I like to bake.

I’m pretty good at it.

I’ve posted a few recipes here and there, but I am certainly not a foodie or food blogger.

However…with the weather outside turning frightful I’ve turned to making things delightful in the kitchen and I’ve seriously enjoyed it. The series is sponsored by Pillsbury and I am grateful for the posts getting me back to baking. I forgot how much I enjoy it (and my family forgot how good I am at it.) Not to mention it was a perfect excuse to make some of the things I had found on Pinterest.

Here’s a few things I’ve made so far…(you can click through to get recipes and instructions, mostly from Vivi.)

Chocolate Vanilla Zebra Cake

Apple Pie with Cinnamon Roll Crust and Crumb Topping

Pumpkin Pudding Pie and Apple Pie (with a super fancy top!)

Peppermint Marshmallow Chocolate Chip Sugar Cookies

I put the same topping that is on the cookies on top of brownies on Saturday.

The only problem is I need to get to know more of my neighbors so we don’t end up eating all this stuff ourselves.

Does one really need a tablet? I begged and begged for one as a birthday/mother’s day/ push present (seeing as they were all within two weeks of each other I didn’t feel bad asking) and when Cody actually obliged? I suddenly felt guilty. I really only wanted the thing to play Angry Birds bigger than what my phone was capable of allowing. I had him return it and never looked back.

So when the opportunity came up with Verizon to review the Motorola Xoom tablet I figured it was my chance to see what I had missed out on by passing up on my other tablet.

Turns out? I still really only use the thing to play Angry Birds (IT’S SO BIG AND HD!) I occasionally take it out with me when I know I’m going to need something more substantial than a phone.

BUT.

You know who uses the thing DAILY for a dozen different things? Cody, the sports nut lawyer.

Since it isn’t an iOS he can use it to check into work remotely. He takes it to board meetings to play sudoku track minutes, keep track of schedules and contacts. He takes it to church every Sunday to organize his lessons in Evernote and schedule for the week. At the end of the day? He sits on the couch and keeps up with a dozen different NFL and college football games with a bevy of sports related apps and live updating/streaming sports things with a lot of red and black and ESPN *DU DU DU* (That’s the SportsCenter theme, are you familiar?) He also tweets like a crazy man from it (All sports stuff. Very boring, I understand none of it.)

I still stand firm that a tablet is worth it for Angry Birds alone.

Die cheeky pigs, DIE.

A special thanks to Verizon for providing me with a Motorola Xoom Tablet and 4GLTE service to facilitate my review and world pig domination.

 

There are times when I am absolutely exhausted just from looking at you. You are capable of going a hundred and seventeen miles per hour for eleven hours straight and I just don’t know how to keep up with that. You are way too smart for your own good and you have your dad’s courtroom arguing and logic skills. You are capable of asking more questions within the first five minutes of you walking in the door than I would be capable of asking everyone I know in a single day.

It’s really hard to be your mom right now.

Not because you’re naughty or a bad kid, because you’re certainly not. It’s because you’re developing into this person, capable of asking really hard questions and expecting really in depth answers. You’re straddling this phase between make believe and making sense of everything around you. You still believe in Santa but you also know the Santas in the mall are fake.

I was talking about you with Vivi the other day (Vivi is an incredibly good listener) and I came to the conclusion that maybe you’ve just seen too much to be amazed by much of anything anymore. We’ve had the opportunity to do things that I never got to do as a kid. I have a feeling I could take you to the Great Salt Lake and you’d say “Forget the biggest salt water lake, let’s go to Africa to see Lake Malawi, there’s species of fish in that lake that don’t exist anywhere else in the world.”

Your birthday last year was possibly the hardest day I have ever had as your mom. I was on the cusp of my own nervous breakdown and you were on a birthday power trip that was mostly my fault. Birthdays are an enormous deal to me and I always want you to feel special on yours, but for some reason the system broke down last year and we both ended the night in tears.

I love that in your mind nothing is impossible, everything is attainable and the world is one giant place to ask questions about. I have faith that you are learning things that are going to serve you well throughout your entire life. You are an incredibly good person. Kind hearted, empathetic and optimistic. I never want to squelch that. Having this baby and these two cats around has only proved that your capacity to love is endless.

I sometimes feel as though you are a better big sister than I am a mom. Vivi doesn’t need peace and quiet, she lives for the moment you walk through the door and run around squealing like a feral animal. Her life is going to be so blessed because she has you as a big sister. I’d like to think that the six uninterrupted years we spent together are what helped mold you into the spectacular big sister you are today.

I’m never going to stop trying to amaze you. My mom took me places and showed me things I never would have seen otherwise and I am eternally grateful for that. I can only imagine that after driving for hours to get us to Mt. Rushmore and finally being able to show us those four presidents carved from a mountainside my sister and I took one look at it and said “What’s next?”

It was worth it mom. Everything you did and showed us was worth it. I remember all of it. The Church in Sedona, picking out rocks at the Crazy Horse Monument, being highly disappointed there were no dead horses at Dead Horse Point, being equally disappointed there was no water at the Grand Canyon, finding sand dollars in Washington, that enormous museum in British Columbia, Lombard Street in San Francisco, the hikes in Arches, the drive around the White Rim…I treasure everything you took us to see on your own and hope that someday Addie will appreciate everything I try to do for her, especially when the only reaction I get now is “I’m thirsty.”

Nothing Christmas-y is allowed in my house until the day after Thanksgiving, there isn’t any huge great reason behind this aside from the fact that I feel bad that Thanksgiving gets the cold shoulder each year. Thanksgiving always gives us 4 day weekends. Christmas is on Sunday this year which means, well, nothing.

