Steve is s0 c00l!

New ni ni!

Playing w0nder penguin w gibs0ns class!

Rooster boy

That is what my friend Ali calls him. But I LOVE this school picture! so Cute!!! Obviously taken before the HAIR cutting shenanigans, posted previously....

TEA-cher gift!

I have been making these things for years, so if you have seen them before I am sorry, but I thought I would share in case someone needs that last minute creative-looking gift. I totally cheated last minute with this one, but I usually double mat, stamp the messages and decorate with stamps and layers of paper and what have you. these were for Gibson's Primary teachers at church, so I wanted it more personal and had him put the pictures in!I KNOW you can figure it out- each takes 1/3 piece of card stock (cut on the long side- approx. 2 3/4 in), and a sheet of typing paper for the inner wallet. Half the typing paper (longways- 5 1/2 inches each), then lightly crease these in half again. Bring both edges to the crease and tape. slide in your four tea bags. I sometimes use a gift card for on of the pockets. fold them together so you know where to trim- when the tea bags are in, they are really puffy.

Make your front "plaque" and glue it over ribbon that goes all the way around and has room for a tie. pierce the inner wallets and cover so that you can string a small cord on the "binding" to hold the wallet together. Tie honey sticks in the ribbon for the "sweet" part. I have collected several "Tea" variations and have used these from Bridal showers on down! Good Luck! If you have questions, ask, or call!

Giving Thanks.

We were invited to my Sister in Law's family for Thanksgiving. There home was lovely and the food and company could NOT be beat! It was so fun to see the cousins playing together, and there was even a kid's table! Gibson did much eye-rolling and monitoring (read- tattling) to make sure we knew he was the big, responsible one of the group!! He got to beat uncle John later at Wii Boxing (go figure), and one of the highlights was the elevator at their house!!! I loved that we got a family shot, but getting kids to all look cute in the same direction is always impossible!!!!

In another sweet moment, while we were at my Mother-in-law's that weekend, we were getting some stuff out of her attic and Gibson found this model that was Derick's first one, that he had saved up for an entire summer to buy and then built. It was falling apart, covered with dust and was originally put together with Elmer's glue (not model quality at ALL!) but Gibson loved it and Derick was so touched to see him going gaa-gaa over it. Gibson got to play with it while we were there, and then we took a few pictures, and then Gibson could pull off the parts he wanted to keep, and then the old ship was relegated to Davy Jones' locker, via the garbage.....

Fishy.

Ever since I made the sweater for Delaney, Gibson has been begging me for a sweater with a fish on it. I have TRIED to find something that will work, but I don't think this is it! I am disappointed too, because it is an angelfish which has special significance to me and Gibson! I whipped this dishrag out in about an hour and a half, and gave it to a lady I visit teach. I was hoping that maybe with a darker color of yarn the contrast would show up more?? but I am afraid to invest in a WHOLE sweater and it not work out! Any ideas or suggestions are greatly appreciated!

The Write stuff!

In November, Gibson's class had a publishing party where the kids got to read to us the stories that they have been writing and illustrating! Gibson is just exploding with writing and reading these last two months!! It is so exciting to see! Gibson's stories included ones of us decorating for Halloween, playing inthe crawl space, and one about finding a bat in the attic- which is fiction- for now!

The Master at work

More photos of my Famb-ily and more money gone, but well spent. Michelle Wasden is a gifted and talented pho-tog, even though my children are SOO beautiful it CAN'T be that hard to get a good picture (LOL!)-personal brag moment- I knitted the purple sweater Delaney has on!!!!

The week before the family photoshoot (we usually do two- one of just the kids, and one of the whole family) was me and Derick's ELEVENTH anniversary, and we just couldn't help doing some goofy shots to capture that.

Six year old stunts

Everyone says-all kids cut their hair. But in November, Gibson was on a cutting kick, not to mention some deranged hate, lashing out, destructo rampage. I think the worst is over, but here is the funny part of the damage inflicted by the scissor-weilding psycho:

His own style....The resulting haircut to clean up his own style....

and for the not so fun moment- the hole gauged in the wall in a fit of who knows what with the same scissors- that really, he has LIMITED access to! Really, I swear!

I'm Leaf-ing!

