this is how we slothmas

first the rules...

stock up on essentials (creamer, eggs, books, chocolate), there is no leaving the house during slothmas.

lay out clean pj's, that is the official dress code

have some cash handy for the pizza delivery

relax, unwind, breathe deep and laugh

sloooooooooowwww down and be thankful for all you have

...

two days of slothing around with your family

no obligations from the outside world

...

this time is the very best gift my family gives me each year.

it is the true meaning of this season.

...

merry christmas to all

here's hoping you all had a very merry christmas and are making the most of any time you have with your family.  we bacharts hold this time very, very dear to us,  which is how slothmas came to be.  it is the best family holiday for us for just about 100 reasons...all of which will have to wait. 
...i better get back to it before they notice i am missing.

hold close to yours

i am not teacher of the year.  i have been a serious hag to my 5th and 6th period.  i am trying to whip them back into shape after the departure of my student teacher.  i have been counting down the class periods to winter break since the beginning of december.  so it was a little surprising that i had a stroke of holiday cheer while i was last minute shopping for teacher gifts and decided to throw in a couple bags of holiday nerds for my students.  long story short, those silly nerds gave me a chance to have some great conversations with my students.  some had wonderful plans for the break, and some had sad eyes. too many.  i know many of our students struggle at home, whether it is because they lack food or warmth or, sad as it is, love.  it makes me want to hold close to mine tonight and thank my lucky stars that i have all that i have. 

and here is a picture of a cat in a dress.  a fat cat whose name use to be tiger and now we just call him gordo. i think i will thank my lucky stars for fat cats in dresses too. 

happy birthday to my love

my dearest tony,

you are my perfect co conspirator, the best dad our kids could ask for, a right sexy beast and my best friend. 

happy35th  birthday my love.

tis the season...

for joyous torture in the form of christmas card pictures. 

thanks to aunt debi we were able to survive a few minutes in the freezing frosty temperatures to get a couple of beauts...

like this little charmer...

but of course it is the outtakes that i love...

first there is this gem. 

you know the shot. 

everyone jumps simultaneously. 

since this girl has zero vertical, we jumped off the wall.  sounds like a solid plan except we were all out of sync.  and by we i mean tony. 

and the one where it is obvious that we have lost our minds. 

all except tony. 

again. 

he doesn't do silly as well as we do silly.

he needs more practice.  i think we should start playing pranks on him. 

he does do serious. 

here is one where it seems we plan to use aidan as a snack before we devour a couple more souls. 

no actual children were eaten and no souls were taken. 
and i didn't throw any fits about smiles and hair and clothes.

however, i believe that this is further proof that we are a bunch of freaks.

the wiz of the west

remember last year when i went all toddlers and tiaras (almost)? 
well, this year i was just as nervous but i hope i was a bit more contained.  i only brought one camera. 

the missoula children's theatre and the angelou pto brought us the wiz of the west, a western take on the wizard of oz. 

my little thespian aidan rocked the part of the scared crow.  he pretty much memorized the whole play and delivered his lines with wit, but he did get a little squirrely at the end. there was one point in the second showing where aidan bobbed his head causing his beak to peck up and down vigorously for what seemed like 12 1/2 minutes that had those who know him cracking up. the rest of the audience? maybe not so much.  there was a moment there where i wondered if i was going to have a steve martin moment from the movie parenthood or if i could chill enough to be all mary steenburgen, but i have to admit, i think we have a pretty funny kid. 

nadia was dr. ozzy himself.  her part required that she yell like a mean old man from behind a screen and at one point she ad-libed a line when she forgot hers. i can't give it justice to explain it.  it will forever be the moment of 'yup'.  it was hysterical.  she doubled as the tarantula king where she had to dance around the stage all by herself to summons the rest of the tarantulas.  i realize i am her mother, but my goodness she was adorable.

what made it all the more fun was knowing the majority of the cast and having some of the besties in starring roles.  here is a squish and a megs as a tarantula and buzzard...

 and a hanners as a munch kin. 

