Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree!

I made a decision last night to decorate the Christmas tree by myself after the kids went to bed. I decided on doing it that way for a couple of reasons.

First, I have Christmas Tree OCD. It’s a major issue. I like it MY way.

Secondly, I don’t like my ornaments broken, and at least one gets broke when the kids mess with them. (Remember this little tidbit….)

Thirdly, if the kids get to help with something they think it automatically gives them free reign to touch it whenever they feel like. If it was already there and they had no part in it, it’s less likely that they feel any ownership of it and might not touch it. MIGHT.

So, you see, I have very validated reasons for doing it this way. I also have an Elf on the Shelf to blame it on when the kids are ticked off that they didn’t get to help.

I proceed to put the kids to bed, waited to make sure they were asleep and got started. I adjusted the tree, spinning it around a few times to find the best side, adjusted the base so it stood straight up.

Now might be a good time to mention the poor decision I made in the choosing of this tree. We had planned on cutting our own tree down, but since our Big Blue Beast was left in North Dakota this weekend and the Yukon isn’t exactly mountain-road-worthy with this much snow, we went to town and bought one at ACE instead. I picked a pretty one. Big, full, green, perfectly shaped tree. What I failed to notice was the crooked trunk. The dang tree has pine scoliosis. When I pay $50 bucks for a tree (especially when I have 18 acres of trees behind the house…) I expect quality. Not a skeewompass trunk tree.  (Ski-wahm-pus…that’s the pronunciation of that word, it case you were wondering. Just don’t ask Webster on the validity of the word)

I spent an hour putting the tree together just so. The ornaments perfectly balanced evenly across the tree. The fragile ones up high out of reach of little hands. Even put my old “Baby’s First Christmas 1983” ornaments on.

My first clue of the oncoming disaster should have been the fact that I couldn’t get the tree to balance with the shed horns in it. I ALWAYS put our shed horns in the tree, because I’m a little bit red necked like that. But it kept tipping because the antlers are so heavy. I got over my disappointment and arranged them around the base of the tree instead. Which, in hindsight, was brilliant because the tines form a barrier for the crawling baby so she cant get close enough to get to the ornaments! Ha!

Finally, a (sort of) perfectly decorated tree! I set up our little Elf with a note and headed up stairs to bed. At 9:30…..WAY past this girls’ bed time.

(Sorry for the crappy picture quality. iPhones dont take the best low-light pics, and the kids shoved my SD card for my real camera in the CD slot on my computer....)

I get halfway up the stairs and, I swear, that damned Elf shoved my tree over. In my head I tried to make excuses for the sound I heard. Maybe one of the dogs just knocked the garbage over….no wait, they’re kenneled. Maybe something fell off the top of the fridge….no, I just cleaned that off. Maybe something fell off the shelves in the laundry room….no, it came from the other side of the house.

Craaaaaaap…..

You know that stilly version of the song, "Oh Christmas Tree, oh Christmas Tree, why did you have to fall on me? You broke my leg, you killed the dog, you mutilated Santa Clause"? Yeah....that was playing in my head. 

Sure enough….my tree was lying flat on it’s face. Every single ornament thrown off. Most escaped being shattered, but a few broke (remember how I dont like kids breaking ornaments?) Even the LIGHTS all fell off because I don’t wrap them all the way around the tree, just across the front.

I thought about leaving it there. I came up with reasons in my head why it was ok to wait til morning to fix it. “The kids will think it’s hilarious that the elf pushed the tree over! And they’ll get to help this time!”

But no….my aforementioned OCD wouldn’t let me leave it. Using my Hulk strength that always shows up when I’m throwing a hissy fit, I picked the tree back up. I got underneath it and adjusted it as much as I could to compensate for the deformed trunk. It still was too tipsy to be safe around my kids, so I rotated it around to where, if (when) it fell, it would fall against the sliding doors and not on a child. I cleaned up the water that I had JUST poured in the base. Rearranged my antlers, then basically THREW the stupid ornaments back on the stupid tree. 

>>Insert big, exaggerated, irritated sigh here.<<

Now my tree looks like children decorated it. And it is definitely skeewampass.

And I don’t really care.

Merry stinkin’ Christmas….

A day in the life of Whitley.

My best friend made a comment the other day about this little girl. She said she couldn't possibly be the demon child that I complain about on a daily basis. She was just too sweet and innocent looking.

She is adorable. Her dimples could melt Alaska. And she can be as sweet as honey when she wants.

Well, my dear friend....I decided to follow little-miss-innocent around with a camera for a day, and THIS is what I got! 

We started the morning out with hiding with dry erase markers under my desk while I straightened my hair. She had colored on my computer mouse and table before I found her.

I shoo her out of the room and start cleaning up the desk...turn around and see THIS. I realize it looks like a ladder to them, but we DO have stairs.

See that stick on the floor? And the missing one on the window? Yeah.... To her credit, she only broke one of the missing ones. 

