My Sister's Surplus of Make-Up

Surplus  [sur-pluhs, -pluhs]  –noun

1. something that remains above what is used or needed.

2. an amount, quantity, etc., greater than needed.

This is not a farce.  Everything in this tote and including the tote is my baby sister's SURPLUS of make-up!  I even forgot to put in one container of eye-shadow AND the extra powder before I shot the picture, not to mention that there are things underneath what you can see from this topical view, such as more eye-shadow, more mascara, hair-ties, and hair-pins. 

The day after Christmas I was helping her organize some things, and in payment of such service (which was not expected) she de-junked her make-up bag and gave me the extras that she no longer needed.  I will never forget the way Taylor's jaw dropped and eyes widened as he walked by vacuuming and watching her hand me piece after piece of this wonderful treasure. (Let me put this in perspective for you:  she threw away at least half as much as what she gave me, and she kept at least as much if not more than what she gave me.  Never in my life did I imagine that someone would own so much make-up for their own personal use, especially since the amount of make-up I previously owned was maybe about 1/3 as much as she gave me.)  And I am still AMAZED!

She didn't even need to give me a Christmas present this year,

because my new make-up tote will last me MORE THAN A YEAR!

(probably 2 or 3 years) 

Thanks, Jode!  I love you!

Killing Venus Fly Traps...

It's been an interesting day to say the least.  We started out by finding the 17 year old cat we've been caring for took her final rest on our back porch.  We saw Santa, but it took an hour and a half of standing in line, and this afternoon when the neighbor kids left to go home, Tyson got bored & found some spray paint that my very talented husband (who is also making gifts for Christmas) just happened to leave out barely in the reach of our curious and imaginative little Tyson.  When I smelt the aroma of spray paint I RAN outside and this is what I found:

The explanation:  "I had to kill the Venus Fly Traps!"  Only my sweet Tyson would come up with something like that--it's a perfect mixture of 2 of his favorite things:  Planet Earth movies and his own little imaginative, yet "logical" world..  For your viewing pleasure is his demonstration of how a Venus Fly Trap moves.

TRADITION!!! TRA - DI - SHUN!

 Tradition means that the pecking order is still alive and well.......

uh......but in reverse order with the youngest three of our family. 

 Tradition means that come "heck or high-water" you still go because you'll have a cruddy day if you don't...even when it means ditching your extremely ill husband on the couch at home. (Let's give a shout out to Mitch for surviving the flu AND strep while we played in the snow...we left at 6 am and returned at 5pm and he was IN THE SAME PLACE WE'D LEFT HIM.  Quit reading this it makes us look bad, but in our defense, no one knew how sick he was until later.)

 Tradition means that all you have to do is say,

"This is our first annual ______"

and you've got something worth keeping.

 Tradition is repeating your son's comments because he's the funniest person on the planet: 

"Let's make a snow-tomato!"

Tradition means that even though I have 500+ pictures of family on 4-wheelers at the beginning OR end of their Christmas tree hunt, that I take another one just to make sure we capture an "original" kind of moment.  (Surely this picture is slightly different than the other 499 similarly posed photos from previous years.) 

Tradition means that ON SITE you chat about what you're going to name your picture folder this year so that you don't accidentally delete all the photos from "Christmas Tree Hunting" last year.  Should it be Christmas Trees 2010, or 2010 Christmas Trees?

Tradition is 3 generations discovering the LOVE in kicking off the Christmas season the right way:  in the woods, with your family, marching through mud or snow, traipsing through the forest, snowballing grandma's car, having vehicles getting stuck in the snow, bailing others out, hunting for hours to find the PERFECT tree, remembering the trees of Christmas' Past, having freezing fingers, building a fire, eating Thanksgiving left overs, and loving every second. 

This is our TRA-DI-SHUN!!!

Baby Squawk Squawk

We hit a few fun milestones this week with E.J., who has been lovingly nicknamed "Baby Squawk Squawk" by his big brother.  It's so hilarious to me that Tyson made it up and endearingly says it with a squawking tone...I'm pretty sure this nickname is going to stick around a while.  Besides getting a new nickname Emmett has...

1. ...started folding his arms on his own for prayers.  On Monday he saw us praying over dinner and quit playing with the food on his tray, brought his little hands up by his chin and held still for the prayer.  He does it every time, now.  Grandpa T says that he winked at Emmett last week during a prayer and that he understood he was supposed to close his eyes so he covered his little eyes with his own hands.  SO PRECIOUS!
2. Emmett has a favorite book, now.  It happens to be The Napping House.  We read it over and over and over, and he carries it around the house sometimes.  Luckily this favorite book of his is in a board book format, which Tyson has also termed as a book with "fake pages."  Whenever the boys try to read books and look at the pictures Tyson makes sure that Baby Squawk Squawk gets the ones with fake pages and that the books with real pages are safely in his own hands.
3. Yesterday, Emmett brought me a box of muffin mix and wanted me to open it--he thought that because there was a picture of muffins on the front that I would open the package and he would eat it.  Instead he got to help me mix up the muffins.  He had so much fun and wants to help me stir each time I cook now.  He grinned and said cheese on purpose for this picture documenting the first food he made.  SO CUTE!