Flash Mobs...

I am obsessed with Flash Mobs.  It all started with this...



Then there was this...

Oh Oprah...

And then today, Jeff sent this to me. It was beautiful, surreal and I cried. Cuz it is Christmas and I love everything Christmas.

happymommy


**Update... after looking for the links for this post, I found like a million other Flash Mobs. I don't want to share them because that would be annoying, but if you ever have hours to kill, go search Flash Mobs on You Tube. You will thank me. Or hate me.**

Sad it is over...

I love Thanksgiving.  I think I mentioned that before, like a hundred times, but I really do love it.  The cooking, the family time and the leftovers.  This year I added running five miles to the mix and except for not being able to walk on Friday, it was a great experience.

Turkey Trotting....

Not exactly sure why my hair looks like that.

I don't have a bunch of pictures from the actual eating festivities because I was too busy stuffing my face with my mom's glorious food and daring my extremely liberal sister to bring up more political topics to the republicans in attendance.  That was fun!  I am always sad to see Turkey Day come to an end. 

Looks like I am not the only one!

I was exhausted and full, in my belly and my soul.  But now, I am so ready for Christmas.  Bring on the cheer and decorations.

This is about the extent of our decorations around here since we always leave for two weeks and head to Denver.  (And we do have house sitters so no attempting to rob us.  We don't have anything anyway, so it would be futile!)

I love, luv, lurve Christmas!  We get to spend two weeks with Jeff's parents and are always surrounded by friends.  Sufice it to say people, I love the holidays.  They start in October with the celebration of my anniversary, birthday, then Thanksgiving, followed by Christmas and the New Year!  By the time Valentine's Day rolls around, I am all holiday'd out!

I truly hope all of my four readers had a great Thanksgiving and are looking forward to an even better Thanksgiving!

happymommy

Cooking...

I love Thanksgiving!  Love, luv, lurve it!  It means eating with reckless abandon, family and so many laughs.  This year, I decided to run the Turkey Trot in Golden Gate Park for some crazy reason.  So at 7:00 am on Thursday morning I will be heading across the bridge to injure myself.  I am actually looking forward to the torture!

After I run, I will speed home to cook, cook and cook some more.  The rolls!  The Green Bean Casserole, fake and real! The Apple Pear Butter!  The Beet Salad!  Jeff is in charge of the mashed potatoes!  We gather all our food, head back across the bridge and spend the afternoon with my family.  It will be so wonderful and not at all relaxing, but it isn't supposed to be.  Thanksgiving is about being thankful, food, family and friends!

James finds the whole thing hysterical!

 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO YOU ALL!

I'll "see" you on Friday!

happymommy

I conquered and they Yo Gabba'd...

After yesterday's realization that I had to do something about my spice cabinent, I actually did something!  I organized.  I am not too sure why I need four Italian Seasoning mixes, five things of ground cumin, two bottles of liquid smoke and worse, six bottles of poulty seasoning.  I still have all of these, but they are at least organized!  I fought the spices and today, I won!

Remember yesterday's spice cabinet? 

While I was busy organizing and figuring out why I needed four bottles of ground ginger, Jeff took the kids to see Yo Gabba Gabba Live.  They had the time of their lives.  I have many pictures to download and share, but for now....

 They left me at home so I could conquer...

Then they arrived...

And saw this....

And so it began...

And they waited...

Until there was dancing...

Not the best video, but look at the fun being had...

And look, it's DJ James Raz..

Oh wait, it's DJ Opa...

happymommy

My sad, sad kitchen....

Loyal readers, hi mom, know I love to cook.  On my recent birthday trip to Tahoe, I had the privilege of baking and creating masterpieces, or at least edible meals, in a gorgeous kitchen.  Every Christmas vacation, I get to cook in my mother-in-law's kitchen where things are organized and there is plenty of counter space.  

Today, while dealing with my twitter addiction, one of my favorite tweeters and bloggers, busydadblog posted this picture of his spices and kitchen.

First of all, I am in awe.  This looks like heaven.  Check out busydadblog for an explanation of the post-it notes.  All of this made me question my inability to keep something I love organized.

I mean look at my spice area.  

Now scroll up and check out busydadblog's spice rack again.  

I am ashamed. :(

Ok, maybe I am not ashamed as that would be silly, but I am determined to fix this.  Tomorrow Jeff is taking Lilly and James to Yo Gabba Gabba live by himself.  (This will be an entire post unto itself if Jeff survives.  His idea, by the way, and I wish him luck!)  While he is gone, I will organize this one cabinet.  We are about to undergo a house renovation which will include a kitchen remodel so I don't need to go crazy, just get organized.  I have a mission.  Unless I decide to nap.

happymommy

Much to the chagrin....

I know people, all four of you, where have I been?  I turned forty and now I am never around to entertain you with stories of James and Lilly and talk about my weight.  It is no mystery.  My life has been taken over by an iPad. 

I rarely turn on my laptop anymore.  I could blog from my wonderful iPad, but to be honest, Steve Jobs has really done a poor job with the keyboard aspect of both the iPhone and iPad.  Blogs take a little longer and more effort than one handed chicken pecks.  

My goal is to try harder and blog more.  So while I gather my thoughts and think of the next story to share, I leave you with a picture of Lilly at ballet.

Isn't she lovely, and so talented!

Also, lately I have been spending a lot of time reading this blog.  You know, because I have nothing better to do!  For those of us who use autocorrect on our iPhones or any other smart phone, you will find this immensely hysterical.  I have spent way too much time laughing until I cried.  This site is NOT SAFE FOR MY MOTHER TO READ!

happymommy

Still tired...