So for the first day of winter, I thought I might get around to posting about our fall. We always have a TON of leaves, and our next door neighbor always has a Spotless yard, riding his lawnmower to get the pesky suckers at least every other day. We have no riding lawnmower and Derick could careless about the leaves on our or our neighbor's yard- regardless if it kills our grass, because Derick really doesn't care much about that either... so you can guess how mortified I was and how mortified our neighbor's wife was when she called to ask us when we were gonna rake our leaves because her husband was upset because they were blowing onto his lawn.

We kinda hemmed and hawed a bit, but we got to it one Saturday, and guess what? it was the most blustery, windy, close to tornado weather ever. we would rake , pile and shove, and it would blow right back. AND THEN another gust would come up and blow it directly into our neighbor's yard. This went on for HOURS. I was singing "Don Quixote" for about two of those hours because everything we did just seemed so pointless. In these pictures you can actually see the line of demarcation of where our leaves- I mean lawn- stops and theirs starts.

oh, btw- our leaf blower wouldn't EVEN start for us- not like that day it woulda helped anyway against the gale-force winds, and our children were good for about 2 swipes with the special kid rakes I bought them (they were BEGGING to rake with us, pleading, taking the rakes our of our very hands!!!) and were back in the house yelling for drinks, movies and what have you every 10 minutes!!!

Delaney states what she wants for breakfast and Christmas

Delaney is a slave to her brother. Just today he was really pushing her around (physically AND mentally) and he apologized after literally biting a hole in her finger and we had yelled at him, and she throws her arms around him and gives him a huge squeeze- complete with little grunting squeeze sound. So when she strikes out on her own, especially when he is around, it is usually very funny.

The first example comes from a hot-mess breakfast where between Brooke, Delaney and Gibson there were over 7 bowls of cereal in different ranges of eaten-ness because if one kid had a cereal, the other HAD to have it even if they hate it and so on. This also included Brooke insisting on Chocolate milk because it is all Delaney drinks, and Brooke literally doing this little gag every time she forced herself to take a sip, and included all drinks being in baby bottles, because Delaney saw that Brooke used a bottle at night! SO you see how the Monkey-see, Monkey-do thing was in FULL effect! I just couldn't take it anymore- we were wasting food and messing up dishes left and right, not to mention the nourishment the girls were NO getting, so I gave a lecture/speech/impassioned plea for everyone to just choose what they wanted to eat based upon what THEY liked and not what ANYONE else had, and that it is OK to eat what you WANT and not what anyone else wants and could you please tell us what you want to eat so we can move on to the rest of our day?????

Laney boldly and loudly states "I want a cupcake. Mommy, I wanna eat a cupcake. Mommy, I want a cupcake for breakfast."

So yes, she listened and she responded, and she totally got us.

The second was really cute. Our family is happily (HA!) driving to church on a Sunday afternoon. Gibson is on a gimme kick like crazy for Christmas, and I am trying to emphasize GIVING as he told me yet a MILLIONTH thing to add to his Christmas list, so I asked him if he had thought about what to get Delaney for Christmas. He repeats the question, and starts to think (complete with hum-ming and and um-ing) and from the back seat we hear a perfect stage whisper of "Diamond Castle, Gibson" "Barbie Diamond castle" "Gibson- Barbie Diamond Castle"

We CRACKED up. She not only can grasp what we are talking about, she knows when to assert just what SHE wants!!! How helpful!

The above picture of Brooke and Delaney also has a cute story- They took Gibson to the school bus stop and Brooke was SOOOO excited to know someone who was actually going to go ON a school bus. So they were excited to see him getting out of the car to get on the school bus and then get on the school bus. BUT! the doors shut and the bus drove away. AND Gibson was still on it!

Brooke began to panic and sob-"MY GIBSON! NO my GIBSON! Go get him mommy! Go get him back!" and proceeded to be sad for about 10 minutes that he was gone. Guess you gotta be careful what you wish for!!

Aunt Alices c0ncert- sim Shalom w cant0r wh0 is the s0n 0f Hal0caust surviv0rs. Beautiful!

This was really funny whn he rand0mly said it! Ths was a reenactment.

@ nutcracker! S0 cute!

Stuff on my mind.