The Christmas season officially starts when we’re all headed out the door on the Friday after Thanksgiving to the Hallmark store to pick out our annual ornaments. This tradition started many, many years ago when we received an “Our First Christmas Together” ornament in 2001 from our neighbors (who just happened to be one of my ex boyfriend’s parents. Small world right?) We added a new ornament every year, one that meant something to us, a highlight of the previous year.

I bought John Elway for Cody our first year together and our same neighbors gave us Addie’s first Hallmark ornament when I came home from the hospital with her (December 16th, 2004.) As soon as Addie was able to pick out her own ornaments our tree slowly turned pink with ballgowns and ruffles. This year she chose Blair from Barbie Charm School as her ornament.

Last year Cody and I chose The Corpse Bride ornament, there’s a long story behind this one and it’s very sentimental to me…but you probably wouldn’t get it. No offense, just know that in 2010 we celebrated Christmas by hanging a dead chick playing a coffin piano on our tree.

When it came time to pick our our ornament this year none really seemed to fit, which was a first. Cody then pointed up and said “There’s that guy.” By that guy he meant Carl.

Perhaps you’re all aware with my litmus test for the human race, if not, I judge all people I come across by how they feel during the first 15 minutes of the movie ‘Up.’ So when I saw Carl with his hand around Russel as he proudly shows off his Ellie badge, I knew I had found our ornament. I got weepy in the store and I’m getting weepy now.

Best movie ever.

Vivi ended up with the requisite “Baby’s First Christmas” ornament which I promptly filled with a picture of her.

(Confession, Addie’s “Baby’s First Christmas” ornament didn’t actually have a picture of her in it until last year.)

Our tree also holds ornaments that Addie has made, ornaments my daddy has made, ornaments Cody and I made when we were kids and ones we have collected here and there in our travels. We even have Agent P on our tree.

I could never have a “themed” tree. The ones that are all one color with no flair. I love pulling out each ornament the weekend after Thanksgiving and talking about each one with Addie, feeling the flood of emotions that come back with certain ones. John Elway is always hung up first and my dad’s are always the last. It’s an ornament free for all between the two.

When I wrote about my dad’s etsy shop I never could have imagined how many of you would add the ornaments he made in his shop to your tree. That they are *your* ornament for 2011. That your kids will be able to hang them on their own tree someday when they are grown and married. It means a lot to me and even more to my dad. For those of you who ordered them, added his shop to your favorites or even just clicked over there? Thank you for supporting my dad. And thank you from him, you blew him away with your kindness.

Do you have an ornament tradition? What’s your favorite on your tree? (My all time favorite on mine is a glass star painted like Santa. I have no idea why I love it so much, I just do.)

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DISCLOSURE: A special thanks to Hallmark for sponsoring this post as part of their “Life is a Special Occasion” campaign. While I wasn’t asked to write about ornaments specifically, they are so much a part of our life I can’t not write about them. All ornaments were purchased by me. Keepsake ornaments are available for purchase in store and online if you wanted to start a little tradition of your own.

 

Well, not shopping for a smart phone, but shop with a smart phone, as in shop smartly with a smart phone.

It has been a two months since owning my first smart phone (and two months since I documented said life step with taking a picture of baby barf on my shirt)

I hate to admit it but I don’t really remember what life was like without one.

Just like I don’t remember having to do school reports with encyclopedias or actually having to call stores to find out if they had something in stock (kiss kiss Internet, kiss kiss)

So without further adieu, the three times my Droid Bionic with Verizon 4GLTE service saved my holiday sanity.

1) Cody wanted a really fancy face shaver for Christmas. Buying a really fancy face shaver for a man is like a man buying really fancy beauty products for a woman. He said the one he wanted was $300 and that it had the best reviews. So when I was at Costco I saw what I thought was the one he wanted for $180. I used the Barcode Scanner app to find out that, yes, it is in fact $300 in other stores and yes, it really is all it’s cracked up to be based on reviews on google. Face shaver? Check. (I also gave it to him early, because why keep giving yourself razor burn when there’s a really nice shaver you could be using. One reason I’m horrible with surprises.)

2) Addie asked Santa for a Password Journal. We call this the Santa fake out. She gives us a list of stuff she wants and then she hops up on Santa’s lap and tells him something ENTIRELY DIFFERENT. I learned the hard way last year. I googled ‘password journal’ before Addie had even received her candy cane and found that yes, it is really a thing and bonus! IT’S THE HOT TOY OF 2011 GOOD LUCK FINDING ONE. You know it’s bad when they’re $20 more on Amazon than they’re supposed to be. I set out to find the password journal in the store only to get laughed at in the first two stores. It’s as if I had asked for a gold plated pony “Good luck lady.” is all I heard. At the third store I was told that maybe another store had them, I looked up the other store, called them and found out that YES! they have them! Within three minutes I had a beat on a password journal and turn by turn directions to the store that contained it. (I was even able to tweet ‘SUCCESS!’ after I had the thing in possession.)

See also: Addie is not allowed to ask for “The hot toy of 20–” ever again.

3) Amazon had black Friday deals that went live every 15 minutes. I had my eye on several Blu-Ray discs for Cody, normally $30, on sale for $5. Of course I couldn’t tell him “Sorry I can’t go to the store with you, I have to buy you a deeply discounted DVD you’ve wanted forever in 3…2…” That would have really ruined the surprise. So thanks to my phone I was able to buy two DVDs with one click  each while out and about running errands without Cody even KNOWING.

My old phone certainly couldn’t do that.

Disclosure: Thanks to Verizon wireless for providing me with a Motoroloa Droid Bionic with 4GLTE service to facilitate my review experience.

Does anything go faster?

I think not.