Letters to St. Nicholas…check

Tree Trimmed….check

House lit up like the airport…check (as of 12/21)

Trip to the dentist 3 days before Christmas….check (what were we thinking?)

Presents Wrapped…check

Stockings hung by the Chimney with care…check

Cookies baked with Candy Cane Hershey’s Kisses on top…check (try them – and thank me later)

3 boys nestled all snug in their beds….that’s going to be a tough one

Merry Christmas everyone

“So Joseph set out from the town of Nazareth in Galilee for Judaea, to David’s town called Bethlehem, since he was of David’s House and line, in order to be registered together with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.  Now it happened that, while they were there, the time came for her to have her child, and she gave birth to a son, her first-born. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the living-space.”  - Luke 2:4-7

The Elf….visits us too.  My laziness these days in capturing his daily visits are inexcusable.

Today however, I had to share this.

He is a tricky little dude and keeps the twins on their toes!

In addition to hanging their unmentionables from the fireplace in lue of their stockings the other day to remind them to pick up their laundry he visited last night with a bit of mischief….This is what the twins woke up to:

I’m not sure if kids will ever really work to keep their rooms clean.  I’m sure my Mom can attest to that.  She took a few photos when I was a teen (embarrassing!) to prove that you actually could not see the carpet on the floor.  I guess the boys lack of room cleaning skills don’t fall far from the tree.  Sorry Mom, paybacks though…are in full effect.

The message was delivered and received:  beds are made, laundry is picked up and there is nothing to trip over on the floor….at least until Christmas day when Freedy is no long around to report to the big boss whether they are on the naughty or nice list.

You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout I’m telling you why….

These are the days when I don’t feel like blogging….

The days when Harry is out of the country, and I end up in the emergency room with a little one for a possible concussion. (he is fine)

The days when I have to e-mail one of the twins teachers because his conduct is really, really out of line for several days in a row.

The days when the boys admit they are lazy and have no interest in picking up their gazillion toys and would rather trip over them and wait for me to pick them up for them.  Then 5 minutes later tell me what they would like for Christmas.

The days when I’m sweating because in November it is still in the high 80′s in Houston, Texas.

The days when you don’t think you can add one more thing to your to-do list and your husband asks for the impossible.

The days when 2nd grade homework is annoying to you too.

The days when your own family members ask more out of you than you possibly have the time or the heart to help with but you feel guilty about it anyway.

*Then I remember a friend telling me to blog anyway.  Because reality is that this is my place to read in the future.  To look back and realize that maybe these days were blessings instead of the stressful days they actually felt like.

I reflect on a phone call from another wonderful friend who seems to have all the right answers for me when at that moment the baby and one of the twins are fighting one minute…then reading books together the next.

Tonight while making dinner and feeling out of control over everything; I am standing at my kitchen sink pealing potatoes for a stew I’m making.  The wind blows in through the open window and completely surrounds me and all of a sudden like a hug from nowhere, I know that it is going to all work out, this is just another day in the life.

Today I am thankful for many, many things but most especially the small moments in front of my own kitchen sink.

(this beautiful picture is from BHG.com)

Last month I attended my first silent retreat.  It was an amazing two days of silencing out the world and only talking with God.  As a mental refresher as to who I am and what my purpose in life is…I can not recommend a better reset button.  It was based on the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola.  You can read about it or sign up to attend one for yourself here I highly recommend it.

One of the many things that I got out of the weekend was the idea that my life is a gift from God, what I do with it is my gift back to him.  That is where one of my many constant prayers since the retreat of temperance at my meals has come into play.  Nourishing myself not indulging at every meal or snacking through out the day so that I live a healthy life.  I gave up anything with wheat and anything with any kind of sugar, until Christmas.

Sounds simple enough?  It is.  I even dropped 10 lbs since then.