I have been considering all my stuff. CLUTTER. I am the queen of it. but it is really funny since I proclaim to be such a 2nd hand person, and tree hugger. I don't use plastic bags anymore, have streamlined GIbson's lunches in to all reusable stuff, yet IT still piles up in my house and my life, and My mind. My girlfriend gave me a book about clutter and their answer is throw it out, but I just feel terrible about that and usually send stuff to thrift stores or freecycle or stuff, and then I got a link to this project (click the banner above). It is a 20 minute movie, but can be easily watched a segment at a time and is simple enough for anyone to understand, and it is really cool. so check it out, and see if you start looking at your stuff differently!

She makes families 0ut 0f everything- these are m0mmy daddy n baby breads!

Catching up!

Sorry that I haven't been on here in a while. I wanted to let you guys know that I actually went back and filled in details of several of the mobile posts, especially the race details. I still owe you the last two weeksand they will include, among other stories:

• Delaney states what she wants for breakfast and Christmas
• Leaves won't leave us (or our neighbors )alone
• My opinion on the Twilight movie

AND

• as you have all been waiting for, our latest Christmas/Family pictures from Michelle Wasden Photography!

@ twilight!

Aquarium!

Having a son who is obsessed with all things ocean makes one very aware of aquariums, where ever we travel. We went to Fort Fisher Aquarium and really enjoyed it! I am glad we had planned an indoor activity because it was POURING rain ALL day!

Run and finish!

I asked my hubby and ALi to have Gibson draw an interpretation of what I was doing during the race- so here is his drawing! Every event has a trophy on top to show I won, and of course there is a lobster, angel and angler fish in my swim! I LOVE the big smile and the "action legs" on my run too! Beleive it or not, my bike does look alot like that! I will treasure this ALWAYS!

The run started with TWO big hills, bridges! By the aid station at mile 2, I was feeling pretty good, thanking the volunteers, chatting every once and while with a runner. At mile 5, I called my family again and let them know things were going well. By mile 6, I was having bad lower back cramps. By Mile 8, I was really hurting and thankful for the port-johns at the aid sations. I walked and shuffled for most of miles 8 through 11, and finally, ran for the last 2 miles including the dizzying run over the draw bridge. I crossed feeling victorious and LOVED getting that medal placed on my neck! I checked the time and saw that I was well under my goal!

I looked around, called Ali and Derick and found out they were stuck in traffic and missed the big finish. Later, I found out that my mother in law was wandering around close to when I finished. We finally got all together, I got pizza, got the kiddos hot dogs and fries and then we got stuck in an incredibly long morass of a line for a water taxi. But all and all, it was a great!

70.3 miles. 1.2 swim. 56 bike. 13.1 bike. Just over 7 hours (7 hours, 1 minute, 32 seconds). Malissa is a Half Ironman!

Swim, Bike

(I am adding info to this weeks later!) Here are some photos of the race. The first photo is the training that I did earlier in the week, where the current swept me away and Ali, who was watching to make sure I didn't drown, went berserk thinking I was drowning. She was scream, yelling and swearing at me until I got out of the water! She can be brought to tears weeks later by just mentioning it and made me work out a signalling system in case there was ever distress again!

The day of the race was kinda like a dream fueled on pure adrenaline! I ran to T1 at about 6:30 and took my time setting up and sharing my bike pump and stuff. Then I got to go back to the house and just chill, and about a half hour before start, I leisurely walked over (less than a block away!) with Ali for swim start. It was fun being able to hang with the kiddos and eat and rest and just be still. We could also see the swimmers from the Full Ironman distance from our deck!

Swim start was exhilarating! There were over 450 people, and four waves. It was chilly, and people were all different levels of nerves. One poor girl had obviously just been bawling her eyes out. I was jabbery (big surprise) and excited. After all the blah-blah, they started up the music and it was Eminem's "Lose Yourself" and it was absolutely perfect for the feeling of the race! (so that explains my new ringback tone...) The Swim was much easier than expected because the current worked with you, and helped you bob along. and yes, there were two jellyfish bobbing with me at one point! The thing that frustrated me and made my time slower was sighting- instead of swimming a straight line, I zig-zagged and that costs you.

Finally an emergency boat told me specifically to go toward the middle so the current would help me more. The water was cold, but iIdidn't think about it much until I got out and three women in front of me crumpled. They were wrapped in reflective blankets and walked around to get over the hypothermia! We had help whipping off our wetsuits, and then we had a quarter mile run to transition. Ali was there screaming her head off and taking pictures! it was great to see her, but I wanted to get on that bike!

