Valentine Schmalentines

I apologize for not posting every day like I promised. I haven't been in a very good place lately. I don't know if it's winter depression, or maybe some leftover, residual post partum depression or what, but I've been down and out and just blah about everything. The motivation has been sucked out of me like a vacuum and all I really want to do is pull the covers over my head and sleep (which can't and wont happen because I have a hyperactive ten month old who is now taking steps on his own).

So, it wasn't really any big surprise that I would be blah about this year's Valentines Day as well.  Not that I was ever really all that excited over it. I'll admit, I'm not very romantic. In fact I'm pretty dude-like in many aspects. If you absolutely must have an example, I just finished clipping my toenails on the couch and then I stuffed my face with nachos (after going on a taco binge earlier today). The sexiness is just radiating out of me today so ladies hide yo men!

Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy for those of you who have cheesy, romantic, flower filled, gushy Hallmark card holidays. Everyone should feel loved and appreciated, and just because I'm having a woe is me, poopy flavored lollipop of a year, doesn't mean that everyone should suffer (although I hope you all choke on your chocolates....KIDDING.....I choked on a Mexican pizza many years ago at Los Dos Amigos and it was pretty damn terrifying). 

My husband isn't much better. If it were up to him holidays wouldn't even exist at all.  Yes, it's true, he was super duper romantic on our first Valentine's Day, but let's just say that over the years it's just sort of become another day for us on the calendar.  Last night we had to run to Safeway so while we were out we grabbed a box of chocolates that were on clearance and then upgraded our coffee purchases to include travel mugs (they were offering them for half off).

Happy Valentine's Day honey, here's some discounted chocolates and a plastic coffee cup

I may sound bitter, but I swear, I'm really not at all. I'm terrible with flowers. TERRIBLE! I'm like the Black Dahlia of the gardening world where all living plants come to die a slow, torturous death (luckily I'm better with children, right?) And I don't wear jewelry, other than my wedding ring and my plain silver hoop earrings that I bought at Target for five bucks many (many) years ago. Romantic trips are out too because, well, do I even need to say it? We have four young kids still living at home.  

There is one teeny tiny little thing that I wish my husband would do that doesn't even cost any money, and I've hinted at it so many times that I've honestly just given up at this point. And that's okay. I know there are several things on his list that I've neglected, despite him nagging at me, so we're even, and that my friends is marriage. It's a compromise, and there are lots of good days and bad days, and many in between, just okay days. He shows his love in many other ways, as he's an amazing father and provider (hello, the poor man works his tail off so his wife can stay home with their 10,000 kids) and he does lots of little things for me that I probably take for granted and don't even recognize half the time. For example, sometimes he'll pick up little items for me on his lunch break, like a new pair of shoes, a pair of pj's, a dessert he knows I like, etc. He grabs our favorite vegan chicken strips at Trader Joes which we consume late at night after the kids are in bed, sometimes even with wine! Bonus! 

I don't need a dozen roses or a fancy box of chocolates to know that he loves me and is committed to our family. In fact, tonight we're actually celebrating V-Day as a family, which we've also done in previous years, and those are always my favorite Valentine memories to be perfectly honest. The kids will only be with us for so many years and once they're gone we'll have many years of intimate dinners and weekend getaways.  So for now it's quick trips to Safeway for discounted chocolates and plastic coffee cups. But hey, for dinner we're having cheese fondue (I make the best cheese fondue by the way), along with some chocolate fondue for dessert.

I hope that all of you have a wonderful, amazing, love filled Valentine's Day.  And if you're not having a wonderful, magical V-Day, let me leave you with this little fun filled image.....once I finish posting this, I will be heading back to my bathroom to continue scraping the stuck on, sticky icky Amoxicillin which spilled out all over my drawer, ruining what little make up I owned (it's a sign that I should never wear make up), with a butter knife. 

You're welcome.

A Vegetarian Thanksgiving

Ah glorious Thanksgiving.  A day of food, family, football and tofu? Yeah, you guessed it. We're vegetarians, and let me tell you, nothing makes a person more uncomfortable than a vegetarian on Thanksgiving.  Some assume we don't celebrate the holiday at all, as if we're some strange hippie cult that hide out in our VW vans, eating tofu straight off the block, or we're holding signs of slaughtered turkeys and protesting in front of Foster Farms or something.  Well, never fear, I'm here to break those stereotypes and set the record straight.  Our holiday experiences are much like yours, they just happen to be meat free.

I still have to make a massive trip to the store and spend a small fortune on a meal that I will slave over for hours, while my family devours in two minutes and then begins to whine over wanting pumpkin pie.  Our Thanksgiving meal is pretty traditional and consists of mashed potatoes, green beans, corn, Hawaiian rolls, stuffing (homemade so I can use vegetable broth), deviled eggs and our vegetarian roast.  In some ways we actually have it worse than non vegetarians because turkey substitutes cost a lot of money and they are teeny tiny. Apparently the people who make these substitutes assume we have the appetite of a toddler because I had to buy two separate roasts this year for a whopping $30 at Whole Foods. Most grocery stores offer deep discounts on turkeys or hams during the holiday, some even offering them for free if you spend a certain amount. Not only do I spend the same amount as non vegetarians, but there are rarely ever any deals for vegetarian roasts, and the only way you're getting a free roast is if you're hauling one out of the store in your coat pocket and I do not recommend that as Thanksgiving in jail would not be much fun (or maybe it would be depending on your family....who am I to judge?)

Our turkey replacements...not too scary, right?

 

The holiday roast before it went in the oven...

this one is my favorite

Every other year we host Thanksgiving dinner for my husband's sister's family, but this year it was just us so that meant I could relax and breathe a little easier as I didn't have to worry about getting dinner out by a certain time, blowing up air mattresses or cleaning toilets for company. Instead I woke up, drank my coffee (thank you Starbucks for being open), watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade with the kids and then got the distinct pleasure of listening to my husband scream at the television while his favorite football team lost. Thank you Redskins for ruining my holiday experience, you bastards! Of course I had to make an impromptu trip to the store because I was unaware that my kids ate all of the eggs last week and my twelve year old started pitching a fit over Thanksgiving being ruined if we didn't have deviled eggs, which is totally ironic since she scoops the tops off of them anyways and only eats the egg whites.  Nothing says Happy Thanksgiving like standing in an express line with nine hundred thousand other people who also forgot something.

The boys watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade this year 

because they wanted to see the Diary of a Wimpy Kid float

 My husband watching the Redskins...

or more like yelling at the Redskins

 

Safeway selfie...

one simply cannot go holiday shopping and not forget something

The best part of my Thanksgiving was cooking the entire meal by myself. Yes, I could've made my kids help, and I probably should have, but that would've included blood, sweat and tears and the kids wouldn't of been very well behaved either.  I wasn't exactly up for my kids arguing over who got to dump the milk into the mashed potatoes. Instead I kicked everyone out of my kitchen and got to work, threatening anyone who dared to cross into my threshold. The only one who got a free pass was our eight month old, Seanie Mac, because every so often he'd wander in on his baby walker and run over my foot, but he's a baby so I didn't mind so much. The other kids, along with my husband got the "If you come into my kitchen one more time, I'm sneezing on the pies."

By the time I got everything out onto the table, dished up the kids' plates and sat down, I realized that I wasn't hungry at all because I had already eaten an entire meal while cooking.  Of course that didn't stop me from stuffing my face like the little piggy that could and then waddling back to my bedroom while I held my muffin top and moaned in agony.  I had just enough time to pop some Tums before the kids started coming into my bedroom one by one while they whined, "Mooooom, when are we going to eat the pies?"

 Me trying to get a good pic of the kids before dessert...

 this is exactly why we don't do professional pics!!

Despite having a good day with my loving family, I have to say my favorite part of Thanksgiving would be breaking out the wine after the kids finally passed out from their imitation turkey comas.  After all, wine is made from grapes and grapes are fruit, therefore wine is totally vegetarian you know.

We drink our wine in martini glasses because we're classy like that....or more like all of our wine glasses got broken and you gotta do what you gotta do (classier than drinking them out of Spongebob mugs...no we've never done that...okay yes we have)

On a serious note, I did want to thank everyone again for all of the love and support you've given our family. We are still sorting through mail (I think we're almost done), and we will be putting a video/slideshow together as a way to show our appreciation.  The outpouring of support still humbles me and brings me to tears. I'm not just saying that either. I literally tear up every single time I help Mahlon open and read his birthday cards.

Thank you again from the bottom of our hearts! I seriously wish we could send an individual thank you to each and every one of you, but we had absolutely no idea we were going to receive the amount of mail and packages we did. We literally received tens of thousands of cards and letters from all over the world! Mahlon will be keeping some of the gifts, but the rest will be going to a local charity (we will be including this in our video footage), as there is no possible way we can keep it all. Plus, part of what makes Mahlon so special is his kind and generous heart and he really wants to spread the love so I hope that those who sent gifts will feel comfort in knowing their generous gifts are going to make a child happy this Christmas (ack, and I'm crying again). He is opening every single letter, card, and package, so even those items he isn't keeping, he has been so excited to get to open up the boxes and envelopes to see what's inside, so we deeply appreciate every single thing that has been received.

O Christmas Tree

After two days of what can only be explained as pure holiday family hell, we finally got our Christmas tree up.

Isn't it glorious?  

You might be wondering why it's not decorated.  Well sit back and let me tell you.  Because it wouldn't be Christmas in the Peanut household without a little blood, sweat, and tears (and cussing).  

We were supposed to get our Christmas tree on Tuesday.  However, my husband came home from work acting more like Bill Murray from Scrooged, rather than his usual bubbly, sunshiney self (insert sarcasm here if you must).  My 13 year old daughter suddenly decided to act like Satan, and it was just one of those really crappified days where nothing goes as planned. The hubby ended up resigning himself to the bedroom, the kids went to bed, and I raided the pantry (damn Depo shot that makes me stuff my face like the little piggy that could). 

So yesterday was a new day and we were hell bent on getting that stupid tree.  The hubby and I left the house after dinner and headed a few miles down the road towards the store.  We buy a real tree, but we aren't hardcore or anything and don't go trekking out into the woods to find our tree like the Griswold's.  Our family out in the wilderness equals a very BAD idea.  We'd be that family that got lost and ended up trapped in our minivan for 7 days surviving on leftover french fries under the seat.  See there is a benefit to never cleaning out your car! 

Anyways, we arrived at Fred Meyer. You Pacific North-Westerner's know what I'm talking about. As for the rest of you? You don't have a Freddy's so does it really matter?  Anyways, we walked up and down aisles and aisles of trees.  There was a gigantic looking spider hanging from a web that almost made my hubby cancel the whole damn thing, but luckily after some deep cleansing breaths, he survived.  I've mentioned before that my hubby is picky. PICKY! So he made me hold up every flipping tree up as he examined it from all angles.  When we finally found the tree he asked me to hold it while he ran inside to pay for it.   So i'm standing there holding up this sappy tree, when a few men came up to me and were asking me questions in a heavy accent that I didn't understand at all.  I felt like a horrible bitch but I kept saying, "What? I'm sorry I don't understand."  One man had out his camera and I swear he was saying something about taking my picture. I'm not sure if it was me or the tree he wanted.  Maybe some men are heavily into tree porn?  At any rate I shook my head no and eventually they left.   

We managed to get the tree home without any problems.  We naively thought that everything was finally slipping into place.  That is until we tried to put the tree into the tree stand.   The tree stand was plastic (and a giant piece of shit) and apparently the bolts had stripped away which really pissed off the hubby considering we had just bought it last year so it was literally used once.   I held that damn tree up for over an hour while the hubby was underneath the tree, cussing and bitching.  Let me tell you holding up a tree isn't fun.  I had sap in my eye and I'm pretty sure that a baby spider made a nest on top of my head.   After 90+ minutes of fun, our tree looked more like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.  I made the fatal error of saying, "Look babe.  This tree stand calls itself the two minute tree stand". Which in my defense it really did.  On the sticker label it read, "The two minute Christmas tree stand."  Shortly after my comment, the hubby made some kind of animalistic, primal scream and I knew he had reached his breaking point.  The tree had won, and by this point it was almost 10 pm so the kids had all passed out on the couch.  

He grabbed the tree stand and his coat and without a word he headed out the door.  He was gone for almost an hour.  I knew he was taking that tree stand back to Fred Meyer as that's where we bought it last year.   I watched the clock and crossed my fingers that he didn't get arrested at Freddy's for having a post tree-standing mental breakdown at the customer service desk, but lo and behold he returned with a new tree stand in his arms.  The same brand of tree stand, but never the less a new tree stand.   So, we went through the whole process again and stood the tree up.  It actually looked straight for once and we both got a little excited.  The hubby's whole demeanor started to change and I could feel the old hubby coming back to me.  All of a sudden there was a loud POP!  I heard the hubby scream, "NOOOOOOO".  The damn thing had stripped again!  My immediate thought was, "Mother of GOD we are just not going to have a tree this year and I'm going to have to draw one on the walls."   Luckily, even with a stripped nail, the tree is still standing and despite it being a tad crooked, it's going to have to work.   Tonight we are going to attempt to decorate the tree.  I'm holding my breath and anticipating some type of tragic hook accident with blood spurting out of one of the children's noses, and a $250 co-pay to the ER.