98% of all the meals we eat are created in the Grilliot household.  We do not eat out, especially after the shocking discovery of how much we spent eating at restaurants this past summer.  So much of that money could have been saved or spent to buy better food to prepare for the guys around here.  It is better for us and with all the kids allgeries we would never know the side effects of what we were feeding them: for example fries cooked in peanut oil send Jonah’s skin into a horrible outbreak of eczema.  It continued to get worse so we considered digging deeper into what we were actually eating.

Last night the twins and I watched Food Inc.
Food Inc

If you haven’t seen this movie….you gotta watch it.

Without naming any company names to get myself in trouble, Logan went to the freezer and realized we had (what we thought were good products) stocked in three different large economy size bags.  My 7 year old, told me he refused to ever eat that again and wanted me to throw it all out.

Out of the mouths of babes…

Today we headed to our local Whole Foods Market.

Now not knowing exactly what brands were legit (organic is an effective marketing tool), I did a little research before our trip and we found some great answers on KidsOrganics

Kids Organics website has a list of the 17 most important foods to eat organic surprisingly it is not that tough to find what you need

However looking for grass-fed stew meat was a bit of a challenge…today.  Next week they will have some, so we just modify our menu for now.

and although I did not bring one of these organic ladies home I did select one from the deli which was much cheaper.

and my helpful boys were even being sweet to each other!

We stopped for lunch…and the boys found fresh brick oven pizza to their liking…

So here are a couple products that I picked up to try out….

Organic Milk…ofcourse.  And for my Canadian curious friends, this was only $5, not your countries $11!!!

Cascadian Farm products were recommend by the website.  They have lots to choose from

Comparing apples to apples.  The one one the right is a Honey Crisp, the one on the left is a Red Delicious…that I bought yesterday.  The difference is easy to see in the quality.

Treats for my non-milk eating little one…I did taste this.  It is AMAZING!

Have you heard of Truwhip?  The label says it all…oh and it’s milk free too!

For my breakfast when I don’t have time to whip up an organic egg…Acai Berry smoothie packs.  You mix one of these pouches with an organic banana, a little milk and ice.  Easy peasy.  The folks at Sambazon know how to care for small farmers in the rain forests.  At least more than big meat packing plants in the states can do.

And as a special indulgence for myself…Kiss My Face has some of the best natural and awesome smelling products for the skin.  I knew about them over 20 years ago.  They are still around and this Woodland Pine and Ginseng bath soap is just one of the many new products they keep coming out with.

So give a thought or two about giving your family and yourself the best.

So much to say about saying nothing at all.

This is the last of my vacation pictures post as is the most relevant to me.  I love photography and all aspects of it, but I am drawn to portraits of people.  They haunt me in a deep way, capturing a moment in time that we will never get back again.  It is how we learn about each other and get to know who we were then.  The photos open up a porthole of the person and story behind them, I am intrigued

It is important to me to get to know my family .  The only way I know to do this is to talk to them, ask questions, dig deeper.  That doesn’t sit will with some people I realize.  Perhaps it is looked at as me prying into something they believe is none of my business, I’m not sure, those people don’t speak to me anyway.  Conversing opens up the heart, the mind and sole.  It is a journey of discovering who we are, drawing us closer to one another.

I asked my dad for some photos I knew he had of my Grandparents for my birthday to add to my photo wall, which kick started my quest to search for images on Harry’s side of the family as well.

This is my Grandpa working at Memphis Light and Gas, he worked there most of his life.

I was eighteen when he passed away.  He was the only grandparent I knew, to this day I feel like I hardly knew him.

Years followed, and I lost two brothers, an uncle and my nephew Brian.

It is important for me to know as much about the people I love so I can pass that on to my children.  It is how we valadate their lives by remembering them, I can’t do this if I don’t truly know them.

Do you know the story of how your parents met?  When they started dating? Became engaged?

It’s a good story, go ask them.

So here are a few of the treasures I scanned while I was visiting my in-laws.  These are worth more to me than some will ever understand.