it was a ton of work for the kids and all of the grown ups who helped pull it together, but in the end the experience was totally worth it.

i can do it

yes she can.  nadia has been training with girls on the run for the past 10 weeks.  it is the coolest program, with the coolest girls and with the coolest coaches.  what makes it so cool is that the whole program is to teach girls that they are strong, inside and out. 

all of this coolness leads up to a 5k. 

strong enough to withstand fahhhhh-reezing temperatures.

strong enough to get past a painful stitch in her side and carry on like a true champion. 

strong enough to chant 'i can do it', 'i can do it', 'i can do it'. 

strong enough to cheer on her mom.

and of course, strong enough to be a good friend and strong enough to know when you have found one.

about being a mom

the other day left me wondering.  i wondered as i deftly slipped my foot into aidan's discarded shoe and flung it into the mudroom and continued on mopping the floor.  i wondered as i set nadia's babies on the stairs for the third time in mere minutes hoping that they would indeed find their way to her room.  i wondered as i climbed onto tony's shoulders and then up onto the plant shelf to deck some halls and again when i thought about how to rearrange the living room to accommodate the tree. 

it was really that moment of flinging the shoe that did it.  i did it like i have done it a million times and believe me brother i haven't mopped that many times.  but it was a natural movement.  a grown up movement.  a no-one-told-me-to-mop-the-floor-i-just-did-it-because-it-needed-done-and-i-am-the-responsible-one-here.  like an adult kinda movement.  bizarre. surreal really.  this mom thing.  being the one who makes the decisions for other lives.  i thought that feeling would go away after i had been doing this for a while, like at least by year 10, but there it is still niggling in the back of my mind.  am i ready for this? do i really know what the flagnog i am doing?  is someone going to come along and realize i have been faking this for way too long and give these little beings to someone who has a clue?



then i wonder if i wonder too much.

what i'm most thankful for...

i am thankful for time.  better late than never, right?

i am most thankful for learning and loving.

learning that i can do things that i never thought possible.  like run.  i still dread it but am proud of myself for ever step.  i am learning to say no,  to not strive to do it all.  it is freeing.  i am learning to stop and breath when i am frustrated, when i am nervous, when i am overwhelmed.  i am thankful that nadia has made this an art form, this breathing through the hard stuff thing.  it is amazing what a little oxygen to the brain can do for a girl.  i am learning to look for the positives in even the most difficult moments and am thankful that aidan is learning that too.  i used to dread that the learning never stopped and now i am thankful that i get the chance to keep on learning to be better, to do better.  i am grateful for the opportunity to learn and i am thankful that my children love learning, book learning and life lesson learning alike. 

and the loving.  i am so very thankful that i have a family to love that is not perfect, but is perfect for me.  and that family includes so many beyond those in my home.  i am thankful for the loving kiss goodnight from my aidan and the full body wrap hug each morning from my nadia.  and the love i feel everytime aidan slips his hand into mine and everytime nadia tilts her head to the side and tells me i am the best.  i am thankful that i have a husband to love just the way he is and who loves me just the way i am. the kind of love that goes beyond words.  i am thankful for the love that my little spark gives me with just a little pat pat and a meow and the love on margo's big sloppy face and even for the love of the kitties that are knocking all of the ornaments off the decked tree. 

right this way folks...

for a tour of disneyland, bachart style.

here aidan and nadia are waiting in line for the haunted house which was all decked out 'nightmare before christmas' style.

here we are on the astrosomethingorother.  i sat this one out to save the nausea for bigger things.

and here are aidan and nadia just moments before we boarded space mountain.

and here is tony kissing me goodbye because he is sure i am going to puke and there will be no kissy face after that.

and here i am proving him wrong.  there was no puke for me, thank you very much.  although 15 seconds into star tours and my head was practically between my knees, which is were i kept it for the duration.

here are my children celebrating their first and only ride into the pit of space hell. 

