find out santa wouldnt be there for another 3 hours! when rob called from the mall and told me this news, all that holiday cheer and crap that i had been feeling shot out of my ears with a burst of screaming steam and the fact that there was no one to yell at made my head implode.  i'm not usually a vengeful person, but this stupid mistake totally messed me up.   you dont just tell a parent a time that you THINK...

last night, i spent the evening with my camera, snapping pictures of the kids as we enjoyed the evening snowed in.  mimi can't help herself from striking a pose whenever the camera comes out -- so hard to get candids with this kid.  or to get a picture without her in it.  if i aim the camera at anything, she goes darting in between my camera and the subject.  if it's a close up shot that i'm trying to achieve and she suddenly jumps in, then all i get is a picture of her nostrils.  and then ozzy...that boy never sits still for very long so most of his shots are just a blur.  *sigh*  they do make life sweet, though.

when mimi was younger, we'd sometimes play hide and seek and if i didnt immediately see some part of her hanging out of her hiding place, all i'd have to do is go, "mimi?  are you in here?" and invariably she's yell out in a singsong voice, "noooo-oh"  and then giggle and i'd have no trouble finding where she was.  and if someone told her something in confidence, she come right to me and tell me what she was told not to tell me, explaining that she was told not to tell.  at that age, they just tell on themselves, but now, at 5 years and 9 months of age, she's gotten incredibly good at not telling me what i want to know:  like, what did you and daddy get mommy for christmas? when kindergarten first started for her this fall, mimi told me every day that she didnt like school because it was too long.  by october, she started to answer my chronic "do you like school, now?" question with 'yes."  but as recently as two weeks ago, s...

ozzy has started "reading" a few common words.   we find it endlessly amusing to hear his little voice say the words.  he can't sound out anything, but he has memorized a few words. here's a short clip of him 'reading' the words.  i think he recognizes more but has a hard time saying them.  here he won't say 'him', even though i have heard him say that one, but he's not sure about it this time and refuses to say it. he's really saying so many more words now that i can no longer keep track of them all, but he is probably still unintelligible to most people outside of our family, since we hear him all the time and have gotten used to his Ozzish. he's been saying thank you to me every time i give him something so much that now as he takes something for himself he'll thank himself and then tells himself that he's welcome.  still throwing and bashing everything in sight...when does this testosterone induced cave-man tendancie...

here's the gauge mimi made to measure the snowfall on our back deck.  this is the snow as of 11:30 am.   maybe if we're feeling really productive we'll chart the snowfall.  we went outside to play in the snow earlier.  mimi had fun, but it wasnt so great for ozzy because the snow was so high, he just kept falling over.  the first step he took into the snow, he does this massive face plant and then couldnt get back up.  of course the heavy layers and thick snow boots didnt help matters!

strung some more on the lights in the dining room.  if i had more time i would completely bedeck my home with lots and lots of cranberries all around the windows.  sadly, the first ones that i strung have started to shrivel...but they are still a lovely organic red color. 

the daisy scouts got their first badges this week.  the girls were all so cute.  they were also given these pretty little daisy necklaces as well.  mimi wanted to hang hers up on the wall in her bedroom when we got home so she could "just stare at it." cookies sales have begun!  please let me know if you would like to order some girl scout cookies from mimi!  she gets to earn a badge if she sells enough cookies as well as other great prizes.  cookies are $3.50 per box.  (yes, woo, i will ship them to you.) top :  mimi with her friends.   top right: receiving her badge. bottom :  the necklace and mimi with her mouth full of the new thank you berry munch girl scout cookie.  white chocolate and cranberry.  very very tasty!

a friend of mine send me this link to get a message from santa for mimi.  i thought it was so cute i had to do one.  mimi has lately been questioning the validity of santa...how is he able to deliver presents in one night being the top question.  the other question is exactly where does santa live...is it canada?  one of the options on the Portable North Pole that you can choose from explains how santa is able to do it all in one night.  i'm not a big fan of the explanation the provide, but maybe she'll buy it.  i hope she doesnt remember the books on volcanoes we read that explained about the inside of the earth. 

ozzy likes to wear mimi's stuff, like these fairy wings and her winter hat.  of course, when it comes to headgear, he likes to put just about anything on his head: mimi's headbands (that's really funny), half of his shape sorter toy, a butterfly net, etc.

we strung fresh cranberries this year, which i really really LOVE LOVE LOVE.  i think it's the rich, earthy red color that i love so much.  i also thought it was a wonderful holiday activity for mimi.  so i made some pilot holes in a bunch of cranberries for mimi so she could string them easily.  i found that if you string them along the cores, it's very dense and hard to pierce, esp at the top, but it's stronger that way.  you can pierce them slightly diagonal to the center, which makes it easier to pass a needle thru, but the skin tears easily without the woody top edge to hold the string in place.  i tried using needles and a small drill bit and ended up preferring the needle.  it's easier to pierce thru with a very large sharp needle than a regular small thin one.  i also decided a small cranberry wreath would be nice to hang over our family room mirror.  at first i thought a large one would be really nice, but a small...

ozzy: always up in mimi's business.  btw, he can finally say mimi correctly.

ozzy is just over 16.5 months old and he amuses me to no end.  i dont know if i had quite this much fun with mimi at this age.  i honestly dont remember.  i am inclined to say that mimi didnt really start getting to be fun until more like 18 months of age.  maybe it's because ozzy has mimi's influence.  whatever the case, he's so damn cute that i have to try really hard to be stern when i discipline him when all i want to do is scoop him up and hug on him and rain kisses all over his sweet face.   his antics are just too funny to me. the other day, after drinking voraciously from his sippy cup of orange juice, he suddenly flings it aside, at the same time yelling at it: 'Bye-bye Juice!"  in a tone not unlike one you'd use when you scream, "later, bitches!" he's now into jumping and the way he throws his whole body into jumping is hilarious.  on a good jump he can lift both feet clean off the floor a good 2-3 inches...once i swear i saw h...