The Harwick Hubabaloo

7 Days and Counting!

I cannot believe Christmas is looming!

I remember as a child being so excited the minute December 1st rolled around and counting down the days on the advent calendar until Christmas Eve! Unfortunately, as I have gotten older and have my own children a lot of that magic is gone... replaced by "to do" lists a mile long, frustrating shopping trips, frenzied decorating and financial stress. This year I decided to actually "do" something about my lack luster Christmas feelings:

1. We toned down the gift buying.. the girls are getting older and have asked for more expensive things which means fewer things! - yay! I am hoping this will help quell the toy explosion in the "toy room"

2. I finished the bulk of my Christmas shopping before Thanksgiving! I did venture out on Black Friday, but only for "filler" gifts and I let the angry shoppers get to the stuff first figuring if I didn't get the $5.00 Barbie Holly's Christmas would probaly still be merry!

3. I enrolled in Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas Class, courtesy my Mom; an early Christmas gift. I have gotten a prompt each day in my email box. The topics are quite thought provoking and have brought back many happy Christmas memories.. including the one of my favorite Tweetie bird ornament!  

4. I began have concentrated on doing things that I remember being exciting during the holidays... a big one being... BAKING! - I love to bake. Many of you may not know that I used to be an ice cream addict.. I ate my way to 70lbs of love handles while PG with Hannah.. yummm.. my ice cream affair continued through the birth of Hailey and into my PG with Holly... and then... it hit a rough patch! Holly was apparently allergic to dairy.. everytime I ate ice cream or ate/drank dairy products and then nurse she would be miserable and gassy and vomit for hours. So, I broke up with ice cream and began an affair with COOKIES! (in my next life I am going to be a baker!)

My favorite is chocolate chip (with a nice cold glass of milk) I am always on the lookout for new and better chocolate chip recipes (share if you have one you think could knock my socks off!). I found THIS recipe on a blog I like to read (she does lots of fun stuff!) 

   

These cookies are AWESOME! (you might can tell be the pitiful amount left in the container!). They are small and firm up outside but are chewy inside! yum! - the secret is lots of brown sugar (and no white)..

I also made these:

 

They are light and flaky and the icing inside is YUM! I also used the same cookies and spread Nutella in the middle! Talk about YUMMY! - it is making my mouth water!

Then I remembered that Christmas with Aaron cannot be Christmas without fudge (his Mom came to see us the Christmas that Hannah was born and made yummy fudge .. I always remember that being a special Christmas b/c Hannah was born on the 20th so there is the connection)

I cut a bunch up smaller and am planning on giving it to some of the ladies at school. I also want to make a batch with nuts! - and maybe a dark chocolate variety too...

We always make decorated sugar cookies with Grandma Candy (Santa likes these the best apparently) but I saw these cute Santa's on Jennifer's Blog and I couldn't resist! Mine are not near as cute and the girls are mad about the coconut because they say it is gross!

   

I still have to make Peanut Butter blossoms (I made these for Aaron on our first Christmas together - he traveled home to his Mom's - so I made those for him for his drive after he revealed he loved them!) but I have officially made the bulk of the cookies I am going to this year and that makes me happy! - definately feeling the magic more this year than last!

I haven't been very crafty lately. The mojo is low.. way low.. but I did make a button tree for a co-worker and I am working on a red/white/green thing for us. I hope she likes it. It is always difficult to give handmade gifts because you just don't know how they will be received and appreciated!

 

I also don't think I shared my December layouts for Simply Obsessed. The kit featured Crate Paper and is just beautiful! It was perfect for the ball photos and the girls' school photos.

 

 

 

Guess that's it for now! I hope you all are out making your own Christmas magic and not stressing about the "little" things!

xoxo

Throw out the Turkey Carcass and Bring on the Christmas Tree!

I had planned on coming back with another update before this one, but once again, my Rockstar life got in the way! Now, the tukey leftovers in my fridge are barely cold and it is December ALREADY!

Since my last post:

Grandma Candy came and went

Aaron and I went to the Graduation Ball (lots of good stories there!

Aaron became an official Instrument Rated Apache pilot

Aaron finished the bathroom!

We ate turkey

Grandma Patti came and went

I finally saw "Twilight"! (first movie we have seen in a theater since "Cars" with the kids in 2006!)

The elf on the Shelf (Scout) came to stay with us

and

Hannah had her Christmas program at school!

phew... I am tired even writing it all down!

I know you are all dying to hear all about all of it so, should I start at the top or bottom? hmmm.. how about the bottom?

The 2nd Grade Class at Hannah's school was in charge of the Christmas PTO performance this year. They did a really cute skit about Santa picking the best star for the top of the Christmas tree.. then Santa got stuck in a cloud and one star saved the day.. wonder which star went on top of the tree? (if you don't know then you aren't as smart as I thought you were!) .

Here are a couple pictures of the performance..

 

 

Meet "Scout" -

 

Scout, meet the blog readers! -

There was a mysterious ring at our doorbell on Thanksgiving day. The kids were very excited to go to the door and find a box addressed to "The Harwick Kids". Upon opening the box this is what they found; a felt elf and a book called "Elf on the Shelf". If you have kids, you need an elf of your own! (go here to find one locally or order it:  Elf on the Shelf ). 

