Tag: video

A Griswold Christmas

If you’ve been following the saga of my christmas tree on Facebook, these will be familiar to you. To sum up, we weren’t supposed to be here at Christmas so all of our Christmas items are in storage. No tree, no decorations, no big deal. Last year I think I stacked a few presents on our coffee table and that was as decorative as we got.

HOWEVER, when our neighbors moved out this summer they had a Christmas tree that they used while they were here and they didn’t need to take it with them (since they’d be getting all their regular Christmas decorations out of storage) so they gifted it to us. It’s been sitting in the storage closet under our stairs — until yesterday.

Thanksgiving came and went and it was time to get in the Christmas spirit, but I wasn’t feeling it. Since the boys didn’t even know we had a tree here, I didn’t need to bother getting it out, right? Um, not according to my Facebook friends. After a long “discussion,” and lots of decorating suggestions, I caved and got out the 7.5 foot naked monstrosity.

The first tier of 3. The stand was a pain to put together (as Charlynn warned), but Carter and I managed to get the tree up with only a little bit of lean for Josh to fix when he got home. Later that night Josh and I went out and after our dinner/coffee date, we picked up a few of the ugliest ornaments we could find.  
This plastic/metal disc is “decoratively” blackened and tarnished. 

This is supposed to be Santa — with a green crown and a green nose . . .
The sparkly plastic mushroom is my favorite. Our friends who lived in the middle east for several years said part of the fun of Christmas overseas is seeing what sort of decorations non-Westerners create in an attempt to copy a western Christmas. I have to say that I’ve never associated fungi with our Lord’s birth before today. 

We also picked up some super obnoxious lights that flash and play christmas songs in a shrill, shrieky tone and intermittently get louder and softer and occasionally even yowls like a dying cat. 

So I’ll say it publicly, you all were right and I was wrong. Less than 24 hours in and the tree has already paid for itself in fun. Today we got out the glitter, glue, and construction paper and made a few ornaments. I have a few other alternative ornament ideas up my sleeve that we may try in the next few days and I’m planning a trip to LuLu’s to see if I can find any other funny ornaments. I’m really hoping for some lost in translation version of “Merry Christmas.” 

flying high

I was going through old drafts on my blog, looking for Turkey stuff when I found this. I think I was originally going to do a post about our flight/trip to Oman, but it got lost in all the chaos of landing in country and finding our way around.

I forgot how quiet those lemons kept her — I wonder if I need to pack some for our trip to Jordan in a few weeks?

Proud Mama

“You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have: The Facts of Life. The Facts of Life.” That song is stuck in my head right now (unfortunately taking up valuable brain space) because I often have “funny” stories about Carter related to school — not wanting to read or take tests, his homework frustrations, his non-love of academics, but today I have a fabulous Carter school story.

Two days ago Carter came home and said that his class was hosting an assembly and his teacher had picked him and another boy from his class for speaking parts. I was sure I misunderstood him because a child who just two months ago refused to read out loud if his brothers were in the room wouldn’t possibly be willing to read out loud in front of the entire 4th grade. “Not the 4th grade mom. The whole elementary school!” Say what now?

Sure enough. Today I got to go watch the child I feared would never read, read into a microphone to about 500 people.

The purpose of the assembly was to remind everyone to take care of the toys and playground equipment during recess. Since the 4th grade was hosting the assembly they brainstormed and came up with the points that they thought should be brought up during the assembly: take turns, use the slide properly, always bring a water bottle and hat, wait for the recess monitor before getting toys out of the bins, be careful on the swings, etc.

Then a staff member filmed them while they demonstrated these points on the playground, interviewed each other, etc. The format of the assembly was a news broadcast and Carter and his friend were to be the news anchormen who would introduce the video.

A full house: the bleachers were completely filled with kids from preschool through 5th grade


right before going onstage


the main event


Carter on the big screen (he said being in the video was the most embarrassing part).

He did a great job and I’m so proud of him. I was also really happy that he invited me to watch him perform. It felt like I was watching a miracle in action . . .

sandstorm part 2

A friend posted this much better video of the sandstorm we had the other day. I don’t know who filmed it, but he (based on the voices in the background) did a great job capturing it as it rolled into town. It also shows how it was a normal day and then at the end when the storm reaches the location where they are filming, everything goes dark, just like it did at our house.

We’re back from camping. It was fun, but cold. Yes, actually cold. We went up, up, up the mountain and while it was 90 at home, it was 60 up there — in the daytime. At night it got down into the 40s (possibly lower, I wasn’t going to go outside of the tent to check) so we were huddled in our sleeping bags trying to stay warm. I was happy I brought my Uggs.

Camping photos and video coming soon!