Spoiled

Well, my brother Frank gave me a good tongue lashing about this gift, but I think the kids really loved it, and now I have my phone back!  I bought all the "older" kids their own I Pad touches, so they now can play their own games, and listen to their own music, and hopefully will have them a long time before they lose them, have them stolen, break them or they become obsolete!  (The I Pod not the kids)  I love my family, and am glad I can do things for them like this!  It makes me feel good!  So I think I spoil myself more than I spoil my kids and grandkids!

Holy Cow!

 My kids updated our Christmas in their blogs, and had much better photos than I got.  Needless to say, we had a WONDERFUL celebration together.  We ate, drank, sang, and gave wonderful gifts to each other.  I received some of the most wonderful and thoughtful gifts!  The Bests gave me a system to store my collection of DVD's.  I am rather embarrassed to say how many I have.  They gave me a system to hold 200 DVD's.  I decided best to separate by genre, and then go alphabetical.  I got up to the P's in Dramas.....that is 200!

 Here are my DVD's that didn't get stored.....Comedy's, Musical's, TV shows, and Documentaries.  This does not include my children's collection.....I know, I know, this is really embarrassing.  Knowing only my kids (and maybe my brother) read my blog, and this would not come as a surprise to them, I was not too ashamed to post this!

 The Adair's got me a speaker for my I phone so I can listen to music in my room.  I have wanted this for a long time!  It is awesome!  It is also an alarm clock, and now I can see the time without turning on my TV or looking at my phone!  WOW!

My mother managed to really surprise me!  Since I took her shopping for my own gift.  She bought me the most beautiful pearl necklace and bracelet!  I have never had anything so elegant!  She was so worried I would not like it, because she wanted to buy me something I would not buy myself!  Well she certainly did, and I LOVE IT!  I feel so blessed!  Merry Christmas EVERYBODY!

Ridiculous

This is ridiculous!  I don't even have everything wrapped yet!  And this is just my stuff!  When we add the Best Family and Adair Family presents on Christmas Eve, along with the presents my brother and his wife will bring.....we will be opening gifts all weekend!  Our family tradition is we open one gift at a time from youngest to oldest, so everyone can see what everyone else got and you get a chance to properly thank the gift giver.  When you have 15 people opening gifts and there is this many to open.....well you get the picture!  I really need to learn to scale back Christmas I think.

Manhunt - The 12 Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer

If you are a history buff, you will LOVE this book.  It is fascinating and easy to read.  It is amazing how much luck is involved in the commission and solving of crime.  I thought I had good knowledge of the facts surrounding the assignation of Lincoln and the people involved, but I was wrong!  I will say that this does pretty much close the book on the involvement of Dr. Samuel Mudd....of your name is Mudd fame....was he or was he not just an innocent in the wrong place at the wrong time who innocently set the broken leg of Booth, helping him allude the authorities....well I won't give away the answer, but it was not what I expected.  I will say that I hope, and believe, what happened to the conspirators then would not happen today.  It is interesting to think how history would be different had this horrible event not happened.  It seems that the death of Lincoln brought the North and South together in a way they probably would not have done otherwise, and as difficult as the reconstruction period was, the South hated Lincoln so much that they may have never accepted being part of the Union again.  However his death was so shocking, and he immediately became a martyr and idolized, that killing him did exactly the opposite of what Booth desired. Instead of rallying the South to continue the fight, it seems to have taken the fight out the the South.  Even if you are not a history buff, I think you will probably find this book interesting.  Good reading!  Highly recommended!

Zilker Park Christmas Performance

I was hoping to get lots of beautiful photos and maybe a video.....but my phone decided to be extremely weird, and was not working properly, so I could not capture the beauty of the Rising Stars.  I have to say I could not be prouder....All of the dancers looked awesome and did a wonderful job,  but in particular Abigail shined!  She is such a beautiful dancer, reminds me so much of her mother.  Mike and I were relegated to corralling the boys, and keeping Addison from jumping on stage to show off her dancing skills.  Needless to say, Mike and I worked hard!  I am very proud of Sarah and Melissa, the girls looked beautiful, but I am bursting about Abigail.  What an angel....just wish I had some photos.

Radio City Christmas Spectacular!!!

OK, I can't figure out this picture business!  I'll need to get a tutorial from Sarah.  Today we went to see the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, and I hoped to get LOTS of photos.....and we got photos of us eating lunch before we went....and thats it!  Aiden gets his own photo because 1) I didn't get him in the original, and 2) he's just so darn cute!  We all had a wonderful time.  It is a marvelous show, and even Aiden was enthralled.  Annalie kept saying "WOW", and was dancing with the Rockettes.

OK, I really can't figure out these photos.  Mother bought herself a globe to go with her globe collection,   There is a cute picture of mother and Addison waiting for the car (valet of course).  And then an original Abigail Best, will be worth lots of $ some day!  She asked me to pose for her.  It would be better if it wasn't sideways.  She did this on the paper table cloth at our dinner table.  Notice my mole, and my glasses on top of my head!  I am quite proud of her.  I plan to frame this masterpiece.  I wish I really looked that good!  We had a wonderful day, but  Mother collapsed as soon as we got home, and was in bed by 7pm!

First Christmas Present

We had a nice surprise this week, from my brother John and his significant other Oro.  They sent a live miniature tree with lights and little ornaments for my mother.  She was so excited, and had such a good time decorating it.  Now, because I know he "stalks" our blogs, and is not a Facebook friend, I wanted him  and Oro to see the end result!  Thanks for such a wonderful and thoughtful gift.  It smells wonderful, and I'm hoping we can keep it alive so we have it for all our future Christmases.  (that looks weird, but I didn't get a spelling check so it must be right, right?)

Impromptu

Melissa called me while I was in a mediation this afternoon (no we did not settle the claim in mediation in case you are wondering), needing some emergency help.  Her scheduled babysitter was sick and needed someone to watch the kids.  This is the last week that the dance studio is open before the holidays, and all the classes have Christmas performances and parties, it is quite a big deal, and she had to be there.  I couldn't get out of the mediation, but got to the studio as quickly as I could, and picked up the kids to take them home.  Addison was there with Sarah, and we asked her to come with us, which she did.  Luckily I had left over pizza from the weekend with the boys that we could have for dinner, and lots of snacks and movies.  This is the only picture I could get of them all together.  Addison is on the couch, Micah is parked next to Abbie because she had the bag of pretzels, Abigail is in the middle, Jude is laying on the floor, and Annalie's head is looking a Abbie.  The only one not here is Aiden.  It was a wild night.  The kids all love being with each other and play so well together.  They are the joy of my life.  Abigail doesn't get to spend much time with me anymore as she is usually in dance class, so it was extra special to have her sweetness with me.  I got a chance to ask each of them what they wanted for Christmas.  Jude wants a bad transformer (I got him a good one), Addison wants a princess skateboard (no matter what she does it has to have a princess element to it, she someday may be a pro wrestler, but she will be a PRINCESS pro wrestler), Abigail wants a pretty barbie with a beautiful horse, Annalie wants "dissss", and Micah wants a skateboard too.  (must be something about skateboards and 3 year olds)  Well unfortunately, all of their gifts have already been bought, and I hit the nail on the head about 50% of the time, or at least got in the ballpark.  Hopefully their parents can cover the rest.

Where the Boys Are

While Melissa was at a dance convention with Abigail and Annalie, and Adam was at work, I got to spend this weekend with Jude and Micah.  The first thing we did as we went shopping.  One of my Christmas traditions with the kids is to go shopping for them to buy their mother and father a Christmas present, as I am a firm believer in the joy of giving, and that watching somebody open a gift you bought for them brings more joy than opening your own present.  So I wanted the kids to understand the joy of giving at a young age.  So Micah and Jude and I went shopping and the boys bought their parents good, and interesting gifts.

We then came home and watched a "little" TV, the boys got to trade off who selected what show to watch, even the dog Allie enjoyed what the boys picked out to watch

We then had some pizza to eat

 We then watched a little Bullwinkle and Friends.  The kids LOVE Bullwinkle, and this is their favorite "quite" movie, and the one they call their bedtime movie when they are here.

Finally, sleep.....

 We then had a good breakfast of eggs, bacon and toast

And we went to burn off some of our boy energy at the park.....unfortunately a cold front came through and it was a little chilly and we did not have appropriate attire, but it did work.  We went and got lunch and came back home and quietly watched some more movies until mom cam and picked them up.  These 2 are all BOY, and so sweet and kind and full of energy.  They love to wrestle each other, and can make anything into a fighting game.  There was a reason that God made me the mother of 3 girls, but I am really grateful to be the GRANDMOTHER of 3 boys!

Laura Bush "Spoken From the Heart" vs "American Wife"

OK, so I read a review of "American Wife" saying it was the novelized version of Laura Bush's autobiography, and even had excerpts from both books showing how similar they were.  I was fascinated by that for some reason, and decided to read both books, hopefully to get an insight into a very private public figure.  I have to say this review was the only thing similar about the 2 books, other than the protagonist was a woman, who married later in life, was an only child and became a teacher/librarian before she married, had a bad accident when she was in high school that killed a fellow high school student, married a man from a prominent wealthy family who eventually became President.  In "American Wife" the protagonist was very close to her grandmother who was an avid reader, and also a closet lesbian.  After she killed the love of her life (who she loved from afar) in the bad car accident that was her fault, she had an affair with the dead boy's older brother, by which she became pregnant, and then got an illegal abortion from her grandmother's lover who was a ob-gyn in Chicago.  This all happens before she falls in love with her future husband, who she has a wonderful sexual attraction to, but tolerates him in all other areas.  She does not share his religious beliefs, is a liberal in her politics, and lives a pretty separate life from him.

Now to the real Laura Bush and what she chooses to share in her memoir.  She is a very descriptive writer, and you get a real sense of her feeling for areas or people or events by how she describes them.  She does talk about the event that did most to change her life, and that was the auto accident, that did kill a dear high school friend.  Having lost a child suddenly and unexpectedly I could understand how this affected her the rest of her life, but does not define who she is.  She talks about the instant attraction to W and their whirlwind romance, but you get a sense through out the book how much she loves him, is bound to him, admires him and is comforted by him, and their bond is closer now than when they first married.  She also talks about their children, and how they were raised, what a hands on parent George was, and how they were able to raise their girls relatively normally in the glare of public light.  Her book kind of skipped around from topic to topic once they got in the White House.  Sometime she would just insert something random.  Kind of like a passing memory that she thought she needed to throw in before she forgot it.  She talks some about what George did, but mostly about what she was busy doing.  She gave a very good description of their isolation after 9/11.  I was impressed by how much she seemed to accomplish behind the scenes, good work for women's health and education initiatives throughout the world, and work for children, especially boys, here in the US.  Of course she did a lot for libraries, school libraries in particular, which is still one of her first loves.  George Bush is lucky to have her in his life, and we were lucky to have her as our First Lady for 8 years.

Christmas Presents

Just wanted to share a photo of our Christmas Tree and the presents "under" our tree.  We have a paper eating loving dog, so the presents are not safe (plus I'm not sure any of the member of the family could keep from sneaking a peek if the presents were out and available)....so our solution is to keep the presents in the pack and play, out of harms way.  I get lots of comments from my mothers caregivers about how many there are.  Seems like a normal amount to me

Christmas Cookies

Jude & Micah getting ready

Abbie & Addison are ready

Annalie hugging Aiden

Yummy! Finally get to eat one!

Final Product

Sweet Aiden

While Adam took Melissa out to celebrate their 8th Anniversary, I had their kids.  I decided this was a good opportunity to make Christmas cookies with them.  Sarah was going to work for Melissa so she could go out (what a nice boss she is), but Mike was going to bring Addison and Aiden so they could join the fun.  Unfortunately Sarah got sick, and had to find a sub for her sub, and went to the Dr., got some medicine, and then decided she didn't want to miss out on the fun and came along for the ride.  The kids had a WONDERFUL time, but I was not sure that I was ever going to get all the sugar up.  They did not understand moderation when putting the sprinkles on the cookies.  Also, Annalie, who was sitting at the table kept grabbing the sprinkles, and she was sitting in an inch of sugar when I got her out of her seat.  She and our dog Allie were definitely on a sugar high.  All the other kids were vSugaery happy to eat just one of their cookies and then we sat down to watch the Sorcerers Apprentice.  I can not tell you what the movie was like, as I was trying to clean up the disaster that had become my kitchen, while trying to contain Miss Annalie.  I finally had to call Melissa and Adam to come, as I was EXHAUSTED!  I think they had a good time, and the kids had a good time, and I slept good all night!  Not sure how to make all these pictures behave and post in a logical order.....sorry!

Pharmacy tech

Every three weeks I refill my mothers pills, that she takes every morning, evening and bedtime.  She is able to take all her pills in one swallow.  I on the other hand, if I had to take this many pills everyday, would take at least an hour out of my day to swallow one pill at a time.

Happy Birthday!

Well, this is the season of birthdays for our family, Melissa and Adam and Sarah (along with Jude) all have birthdays between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  One of the things I usually do is take the kids out to a nice dinner for their birthday at a place of their choice.  This year I thought it was more economically feasible for me to incorporate all the adult birthdays into one dinner at a nicer place than we normally go to.  After MUCH discussion, we finally decided to go to Siena's, an Italian place off 360.  We were really looking forward to it, but unfortunately Sarah was not feeling well, and our waiter was not very accommodating.  The food was good though, and I am full and satisfied.  I would not say it was the best dining experience I have ever had (that still goes to Eddie V's).  We are glad we went there, but will probably not go back.  Sorry kids, will try again next year!  Love you and Happy Birthday!

My weekly visitors

Every week, I take my turn watching the 3 youngest Best children while Melissa and Adam work and Abigail goes to dance class. They usually visit on Tuesday or Thursday, and usually bring their 2 dogs with them. I leave work early, and we have an early dinner, then "play" in my room so Old GaGa (their name for my mother) doesn't have a heart attack over Jude and Micah wrestling in her living room. So last night was my weekly evening with the Best's. We usually watch the same movie over and over, used to be Jurassic Park, then it was Indiana Jones, but Jude discovered Men In Black last night and we watched both MIB I and II! He has decided that's what he wants to do when he grows up! He was fascinated, and I guess will ask for a black suit for Christmas. Seriously, I think he would be really excited if he got one! Micah was not so fascinated by the movie, he just wanted to eat and play with games on my phone. Annalie was just being Annalie. She likes to put things in my trash cans. I have to check them when she leaves, I have found hummels in them, and DVD's. I am missing my mailbox key, and I'm a little concerned I did not check the trash well enough one day and it may have been thrown out! Last night I didn't have the dogs (I think Melissa feels bad about their extended stay over Thanksgiving and was giving me a break). Jude also brought a barrel of toys to play with his Uncle Mike. Sometimes Sarah and Mike and Addison and Aiden join us for a family night, but Addison was sick yesterday (double ear infection poor thing), so they did not come. Jude loves his Uncle Mike so much, and it was so cute he brought some toys he thought his Uncle would enjoy playing with. Such a sweetheart! As Abigail has so adroitly stated, Micah is "a little bossy", and Annalie can turn on the charm and make you not care that she just threw away a $200 hummel! I love my grandchildren so much! They add so much fun and being able to enjoy the wonder of Christmas through their eyes is inspiring!

Who Knew?

Here is another book report....I can't believe how many books I have recently finished. This is on Condoleezza Rice's Book, "Extraordinary Ordinary People", which is really the story of her and her parents. The book stops when Bush gets elected. First of all, I had no idea she and I were nearly the same age. Good thing I have been nearly as successful as her, or I would be embarrassed! So reading the book brought back so many similar memories of my own childhood, it was a much simpler time to be a child in the 50's. Of course, I am not black, and was not raised in segregated Birmingham Alabama, but her parents did an excellent job of shielding her from the ugliness of her surroundings. Of course she was living in the center of the storm that became the Civil Rights Movement, and it is fascinating to read her perception of what was going on. She does not fill the book with a lot of detail (a lot like her boss, George W. Bush), which makes the book a very quick easy read....now where the book became fascinating to me is when she began to visit Denver in the summers and eventually moved there. So many of my Denver memories came flooding back. So unless you are a child of the 50's and 60's and grew up in Birmingham and Denver, you may not find the book as fascinating as I did. She talked about wanting to go to high school at George Washington (GW), but couldn't because she didn't live in the district. That is the high school my brothers graduated from! She also took ice skating lessons at DU (Denver University)....SO DID I! We may have been in the same class (although it sounded like she took it much more seriously than I did). Her parents chose to send her to private school, and she talked about the 2 available, one was Kent, which I had forgotten all about! My sister was always so sure my parents were going to send her to Kent because she was not a very good student and was always in trouble. She talked about Kent all the time, and I had forgotten about it until I saw the mention of it in this book. (BTW that is not where Condoleezza or my sister went). She also dated Rick Upchurch, according to some they were engaged and she broke it off, but she does not say that in her book. He was a Denver Bronco, and I love the Bronco's! However I have to say, having dated a Bronco, and then went to Stanford and was there John Elway's senior year, she does not have a love for the Bronco's. That was very disappointing. Her teams are the Browns and Bengals. That seems very random to me. Also, each time she went to college, first to Notre Dame to get her Masters and then to Stanford to get her PhD, she mentions flying there, but then her next paragraph talks about driving the clunker of a car her parents provided for her at each place. Now my question is, if she flew there, how did the cars get to the colleges? That is a conundrum she never addresses. I very much enjoyed this book. I read some reviews that were disappointed that she didn't address the social problems of black families and how to address them...first of all, that is not what this book was about, it was a personal love story to her parents, but secondly, I think she does address it. Her family was all about education being the road to success, and they modeled that for her and were quite the educational evangelists. And I think that is her power and her solution, education, education, education.... and do not accept the limits other people may place on you. Good advise.

Presumed Innocent/Innocent

Just so you don't think I am such a high brow, I thought I would throw my 2 cents in about the book I finished before Bush's "Decision Points". It was Scott Turow's long overdue sequel to "Presumed Innocent", called "Innocent". Although you probably don't need to read "Presumed Innocent" to understand "Innocent", it wouldn't hurt as it is mostly the same players 20 years later. Rusty Sabich (the lead character in both books) is now a judge, and is running for the Illinois Supreme Court when his wife Barbara dies of apparent natural causes. But Rusty does not call anybody for 24 hours after he finds her, which people, mostly the people who prosecuted him in "Presumed Innocent", find highly suspicious....and we are off to the races. Did he or did he not kill his wife? The book is not written in sequential order, meaning it jumps all over time, before she died, after she died etc. I found this a little disconcerting at first, and a little confusing, but eventually I got the hang of it, and was able to follow the train of thought. I really enjoyed "Presumed Innocent", it was one of those books that stuck with me, and I have to say the sequel was worth waiting for. There is the twist at the end, which I thought I had figured out (unlike the first book which totally floored me), but even though I had parts of it figured out, it still managed to surprise me. And I can see a trilogy in the making when Turow begins to write about the son Nat, and how the family secrets may eventually affect him.

Decision Points

Ok, so I decided to make myself feel better about blogging, not making this all about me, me, me! As a "Public Service" (my public being exclusively my children I'm sure), I will give a book review after I finish a book. So here goes my first review of the last book I finished. Decision Points by George W. Bush is not an autobiography, but a series of 13 essays covering what he feels are the vital decisions he made during his presidency and/or his life and the influences he had that helped him make the decision and how he feels about the decision now. It is not a book that has an extreme amount of detail, so it makes it pretty easy to read. You do get a good look at his childhood and how he was raised, that helped make him the adult he was, but you don't get much about raising his own children. He is still very protective of his family, and made this a book about him, and not his family. The 13 decision points he discussed are:

1. Quitting (mostly about quitting the vices - drinking mostly - that made him less than he wanted to be)

2. Running (about deciding to run for public office, Congress, Governor, and President)

3. Personnel (about the people he chose to be around him)

4. Stem Cells (speaks for itself)

5. Day of Fire (9/11)

6. War Footing (speaks for itself)

7. Afganistan (speaks for itself)

8. Iraq (speaks for itself)

9. Leading (about following his own conscious instead of polls mostly)

10. Katrina (speaks for itself)

11. Surge (speaks for itself)

12. Freedom Agenda (about his hopes for the Middle East/Africa/old Communist Block countries)

13. Financial Crisis (speaks for itself)

I found each "essay" to be interesting, and there were things in each one that I didn't know. I particularly liked Freedom Agenda, and Leading. There was some eye opening in Katrina that I'm sure some people (the governor of LA at the time) will be unhappy about, and I was disappointed in Financial Crisis, that he seemed to loose his "Leading" philosophy there....but I was surprised how much Timothy Geitner, the current Treasury Secretary, was involved in all the decisions made during that time. Also, I was thrilled that W talked about one of my favorite movies, a German movie called "The Lives of Others", which is an engrossing movie about life in East Germany before the fall of the Wall. I LOVE this movie, and I have to say that the fact that W watched it (it is subtitled), let alone LIKED it, let me know he is not as shallow and stupid as the "media" likes to portray!

All in all I thought it was a worthwhile read, and gave a pretty good snap shot of the time he was president. We quickly forget what we didn't know, and look at history in the rearview mirror of knowing what we know now. I respected his presidency, because for the most part I think he did what he thought was in the countries best interest, and not what would make him popular or give him power.