Scout is an elf who watches your children during the day and then leaves at night to go report to Santa. He sees you when your good and he sees you when your bad! As you can imagine, Hannah has been plotting Scout's death since he arrived. She claims that he will NOT get away with telling on her. Hailey, who is naturally pretty good has been giving Scout her Christmas wishlist and Holly is very excited to see where he shows up each morning! Brody obviously doesn't understand because he continues to be naughty despite Scout's watchful eye! 

Here was Scout's first hiding place in our home:

   

"Twilight"... ahhh... where to begin?

I tore through the 4 book series this past summer in a week. I could not put the books down.. such  a sweet love story about two "people" who shouldn't be together but make it anyways! - and mysterious and dangerous vampires.. action... the whole nine yards! I was excited to see the movie trailer and really wanted to go see the movie... but knew that I would probably wait until it came out on video because it is NOT easy to find a babysitter who wants to watch 4 kids!

Well, Grandma Patti decided to come to town for Thanksgiving, so we cornered her!  She agreed to watch the tribe while Aaron and I went. Aaron hadn't read the books and I think he was expecting more vampire "action", but he still enjoyed them movie. I left wanting more.. more Edward, more Bella, more vampire! LOL! - I started rereading the book yesterday to get my fix!

We spent a quiet Thanksgiving here at home. We usually take in Aaron's stray friends, but they all had places to go this year, so there we sat with our 19lbs turkey and all the fixins! It was delicious.

Here is Brody enjoying some mashed potatos and Holly in her turkey hat:

 

I have been trying to teach the girls about the meaning behind the holidays we so love to celebrate (besides candy, foods and gifts). This year I found a very cute Thanksgiving story book you can color and a diorama set on EdHelper. Hannah, the crafty one, went full force on this project. When she was finished she read and acted out the story for all of us! It was a definate success. 

  

The bathroom, looking pretty bad last time I showed it to you all.. but now, it is DONE! Here is a picture - minus the moldings and shoe trim... and the shower curtain and all that jazz which I will show you all later). It is nice to have my bathroom back! (and let them kids tear this one down!)

 

Graduation! (breathing a sigh of relief!)

This is been the longest, most relationship straining 2 years of our life! It was harder than any Iraq deployment and more grueling for the both of us!

First of all, we left an idyllic life in San Diego to come here, to the armpit of America, where they gave us a God-awful house on post that was 1100sq ft! There is NOTHING to do here in the armpit... so we stayed cooped up in the house quite a bit... which was frustrating.. Then Aaron broke his foot and was put on hold for about 6 months. Then he left for 6 weeks to go to Warrant Officer school... and after that.... for the next year and a half....

Aaron woke up early, went to bed early, studied every night like he had never studied before, flew "in the bag" with an inner ear infection, endured hard-ass instructor pilot criticism and passed a multitude of tests and check rides... meanwhile...

I woke up early, went to bed late, fixed lunches, gave baths, chauffered kids, made dinners, helped with homework, went to work, wipes butts all the while hating Aaron for days on end for not having time or energy to help... but we made it!

Here is my pilot husband graduating and getting his wings:

 

 

oh and the ball, last but not least, I have to tell you all about the (not) funny thing that happened on the way at the ball... I am only telling this story as a public service announcement to fashion conscious people everywhere.. because, truly, it is mortifying, but VERY funny too!

So, we get dressed up, take pictures (which I will show you in a moment) and head out to the ball....We get to there and  they are having cocktail hour.. we talked with people, got our pictures taken (like the Prom! LOL!) and I had a glass of wine. (this may not be shocking to many of you who knew me through high school, college and grad school, but for those of you who know that I rarely dring anything these days, that will be a vital piece of information as I progress with my story)... Then...
I had to go to the bathroom..(insert ominious music here).

I will preface this by saying that when I decided to purchase the cheaper of the two dresses I liked at Dillards I was aware of the cheap zipper in the dress I was buying... I was aware that it wouldn't probably last forever, but I only needed to wear the dress ONE night.. so I chose the cheaper dress..

I entered the bathroom along with a bunch of other ladies in a froth of finery... I walked in the stall, closed the door and I carefully pulled my dress up.. hovered over the potty.. did my business and then I started to feel a little unsteady on my feet... I stood up too quickly, jerking the dress down at which point the zipper started to seperate about mid back! (I did have a short shrug type jacket that went with the dress).. PANIC!!!

What to do? I peek out of the stall and see the coast is clear and then  jumped into the handicap stall, take the dress off and try to fix the zipper.. it won't move up or down to marry the sides back together!!! I was very flustered! So I keep trying, then I put the dress back on.. peak out the door and see this very PG woman and ask her if she can find Aaron.. she trys to help fix the zipper too with no luck.. she gets Aaron and I am like "I need to get OUT of here!".. he gets me a jacket and I scurry out of the bathroom and lobby with lots of interesting stares..

Idrove home.. Mom feels badly and assures me she can fix it.. which we cannot.. but she ends up pinning/sewing me back into the dress and I returned to the ball triumphantly! LOL! - Still pretty embarrassing to tell people what happened! ugh!

We ended up having a good time even though I was scared to practically breathe for fear of the safety pins popping!

After the ball we went out with a group of Aaron's friends.. it was overall a fun night! (minus the wardrobe snafu!)

So, moral of the story? Never sacrifice fashion to save a buck!!! LMAO! b/c you will suffer the consequences!

And here are some pictures: