All three

All three kids sat on Santa's lap this year. 

But one might be too big next year. In fact, maybe she was this year?

Eli blessed everyone with his "singing" (yelling) of Go tell it on the Mountain, followed by Twinkle Twinkle, then ABC's.

We saw many many of our friends and family this year, which was an awesome gift. 

Aaaand, our kids were spoiled this year with gifts from all their loving grandparents, aunts and uncles, especially from Florida, and not to forget the big guy Santa, who managed to bring Sophie BOTH the dinosaur bone she requested: a frill bone from a triceratops dug up as a fossil in South Dakota AND a bag of foreign currency from all over the world. Sophie looked at me and said, "This just couldn't be from you, Mom!" And I said seriously, "No, it couldn't." Because it wasn't. Don't you love the spirit of Christmas? And the magic of Facebook? The love of co-workers who have moms who just love kids and Christmas that much?

Santa rocks.

People rock.

God's people rock.

Our church celebrated Christmas in amazing ways, both simple and extraordinary. Christ coming to Earth for us when we needed him most. You just never get too old for that.

The Lib of Con

What a gift...to venture out by myself, sans the three smalls that normally accompany me to even the bathroom stall. I packed and boarded and flew to D.C. to visit my dear friend Tara who so graciously suggested and then made happen this awesomeness that became MEL'S TRIP TO D.C. 2012!!!!

Tara: "You're 30....I'm 34.....what do you say?"

Me: Silence. "Seriously?"

Me: "What?!!!!"

Me: "This is going to be the best trip everrrr!!!! Ahhhhh!!!!!"

And it was so great. It was so great to be a person, outside of the mom that I always am. And this is not a bash against motherhood, because motherhood is the greatest thing I do. It IS who I am right now. But stepping outside of that for a few days, as a reminder of who you are as a person, that you exist beyond that...well, I suppose five minutes of that would suffice too. It was perfect. An opportunity to experience art and architecture and good food and Mt. Dew enjoyed with a friend who also enjoys a daily Dew just many miles away? Priceless.

Tara is a lifelong friend. She will just always be. Unless I do something terrible, which something tells me she is the type of person who'd still be a great friend, visiting me in jail or something, but anyway, Tara is great. So seeing D.C. with her was phenomenal. Here's the lowdown: (even if you don't care, I'll get to remember this later if I put it here, see?)

• Eastern Market: Tara described: Like Farmer's Market but with cool craft's/wares. She got her yellow hat there, I got my great gloves there. It was amazing. 
• Cheesetique:  http://cheesetique.com/  Now this was the perfect place for a dairy deprived mama to eat. No worries about food allergies for me on this trip. Sooo, we shared some grown-up grilled cheese, tomato soup, and broccoli cheese mac, cheesecake, and nutella panini. WHOA. I gained a pound just thinking about it right now. 
• Library of Congress: This was my favorite place we went. Nerdy, right? The architecture here was so amazing, it is beyond words and beyond what my iPhone can achieve to recreate. But it tried. Here you go. 

Giant marble staircase down to tree

Best Christmas tree in town!

Up to the gallery-no photos allowed after that

Up to the gallery is the main attraction, the actual library. This is the place that you see on the movie National Treasure. They actually have conveyor belts that carry books between buildings. You can't check out books from this library, but if you can prove your are special enough, which Kurt and Tara have done (STUDS), then you can research in the library. It is this massive domed room, surrounded by pillars of knowledge, with statues of great men that have come before us and laid the groundwork for all humankind in these areas. The area just stinks of awe and greatness and you can hardly breathe looking into the gallery because it is so outstanding. So, you should just go see it.

The ceiling in the atrium was breathtaking!

Tara/Mel-Google Maps a Starbucks

So then, I visited the gift shop where I bought my kids action adventure books titled things like, "Mystery at the U.S. Treasury" and "The Secret of The Washington Monument". They totally ATE THEM UP! Booyah. Especially the one who asked for foreign currency from Santa this year.

Well, we will talk the rest of the city another day. Until then, the Lib of Con is a must see in D.C. Just do it!

Extreme Holiday

We just got back from an epic Thanksgiving celebration. It was complete with family I haven't seen in forever that drove in from far away (Aunt DebbieDebbie) and with family from near that I don't see nearly enough. It gave us time with my beautiful Grandma Betty (GG) as she is called by the littles, who hosted this gig in the big room in her apartment building. It included a get together of all of our little tiny people running around all red faced and sugared up and laughing hysterically and NO, you cannot have more dessert. 

But I love my family most because after that was said and done, were they done? Nope. We had Black Friday to celebrate. 

The girls in our family normally head out for some early morning shopping and that's not the Black Friday deal I'm talking about. This year, Black Friday consisted of black cherry pretzel dessert, black forest ham (not just any old ham..but a special pig selected by Shawn, cured, smoked, and prepared all by Shawn=BEST HAM I'VE EVER TASTED BLACK FOREST HAM), black bean salsa with black tortilla chips, blackberry pie........mwahahhahahaha! Who is having fun yet? We are! Word games too. Lots of them. Scrabble. Upwords. And Wii.

Sigh....

I love my family. They are so much fun. 

And shopping this year was the funniest it's ever been too. Lianna is ssssuper pregnant right now so we toned it down a little bit: 

Me: "Um, I don't know. You probably need your sleep. So, should we just go out like at 5?"

Lianna: "Sure."

2:30 a.m.....Lianna texts Mel: "I have to pee and I'm hungry. Want to go shopping?"

Me: "My air mattress is completely flat and my hips might be broken, but if I can walk, yeah sure."

There were no lines, no mean people, nada. I don't know where they get those news stories, but it isn't where we go I guess. Lucky us. We did see these two sisters, probably in their 50's wearing giant reindeer antlers. We both looked at each other and mouthed in unison, "NEXT YEAR!"

We walked to Java House with our kids in a wagon. We had a birthday party for Lenora. 

We had SO MUCH FUN. 

Thanks to God for the family we were given. Thanks to the Cornally's for hosting and theme-ing and scheming the living daylights out of this holiday. 

Since we love extreme holidays, we thought we'd get together next weekend at Powers' for the all day long annual Christmas Movie Marathon! 

Happy Holidays.........Let's DO this!