While I was outside rounding up the boys that had disappeared in the woods, she was in the fridge. Again. 

She had got the peanut butter out and was eating it with her fingers. I dont even want to talk about the broken jars in the box....

Went upstairs to get the baby up from her nap and find her helping herself to some lunch. And she's filthy dirty from playing in the driveway outside. 

I dont even know what happened here....

Making dinner and I turned around and my olives were gone. And don't ask me where her pants are. I haven't even found those ones yet. She said they're "Down da hill". 

The fridge......AGAIN. 

She sure is cute. Innocent? Not so much. But when I put her to bed, clean and sweet smelling from her bath and she gives me hugs and kisses and tells me she loves me, I forget all about the messes I cleaned up all day. Until the next morning.....

Meet Me In Montana

For the doubters. The naysayers. The confused. The skeptical.

This is for you.

I’ve avoided telling people, or making a big “announcement” because I don’t want to explain it. It doesn’t make sense to most people, and frankly, kind of makes some of them mad. But it cant be avoided. I might as well buck up and do it!

We’re moving. Again. For the umpteenth time in 7 years. Unfortunately, we “settled down” and got married and had kids before we were actually settled! We’ve never been the couple to do things in the right order though and it’s been a crazy ride, so here we go again!

Since I was a little girl, and people asked me “What you want to be when you grow up?” my answer has always been that I wanted to be a veterinarian and I wanted to live in Montana. Well, the vet thing isn’t going to happen. However…the beautiful state that has always called to me IS happening. Lewistown, Montana to be exact. I’m going to plant myself right smack dab in the middle of the state!

I’m not sure where it started, why I wanted so badly to live in Montana. Maybe it started with one of my favorite books, read over and over, that led me along a northbound trail with a cowboy philosopher, his stoic friend, a herd of longhorns and a trail of broken hearts. If they went through all that just to get to the wilds of Montana, it must be something special, right?

Or maybe it is simply the fact that wide open, wild, clear blue skies, pine trees and mountains sounds heavenly to me.

Somehow, in the divine plan, I ended up marrying a Montana boy from the truly wild, extreme north western part of the state. Not an imported one. I found one that has MT branded on his heart and soul.  Which means I’ve had the perfect opportunity to spend some time there. If I wasn’t already in love with the place, my first trip there with him cinched the deal.

All of this is the reason that I’ve always said Montana is the only place that will get me out of Idaho. Because I really DO love my Idaho! Unfortunately, the economy doesn’t love us being in Idaho.

We’ve tried really REALLY hard to stay in Idaho. Remember how we moved to North Dakota for work? Then decided we hated it there and came back? The money wasn’t worth what we had to sacrifice there. So we tried to make it work here. The problem is, the construction industry…well…for lack of a better term….SUCKS!  We either barely scrape by on 7 months of work and 5 months of unemployment, or he works out of town ALL the time.  Neither of which are fun options. The only other option is taking one of the state jobs here, which would be great hours and great benefits…..and $12 bucks an hour. Seriously, WHO can live on that? Not us! Not without me going back to work, but that’s one of our main priorities that we are not willing to sacrifice on. I’m staying home with the kids. But I also can’t expect him to be away from his kids all the time anymore. It was different when they were babies and didn’t know better. But now he’s missing school plays, wrestling matches, t-ball games and mutton busting. Not to mention the birthdays and holidays. And this time he had to leave his month old baby girl. Too much for a daddy to miss.

So when he was offered this job, we had a decision to make. Do we keep fighting the economy and stick in out in Idaho and lose everything, or pick up roots again and start a new beginning again?

There were a lot of factors in our decision, most of which people are skeptical about because we’ve done it once before and changed our minds. But the stability of the company, his position in the company, the benefits, the location all made it a no-brainer for us. We had to do it.

There were a lot of factors that made it a tough decision though. My best friends are here. Some of the best friends I've ever had. My kids’ friends that they’ve pretty much grown up with are here. I’ve grown to love Downey and the amazing community it is. My family is only an hour away. The church we love is here.  

It’s not going to be any easier to leave this time than it was last time.

The easy decisions were the fact that we aren’t moving to Dickinson ND. We’re moving to Lewistown MT. Small farm community, not an oil boom town. We wont be living in a subdivision. We’re 10 miles outside of town and our backyard is a pine tree forest. We have family and good friends within visiting distance.  And “home” is 8 hours away for me and only 4ish for him. Not 13 hours like ND was. And I’m sure there’s a decent church around somewhere!

The other difference is my “feeling” about it. I never wanted to move to North Dakota. I was 110% against it. I did it because my husband was there and he wasn’t leaving. I never had the warm fuzzies about that move. This time, everything just FEELS right. I know that sounds hokey and doesn’t make much sense to most, but it means a lot to us to feel good about the decisions we’re making.

And I’m EXCITED!!