Harry’s Mom..so, so beautiful

Harry’s Dad while serving in Vietnam

Right after they were married.  I love this image

Their life, love and marriage of 38 years is such a treasure to me.  In addition to the mystery of their four boys.  It is a gift that will be passed down to my children and someday hopefully theirs.

just a little excitement here

Logan at his desk..

and Isaac, he was very worried about being organized with all his supplies

after drop off Harry and I took J-man to breakfast.  He was still tired and not up for having his picture taken..

and as a Grilliot tradition we had our after school milk and cookies a little extra special for the first day of school.

Along with a couple new books including a knock, knock joke book that Isaac can’t put down.

Knock, Knock

Who’s there

Oink, Oink

Oink, Oink, Who?

Are you a pig or an owl?

So after a few days hanging out with the family the kids were ready to tackle Grandma and Grandpa and torture Uncle Punk on their own.  Harry and I headed for the hills…

…in the form of Purple Mountains Majesty. And majestic they were

It was a whopping 70 degrees when we arrived, and it was a welcome relief from our southern heat

We stayed at Pikes Peak Paradise Bed and Breakfast in Woodland Park, CO.  This was the view from the front door..

This house was amazing and the view was speculator.  Nestled among trees, completely secluded in an amazing aroma of nature.  I wish I could bottle that along with the cooler weather and take it home with me.

The weather changed every afternoon and the mountain would be engulfed into the clouds completely disappearing.  It was like God was constantly changing the image, so beautiful.

Our awesome host (who I failed to get a picture of) has completely updated the house in his four years of ownership.  In addition to being a gracious host he is an amazing cook, tour guide, decorator and artist.  We loved every minute of our stay.

The altitude here is around 9,000 ft – for our Canadian friends the TOP of Sulfur Mountain (Banff Gondola Destination) is 8,000 ft

So we headed out on our adventure that day to climb to the top of Pikes Peak…by car of course.  Before you read on you have to promise not to divulge to a certain rental car agency.  Below is a video we filmed on the way up – running commentary was not PG-13!

Jeff Zwart – Pikes Peak Hill Climb 2011 In-Car from Will Roegge on Vimeo.

we made it all the way to the top….almost.    Three miles from the very top was literally in the clouds.  I was not a fan of driving along the edge of the mountain with ZERO visibility so we flipped a u-ey (about the 10:20 point in the video) and headed back down

We hiked for a bit, until that sky fell on us.  I wasn’t willing to sacrifice my camera getting wet for the sake of “roughing it”..

So we headed to the half way point to let our brakes cool off and check out the gift shop.  (Nerd Alert! They actually make you stop and use an IR temp scanner, you can’t continue if the front rotor is over 300 deg)

We really need to start photographing these more.  Everywhere we go, there we are sitting right next to each other on a shelf…I wonder if some married couple named Jeff and Jennifer or Gail and Gary notice these dorky things like I do.

Probably not.

Does anyone know the name of these weeds?  They were enormous.  You know if you have to be a weed, you might as well be the largest and ugliest one you can.

The aspen trees are so beautiful.  I can only imagine what fall looks like here

The next day we headed to Seven Falls to climb a bucket load of stairs and check out the waterfalls in Colorado Springs, CO

It was much less peaceful watching Harry trying to climb the rock…

At the top we found a little cave to crawl into…

The climb up was nothing compared to the climb down…

Our climbing role models

So once back safely on the ground we headed to Manitou Springs to walk the streets..

Yes this tree is wearing a sweater..must have been a Texas native tree

iPhone 5 coming soon

Remember the movie BIG starring Tom Hanks?

So after a great mini-break and visiting Harry’s Aunt we headed back to the farm.

We did stop to smell the sunflowers…well they don’t actually smell, they were ready to go to sleep for the night but we managed to capture a few shots anyway

I hate my hair here I just wanted to show the scale of these massive flowers

And for those of you not priviledged to drive around the mid-west, here are just a couple images of what you see on the roads…this is just one blade for the windmills that generate energy.

We were about 20 miles from the farm here, the wind was picking up and the sky was looking ugly.  I was convinced those were funnel clouds…

And finally the road to the farm…or as the twins call it, their neighborhood.