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Family Marriage

The Blended Family Conundrum–Time vs. Money

This weekend over dinner the Mr. and I were discussing quite a few issues regarding the direction our family is headed in for the new year and our goals as husband and wife, mother and father.

While talking we somehow started a casual conversation regarding the disparities that exist amongst children of blended families. While these children share one parent there is indeed a difference in parenting and the method by which each child’s needs are met. I for one always hate when these issues come to the table because we are a “blended family” and I admittedly have many mixed feelings considering I was raised by a single mother, and every other weekend I was thrust into a blended family environment. Despite my past and clear understanding of the plight of the outside child and the struggling single mother, my feelings regarding the situation are almost always lopsided and most often skewed in the best interest of my children. Selfish? Yes. Human? Yes. Any mother in my opinion wants the best for her children and anything that doesn’t fall in line with that agenda in my book will undoubtedly get the *side eye*.  I digress.

So the conversation in detail was regarding the fact that the non custodial child gets less than the child that stays in the home because they don’t have access to both of their parents, so if a little extra change, doll, iPad or new sneakers are presented its okay because those things will never make up for the child not having both parents in the household.

I’m not convinced..are you?!

Christmas Family My Babies

Whirlwind Weekend

How was your weekend? Mine was extra busy for sure, but Lil Man had a ball. He was able to spend some time with his buddies and his cousins, however I am sure if you ask him what the highlight of the weekend was he will tell you we finally got our Christmas tree.

Saturday morning a couple of my mommy besties and I took the children to a candy cane hunt and Christmas festival. It was fuhreeeeezing out there, but its all about the babies and they were having fun. We made gingerbread houses, decorated cookies and danced..who can resist the Cha Cha slide. I was babysitting my niece and nephew so when all was said and done between the four of us there were eight children (two are hiding in the pic). Might I mention keeping up with that many children in an outdoor space is quite the job.


Candy Cane hunt
I’ve discovered Flickr!!

After our hands and toes were nice and frozen we parted ways and I headed back home to pack up my babies. The inlaws took them for the night and the Mr. and I had the opportunity to go out and have a nice dinner together. We grabbed the kids the next morning and headed to get the Christmas Tree!

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Outside of the car



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Inside of the car..I love to see him happy! Like his Flickr hat?!!

No sooner than we get the tree in the house, I am dashing back out the door with Lil Mama in tow to go and support one of my friends at her trunk show..I bought myself a few things, and chatted it up with the homies and headed home to finish up some homework..1 week left until school can kick rocks permanently.

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Finally its time to decorate, on Monday afternoon….Thank you all for your suggestions regarding how to handle him decorating. I have decided to get them their own little tree as well as let them add a few ornaments of their choice to the family tree. My stepdaughter will be here in a few weeks and so that she feels included we will undertake that project when she gets here.

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into everything

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I suppose we’ll attack the outdoor lights tomorrow.

Are your decorations up yet? If not, what’s the hold up? I can ask that now that mine are finally done!

Christmas Family My Babies

Whose Tree is It Anyway?

After my last post regarding starting holiday traditions with my son, I took him to Walmart with the intention for him to pick out a few ornaments that he liked so we could put them on the tree. The tree we don’t have yet, no I’m not being sarcastic just mad that I can’t lift the tree out of the car, hold it with one hand while screwing it into the stand all by myself with the other, I digress. My tree for the past few years has been decorated with red and silver ornaments, pretty red hand tied bows and white twinkling lights. I have refused the adding of any “icicles” you know the silver stringy things that are a pain to clean up or any ornament that doesn’t go with the color scheme.

When I made the offer to him to pick out a few ornaments, I never thought for a minute he would be smitten with Handy Manny, Playhouse Disney, Diego, and other character based ornaments. I managed to hold him off while I thought of my strategy to tell him that those things don’t match the decor of the tree and therefore would not be purchased. Yes, I sound uber ridiculous..Christmas IS for the babies right?

But what about my treeeeee, the one I don’t have?! I should just give it up right, and become obsessed with the mantle and the wreath and let the kids have at the tree. You know colorful blinking lights, singing ornaments, bubble lights (I happened to love those as a child, unfortunately they don’t come in red and silver..I checked), icicles galore, different colored candy canes, no rhyme or reason or do I purchase them their own little tree for their decorating pleasure. I know the answer, but I would really like to hear your thoughts.

Have you dealt with this? What would you do?!

The Christmas Tree Grinch,
Mimi

Family Holidays Lil Mama

Impromptu Thanksgiving

I hope everyone’s Thanksgiving went well. The family and I were set to head to my hometown Washington D.C. for Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, after I picked Lil Mama up from spending the weekend with her godmother she was really sick. Once we got back home, I realized she was running a fever and had an extremely nasty cough and a ton of congestion. Called the Dr. to see if I could give her anything, he heard her couging through the phone and told me to take her to the Urgent Care.

Off we go, it was like a club up in there, poor sick babies were everywhere. After two hours of waiting we were seen, and Lil Mama was diagnosed with two ear infections, bronchialitis and NO TRAVEL! Oh well, Lil Mama is more important so I called the Mr. and told him our travel plans were grounded and I was going to drop her home and head to the store to get food for Thanksgiving.

Bwahahaha..he shut that idea down. Y’all know I don’t cook, I was willing to try but he stated Thanksgiving is not the time to experiment. I got on the phone, made some calls and found us a spot to crash for Thanksgiving. The food, and company was awesome. I wasn’t required to cook anything, but I volunteered to do all of the cleaning, that was the least I could do!


Lil Mama enjoying a turkey bone on her first Thanksgiving…excuse her hair she doesn’t like bows



Black Friday we headed to the outlets not far from my house..you know you live deep in the burbs when the outlet is 20 minutes from your house. I got some good deals on clothes for the babies, but me not so much. The Mr. stood in line for 1 hour and 30 minutes for ONE Polo sweatsuit that turned out to be too small #men. We left about 3a and I thought I would be heading to Target or Walmart and instead opted for my bed, too much. I don’t think I will be participating next year, just a bunch of hype, too many people and aggravation.

I started on my Christmas mantle, just need to grab some garland with the lights in it and a few finishing touches from Ikea to finish it off and I will show you all the finished product some time this week.

Enough about me..how was your Thanksgiving and Black Friday adventures? How are your Christmas decorations if any coming along?