However, I am not totally thrilled with this picture because I look like a dog with a fire hydrant! 56 miles of smooth sailing! the two drawbridges were strange to go over, but there were very few hills, and YES there were at least three sets of hunters, and two packs of dogs!!! I was very annoyed that I ran over and shredded a water bootle that I HOPE someone dropped on accident, and my personal favorite, someone dropped their hand tire pump that I just flew over. my average speed was 18 miles an hour for the most part and up to 24 at times. I was eating gels, bars and cubes like crazy and lots of water and Heed! Getting off of the bike was strange because someone grabbed my bike, someone grabbed my helmet and they escorted me to the T2!

A long rambling story of Hallo-ween

These pumpkin triathletes were at the Tri-expo and I thought they were adorable! Being out of town with kids on Halloween is difficult. I wanted to give my kiddos a fun holiday, while dealing with my own crazy race-prep stuff and not knowing anyone other than Derick's grandmother who is about a half and hour away.

The afternoon was a frustrating circus of missing several Halloween opportunities that would have been easy and over early. by 6:45, we were lost and driving for over and hour, with hungry kids who kept asking where they were going to be able to Trick-or-Treat.

We were discouraged, and I needed to relax for the race in the morning and we kinda just were ready to give up. In the back of the car, was little Brooke, on a CONTINUOUS loop of "Jesus loves me"- singing it OVER and OVER, and it was making us somewhat maniacal, when I turn onto a weird back street in an industrial park and "boom" there is a little strip mall with a church that is setting up for a trunk or treat. We squeal into the parking lot, blather through an explanation, and they joyfully welcome us to join them.

We still have 15 minutes until they are set up, so we decide to go to Wendy's to get the blood sugar deprived kiddos something to eat. While there we put everyone in their costume and they get the first treats of the night from Wendy's. (They were so cute the customers started giving them coins too!)
I was so anxious by that point because it was getting late, and with the luck we had been having, I was envisioning the trunk or treat closing before we even got there, us not getting home until after ten and me not getting to bed until after midnight. We rush to put the kids in the car and I put Delaney's wings on the roof- and of course forget them. I remember when we are 3 miles away, flip the car around and we search every side road, and parking lot, and even run to a Dollar Store to find a set of fairy wings (none left in stock, of course).

I am furious with myself, I feel helpless and stupid and my kids want to go trick or treating, and Delaney has figured out the wings are gone and demanding them and I am trying to make up something to tell her while trying not to Start Swearing (loud enough to be heard anyway). Brooke is still singing "yes, Jesus loves me" in repetition, and then Gibson, followed by Delaney, start sweetly singing "I am a Child of God", we pull up to the light where we turned around to backtrack, and there on the road were her sweet wings, open and unblemished. I screech to a halt, Ali runs out to get them, and when she gets to the car, both of us are SOBBING and kind of doing this wet babbling prayer half thanking the Lord and apologizing to Him for our lack of faith, anger and frustration while our sweet children truly understood where comfort and answers come from. Ali looked at me and I at her and we cracked up because we felt so humbled, silly and relieved.

We headed to the trunk or treat, where the people we had spoken to before RUSHED to greet us again. the girls just latched on to these sweet young ladies, Amanda and Carla and Gibson was treated like a prince. We were introduced to the pastor and his wife, got TWO cakes in the cake walk, got our faces painted, and as we left, they dumped their leftover candy and prizes into the kiddos bags to the point where Brooke was walking backwards and was literally DRAGGING her bag back to the car. The only "mistake", if you can even call it that, was taking Gib through the haunted house where he was OK, until the chainsaw started and then he kinda lost it. He didn't truly cry, but he sure did talk about it for the next three days, and occasionally brings it up weeks later! No nightmares though.
Ali and I couldn't believe the Christmas-type miracles we actually had on Halloween!

(and if you are a grandparent and are still reading me yammer on...) In other Halloween news, the church Trunk or treat was the week before and our "boys" were Appa and Momo from Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Delaney was still Tinkerbell, but while we were there, we met AZULA from Avatar! Our Friend Krista and her mom, totally ROCKED a costume and she looked DEAD on for her role- so of course I had to take TONS of pictures!!

I also Collaged some of my other favs of the night! (oh, and upon recommendation from my friend, I took detailed pictures on how to make the Momo costume- I'm not gonna blog it, but you can ask for it if you want it!)