Richly Blessed

I have to admit that I am the type of person that can get lost in the details. I have spent so much energy buying, wrapping, checking lists, making menus, cleaning and organizing, decorating, cooking, etc. that I tend to lose perspective on the meaning of the holiday. Silly! I know better, but in the endless pursuit of creating the "perfect" environment for my family to create holiday memories, I deprive my family of me. The fun me is replaced by the stressed and harried me - which is MUCH less fun to spend time with.

This morning I awoke feeling different. The stress is minimal, not because overnight some elves came and took care of my to-do list for me, but it is just less. I have a renewed perspective. Today, I know that making that gingerbread house with Annalise that has been sitting on the counter for weeks is much more important to her than having her stocking stuffers wrapped. Making the holidays more memorable for my family has to do with our relationships and not the quality of my garland and light stringing abilities. I am thankful that I have this new perspective with a week left before Christmas - I will do a better job of giving my family something more meaningful than the fudge that is on my to-do list - I will give them back their mommy and wife (still neurotic and type-A, but much more fun than the task obsessed person I have been).

I know that I am richly blessed. Not because of the nicely wrapped packages under the tree, but because of so many other things that have never had a price tag on them.....a loving husband, precious children, amazing parents, a brother that would do anything for me, a charming sister-in-law on the way, family and friends that support me always, and most of all, a Lord and Savior that loves me always and fills even that darkest moments of my life with joy.

Merry Christmas everyone!




My wonderful husband. He loves me at my best and at my worst. I know I am supported and loved always. Thank you for our life and our beautiful family!



Trevor. The kiddo with a huge heart. And he makes me laugh almost every day. He's funny down to his soul.



Ian. My cuddly, snuggly, lovey boy. He always has a smile and is happy from the top of his birdman hair to the tips of his adorable toes. He melts my heart daily.



My Daddy. Tough as nails and incredibly soft hearted. The best kind of daddy and papa any kid or grandkid could have. He would sacrific anything and everything for us.



Greg and Madonna. Supportive and always available for a laugh. You guys light up a room and our lives.



Zach. Too cool at 16 to say anything mushy about....but, he is a great big brother and for some reason isn't embarrassed of me (not enough to avoid me in public anyway).



Nana. The bionic woman. An endless well of love. There really aren't words to adequately describe her....my angel on earth is as close as I can get.




Annalise. My independent and strong-willed bundle of love. She can make me laugh and cry within a 2-minute period. She introduced me to a new and powerful kind of love. The one person who single-handedly transformed me. She changed my heart into what I always wanted it to be, but could never figure out how to get there.


Enjoy the real blessings in your life this holiday season!
K

Yes, I know........

I dare not attempt to explain my lack of posts.

Just make a note of the fact that I'm writing this at 3:54 am on December 18th. This has been my life. I became soooo consumed in the holidays and the massive amounts of prep, planning, and work that goes into it that I simply missed fall. My very favorite season!!! I'll post pics of the pumpkin patch and jack-o-latern carving and trick or treating that took place.

We have some really fun things planned for the next week and I can't wait to catch you all up and post some pictures!

Love and missed you all!
K

Thankful Thursday - The El Nino (or La Nina.....whichever it really is) edition

I have been eyeball deep in creative ways to get Ian to eat. I can honestly say I had never dreamed of pureeing a buttermilk biscuit with half-n-half, but now I have. And I attempted to feed it to my little monkey. Notice I say attempted. He was having no part of it. However, Ian has developed quite a taste for potato soup and brownies. Score! Plus, this weekend he ate his first hot dog and a slice of birthday cake! Yippee!

While I have been consumed with trying to fill the little man up with calories and move his scale numbers North, you'll never guess what!

Annalise has decided to take a little vacation from food as well!

Over the last three days, I have managed to get her to eat a half of a biscuit with jelly, 4 goldfish crackers, 2 spoonfuls of Dora the Explorer yogurt, one Fudgee Oreo cookie, a half of an apple slice......and last night for dinner, she picked the marshmallows out of some Lucky Charms and ingested a whole whopping six of them. Ian has eaten more than she has over the last 3 days. Why won't my babies eat?!!

The lack of food consumption is so uncharacteristically Ault/Holderness that I am beginning to think I was implanted with someone else's embroy's. Oh wait, different story, I have no frozen embroy's.....only frozen Otter pops.....which neither of my children will eat by the way.

Even though food has been the prominent topic surfing my brain waves this week, I have found several things to be very thankful for.

- I am thankful for the "missing" compact flash card reappearing. I would have been soooooo heartbroken to have never recovered the photo's of our summer.

- I am thankful for getting to see Brad Paisley and Dierks Bentley in concert. They were AWESOME. (As a side note, I am too old to sit general admission at Fiddlers....my body is still aching and I think I may have hammer toes from my toes sliding forward in my shoes on that crazy hill all night!)

- I am thankful for getting to see friends from high school this weekend. It's amazing how much certain relationships don't change with time. We always seem to pick up right where we left off!

- I am thankful that "Hootie" is no longer a "Blowfish". Have you heard Darius Rucker's song "Alright"? It makes me happy from my head to my toes.

- I am so thankful to have finished my continuing education credits to keep my pharmacy license active. This year got away from me quickly and I had to cram it all in the last month. Now I can spend whatever free moments I stumble across blogging rather than reading about disease!

- I am thankful that our bout of nasty weather is heading out today and we have a warm weekend in store for us. I think El Nino (or La Nina, whichever it is) sucks.

Stay warm and have a Thankful Thursday,
Kristen

48 Hours later I can laugh.....but only a little!

I don't particularly care for Mondays. Mondays have never really held much more hardship than any other day of the week, but I think I have been conditioned not to really enjoy them because they have been labeled as the red-headed stepchildren of the week and I fell for the sales pitch. Not that I have anything against red-headed stepchildren, or salesmen either......well, maybe salesmen. My apologies to all of you fine upstanding salesmen out there, but while I was in pharmacy school, I was witness to a rather unfortunate incident between my dear friend Rhonda and a smarmy traveling salesman, whose name I shall not divulge.....okay, okay, it was Roman but that is all you are getting out of me.

Whew, am I the queen of tangents or what?!

This Monday really did stink it up. Ian was the first of the babies to wake. He was super fussy and after using all of the tools in my fussiness arsenal, I let him do one of his favorite things (which happens to be one of my least favorite things to let him do), play with the phone and the remote control. So we are playing on the floor in our bedroom and I hear "Hello. Hello. Is anyone there?" I grab the phone away from Ian and realize that he has hung up on whoever it was that he called. It didn't take long to learn who it was because the phone began ringing in my hand.

Yes, he dialed 911.

And, no, we do not have it preprogrammed on our phone. The little monkey pressed talk and then dialed 9-1-1 and hung up. I explained to the lovely lady on the phone that my 9-month old was playing with the phone and must have dialed her on accident. Remember, at this point I have taken the phone away from Ian so he is screaming his handsome little head off and I'm sure the 911 operator was not feeling warm and fuzzy about me. So we hang up. I can't get Ian calmed back and figure he must be hungry, so I nurse him. While I am half undressed, feeding the finally calmed down baby, I hear the doorbell ring. I was expecting a package from UPS and figured it was them doing what they normally do....drop the package, ring the bell, and leave. So, I don't break away from my nursing duties to get the door. A couple of minutes later, the phone rings again.

Yes, it's the sheriff's department. And in a very stern and direct voice, the lovely lady I talked to earlier says "We have a deputy at the door. Go and open your door." I get myself properly clothed and pick up my once again wailing baby (he hates it when he doesn't get to finish eating on his own terms) and answer the door. The deputy seemed nice enough even though he kept eyeing me like I imagine Aaron Thompson gets eyed by law enforcement these days. He rubbed Ian's head and moved his arms and legs and told me that it was common practice to double check on 911 calls that involve an upset child. After several hours passed (it felt that way anyway) he must have felt comfortable enough to continue to leave screaming little Ian in my care and left. The VERY SECOND I closed the door, Ian stopped crying, raised his sweet little baby arms............and began clapping. With my mommy mental telepathy I could hear him saying "Yay, mommy! What a fun game!"