So, as you know I went away for five days with no children and I am more tired than I have been in a long time.  Four days of acting like I was twenty-one and then thirty-one is exhausting.  I cooked more, laughed more and hung out more than I have in five years.  I had the time of my life, and I couldn't be more thankful to Jeff, my in-laws, parents and sister for making it possible.  Not to mention the wonderful friends who took the time to come hang out with us.  

We came home to a sick baby, and immediately felt at home.  I mean what is Monday afternoon without diarrhea and a trip to urgent care.  We are on the mend and ready for the weekend so we can be all kinds of busy again.  And how in the world is it Thanksgiving?  I mean really, time moves so fast.  I must remember to appreciate every minute of it even when James is crying, Lilly is whining and I have to figure out what to make for dinner.  In-n-Out it is!

happymommy

Where is happymommy?.....

Happymommy is on VACAY!  WITH NO CHILDREN.  However, I have been gone from them for 24 hours and I miss them immensely.  I guess it shouldn't be surprising that I miss my kids, but I didn't think I would miss them so much, already.  

 Happy Grandparents!

Jeff rented a house for us in Tahoe for five days and so far, it has been spectacular.  I am so lucky to have a husband who loves me, who gets that I need some time away and who really wants me to be happy!  And, the grandparents who flew in from Denver to care for our kids? I mean who is so lucky?  And the other grandparents who are on call to pick Lilly up, take James for a day and take over when the Denver grandparents have to head home?  Jeff and I are so very blessed.

The house Jeff rented is beyond fabulous!  I would sleep in the kitchen if I could.

We have been cooking and playing and having the time of our lives.

Oh, and I am blogging!

happymommy

Pixar and Good Ol' Soul Food....

Today the happyfamily had the most wonderful day.  So often we tend to spend Saturdays in our pjs doing nothing and then wondering what happened to our weekend.  I wanted to take the ferry into the city and eat oysters at Hog Island Oyster Company, but remembered the SF Farmers' Market happens at the ferry building each Saturday morning.  Today was a beautiful fall day with a hint of fog, and I figured it would be crazy busy and not great for avoiding stress.

Instead, we headed over to Oakland to see the Pixar exhibit at the Oakland Museum of California.  I can not say enough about how wonderful the experience was.  Lilly was entranced.  James was in awe of all the Buzz Lightyear pictures everywhere.  If you live anywhere near Oakland, this is a great half day excursion.

 I see Buzz.....

Look....

Since I was craving oysters, I went to the interwebs to find a great seafood place in Oakland.  This led me to crave some good ol' Soul Food.  Not sure how oysters led to collards, but it did and boy howdy, I was not disappointed.  After an extensive Yelp search, we ended up at a down home, new as of April restaurant where I had Shrimp and Grits, collards, fried cabbage and peach cobbler.  BayLeaf was wonderful and I will go there again and again.  Every one had something different and everyone raved about the food and the atmosphere!

Fried Chicken, Collard Greens & Cornbread...

Yummy!

And we got to see our favorite little baby Sadie!

Today was another day I am pleased to say, life is good.  We are blessed.

happymommy

Update:  I have been in no way compensated for either visiting the Pixar exhibition at the Oakland Museum of California or eating at BayLeaf in Oakland.  My family enjoyed these on our own dime.

The World Series Champions - The San Francisco Giants...

In case you were unaware, or currently living on Mars, the San Francisco Giants won the 2010 World Series on Monday.  Today the celebration continued with a massive parade and gathering in downtown San Francisco!

                       photo credit:  Eric Risberg /AP (via sfgate.com) 

We only had one representative from our family attend the event along with hundreds of thousands of others.  I am thinking he had a great time!

           photo credit:  The Opa (via his iphone)

Congratulations SF Giants!  We are so proud!

happymommy

Death by a Hot Pocket

I have no reasonable explanation as to why I was trying to eat a Hot Pocket today.  Hot Pockets and frozen burritos are not usually in my repertoire of food.  But since today marked the fifth day of no Jeff, I really needed me some Hot Pocket.  Please don't ask why I even had one, but I did, in my freezer.  

I popped the thing in it's little sleeve, set the microwave to 8 minutes and did some Twittering while I waited.  Some sort of Twitter fight erupted over some blogging conference thing.  A few moms were upset about children and many many people ate candy.  A normal day on Twitterverse.  I started to notice a weird smell.  Thought it was the dog, or maybe a neighbor grilling.  No need to point out it was 10:30 in the morning, but you never know.  I kept thinking, wow, this is a long 8 minutes.  Well then I started to cough.  There was smoke everywhere.  The house was closed up because it was cold outside, like a freezing sixty degrees.  

I ran downstairs and was immediately engulfed in smoke.  It smelled horrible and I couldn't stop coughing.  I open all the windows and doors, threw Bubba outside and started to investigate.  The Hot Pocket had blown up in the microwave and there was a small fire INSIDE the microwave.  Um, according to the package, you only microwave Hot Pockets for 1 minute and 45 seconds.  Where I got 8 minutes from is unknown. 

The house still stinks and my hair smells like a forest fire.  Lesson learned?  Read the instructions and never assume your neighbors are grilling at 10:30 in the morning.  Or that your dog smells like someone grilling.

happymommy

To all you single moms and dads out there:  I have no idea how you do it.  My hats off to you for being able to get out of the house wearing pants and remembering to bring your children with you.