So, that was how I started my week. Getting a little red flag placed by my name at the Douglas County Sheriff's department.

Today, I can laugh about it.......but just a little.

One of the MANY signs I'm no longer young, hip or quasi-cool!

I was never really a cool kid. I was never really an "outcast" either. I was the kid somewhere in the middle.

As I moved on from high school, I hoped to shed my garb of mediocrity. Truth is, I don't think I did but I really didn't care either. Somehow that stuff matters so much less when you are no longer in high school and your only focus is passing organic chemistry with your psyche and limbs intact.

But, unbeknownst to me, I occasionally have participated in "cool" behavior. I can honestly say that my moments of serendipitous "coolness" are over. Heck, just the fact that I keep saying "cool" is evidence enough.

Let me provide you with a few examples:

- I think it is ridiculous that kids now days say "sick" when they think something is "cool". Much as my parents thought it was ridiculous when we said "bad" when something was "good". Plus, I just said "kids now days".

- My idea of the perfect evening is sitting in a spotless house, laundry finished, burning a caramel biscotti candle, drinking a cup of Ghiradelli hot chocolate, reading a Jodi Picoult novel, while my blissfully well-mannered children play together. Am I a ROCKSTAR or what?!

- The one activity that generated child-like excitement in my adult life was going to the book signing of my favorite author when she came to town on a book tour. I bought tickets 6 weeks in advance and showed up an hour early just to get a seat in the bookstore. My emotions had a flashback to age 15, standing and screaming in front of the stage at Fiddler's Green with my friend Tracey Flecksteiner at the New Kids On The Block concert.

- I understand only 10% of the lyrics our kids listen too. Most of the time the 10% I understand is enough to make me change the station and lecture them on how their choice in music is a barometer of their character.

- Until recently, I thought Twitter was a newfangled dirty word that the young generation added to our lexicon....much like "snogging".

- Rather than using my computer time to read Perez Hilton or People online, I scour the net for new recipes.

- When an opportunity to go shopping arises, I never come home with shoes or clothes. I come home with books, cooking utensils, and stuff for the kids. I'd rather visit Dean & Deluca than Nordstrom every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

So, you get my point. I'm not even remotely cool.

The newest occurrence to remind me of this fact is the overwhelming excitement and tummy butterflies I experienced when I learned that my favorite blogger, cooking maven, and kindred spirit is publishing a cookbook and will be at the Tattered Cover bookstore downtown in November.

Her name is Ree Drummond. She is commonly known as "The Pioneer Woman". She is my idol and I'm sure we'd be best friends if given the opportunity. Kindred Dweebs. Meeting her will be a brush with fame for me. Here is the link to her blog and a peek at the cover of her cookbook. Check it out, you won't be sorry. The Pioneer Woman



You can meet lovely Ree at the Tattered Cover bookstore in Denver. 2526 E. Colfax. November 2nd at 7:30 pm.

Be there or be square. Or if you're square be there. Whichever applies to you.

Is Baby Garlic Breath Really A Bad Thing?

I love garlic. I'm Italian, therefore I am required by the laws of genetics to exalt my undying adoration for the glorious little white bulb of deliciousness from the highest mountain tops.

However, garlic breath is not a pleasant scent anyway you slice it.



Our little Ian is a very picky eater. Without getting into too many gorey details, the little guy refuses to drink out of a bottle or sippy cup (I'm afraid that I may be nursing him until he heads off to kindergarten), he really dislikes store-bought baby food (he will occasionally eat apricots or peaches if he is famished) so I puree fresh fruits for him, and anything other than fruit is strictly off limits unless I'm up for contending with baby dry (and sometimes not so dry) heaves.

So imagine our surprise on Saturday night when he picked up a big garlicky breadstick at Pasquini's and began gnawing away. He was in a foul mood when we got to the restaurant, but with each additional gnaw his frown began to turn upside down. Yes, I am envisioning the kangaroo jumping on the frown and turning it into the smiley "U" in the Toys R Us commercials - circa 1983.

Ian has struggled with some serious teething issues the past few weeks, and smiles have been few and far between. Nothing we did really seemed to improve his mood.

We took him to "Create Playdate" at the Denver Art Museum and let him play with crayons and feathers and this is the face we got:



So we moved on to the blocks....



But oh the magic of a garlicky breadstick......



And tah-dah........smiles!!



See my teeth - it feels sooooo goooood on my teeth!



After dinner, I picked up my happy bouncing baby boy and smothered him in mommy kisses. It was very strange to get a strong whiff of garlic coming from that sweet baby mouth that usually smells like....well, baby's breath. It's kind of like biting into a piece of chocolate and rather than tasting chocolate you taste black olives (I've done that more than once).

But the question I pose is this: Is Baby Garlic breath really that bad if it brings a smile to the face of my sweet little teether?

In this case, I chose to go with the wisdom of the great philosopher Sheryl Crow - "If it makes you happy, it can't be that bad."

Thankful Thursday - The Teething Continues

It's been another tough week in the Ault household. Poor little Ian is really struggling with the teething ordeal. He is getting a bunch of teeth all at the same time and he is just miserable. He wants to be loved and snuggled all day long, which is very sweet, but it makes it incredibly difficult to get anything else accomplished. I literally cannot put him down or he bucks, flails around and lets out the most blood curdling scream you have ever heard......and he simply will not stop unless I pick him up and walk him around (me and no one else).....which still doesn't work a good portion of the time. The poor little man honestly has been screaming for almost 6 of the 12 hours he is awake on most days, and probably 7 hours today. After 2 solid weeks of this I'm in a bit of a funk. It's amazing how rotten you feel when there is nothing you can do to alleviate discomfort for your baby, and I'm positive it is no picnic for him either.

I'm out of ideas on what to do to help him. I've done frozen washcloths, popsicles, Tylenol, teething rings, and this new fancy teething pacifier that was given to me in the nursery at church on Sunday, but nada tostada, nothing seems to help. I'm in unchartered territory here because Annalise didn't have these issues with teething. She had a bad day here and there, but not this constant curse of new (and very slow to erupt) teeth. So again, this is my plea for some teething advice if anyone out there has some.


Ian is begging for your pearls of wisdom.




His mommy is failing miserably and he needs your assistance.






So here I sit at my computer late on Thursday night fully aware that the last post I made was last week for Thankful Thursday. I had huge aspirations for this week and lots of great stories to tell....I'll keep my fingers crossed for next week. I was going to add a great story tonight about David Del Dotto, but I'm simply too exhausted. So I'll get on that sometime other than right now because I am ready to do a face-plant onto my keyboard.

This week my Thankful Thursday points are:

- I'm thankful that teething is not a continual process like growing hair or nails!!

- I'm thankful that Jay Leno is back on the air next week.....yahoo! I have missed him so.

- I'm thankful that Annalise has made some little friends and for the afternoon we enjoyed at the Art Museum with them on Wednesday. Check out Create Playdates at the Denver Art Museum if you have little ones younger than 5. They are so much fun, and FREE!

- I'm thankful that the weather is cooling off. I got to wear a sweatshirt this week.....and most importantly, I ditched my flip-flops for socks and tennis shoes and can stop being embarrassed of the wrecked, old and chipped pedicure that I'm sporting......bleck.

- I'm thankful that the boys are getting into the groove of school and really seem to be enjoying it. Zach is loving baseball and the new found freedom of having a car and Trev is totally engrossed in marching band and the friends that he has made within that group.

- I'm thankful for the preacher at our church. He is really good at challenging people to be much better than they are, and he's not afraid to tell you to buck up and live like you are really thankful for what Jesus has done for you. I won't speak for anyone else, but I need to hear that more often than I would like to admit.

- I'm thankful for Starbucks Caramel Apple Cider. They are simply amazing. I started drinking them when I was pregnant and REALLY wanted coffee but REALLY wanted to avoid the caffeine. This is the perfect time of year to have one. Try it, it'll change your life.

- I'm thankful for the super comfy bed that is just a few short steps away from me....man am I spent.


Goodnight all and happy Thankful Thursday,
Kristen