and here is some sibling bonding.  part of disney magic is that brother and sister cease all fighting and become powerful allies.  they say cute things like thank you, and what ride do you want next and you're my best friend.  i think they put something in the ice cream. 

and here we are with crazy eyebrows on splash mountain.

and here we are having ice cream for dinner.

and here nadia is sans pants. splash mountain plus jeans equals certain discomfort.  one hoody from daddy to the rescue.

and here nadia and i are feeling particularly snazzy after she did some serious grooving on the tron dance floor.

this girl has more moves than disney has pixie dust.

and here my lovely family is riding the train around to the front of the park so we can hurry on over to california adventure to score some fast passes.

and here we are again after california screamin.  if i had longer arms there would have been four of us in this picture, all with thumbs up.  how this made it to the top of our collective favorites i will never understand.

and here nadia is clinging for dear life and i am trying desperately not to get sick on, wait for it...the ferris wheel.  that's right, the ferris wheel.  one line leads you to the placid gondolas that take you up and around all nice and sweet like.  nadia was too terrified of that idea, but was down for the swinging gondolas.  swinging equals motions sickness for dear old mom.  actually, we all hated this one.  

and here we are soaking up the compounded magical greatness that is disneyland times christmas. 

it. was. awesome.

and here tony is hanging on for dear life.  the rest of us loved the tower of terror.



and here i am lending aidan a hand so he can eat a chocolate chip cookie, a fortune cookie and a gingerbread man while sipping his sprite.  

and here we are enjoying the magical miniature models in mickey mouse's storybook land.

and here we are riding the carousel under the sea.  apparently the bachart's family crest has a blazin' green fish which made aidan and nadia love this particular carousel more than most.

and here we are trying on more hats. i spared you the other seven or so shots of various bacharts in various hats.  you are welcome.

 and here aidan is waiting like he belongs on the cover of country club kids monthly for the production of aladdin.  this was by far the longest wait we had and so worth it. 

 and here aidan and nadia are trying to walk straight after a trip on the tea cups.  i flat refused to go with them.  tony bailed on them too. it was completely weird not to have one of us on a ride with them, but they loved it.

i think the best part about the whole trip for tony and i was the surprise part. but then again maybe the best part was how little stress there was around the trip as a whole.  or maybe the best part was all of the thank yous we got, or all of the smiles from aidan and nadia.  or maybe it was all of the lights and sparkle.  or maybe it was that the two of them were appreciative of each others company.  or maybe it is that aidan puked like twenty seconds after this picture was taken but powered on to the finding nemo submarine without hesitation.

or maybe it was the just the magic of it all. 

so what did make my thankful list this year?

surprises tops the list. 

tony and i are terrible at surprises.  we always end up telling. 
not this time.  i have to hold my tongue for 22 more giggle-filled, cheesy-smiled, secret-rushing minutes. 

via

i can hardly wait!!!

insert snazzy title that really means this is an update without sounding so lame

the dishes were stacked high this week.  that is a sure indicator that we are having a busy life.  we have been spending time at the gym.  i feel weird saying that.  last week nadia did a practice 5k to raise money for a cool foundation, fancy feet.  a local cancer surviving teen is raising money to send flip flops and care packages to kids with cancer.  nadia is participating as part of girls on the run.  if you have a girl and access to this program, hook your kid up.  it has been great.  nadia will be running the real deal in december and i am her running buddy.  her coach assured me that i better be practicing too because she can hold her own.

  

aidan has been hanging in there sporting his cast like it's no big thing.  i didn't punch a mom in the teeth for straight up making fun of him for having a girly cast.  i didn't think that would enlighten her much.  i did let her know that i have a stand up kid who wears a pink cast in honor of breast cancer awareness.  points for me because i didn't add, unlike her offspring, mine won't grow up to be an ignorant, intolerant scab.  he got it off yesterday and when i asked him how it felt to have it off after six long weeks he said he felt like a primate again.

tony is a ball of perfection, like usual.  he took time off of work to make sure he could capture aidan in his veteran's day assembly.  he has been working extra to please the man because of an arbitrary deadline they set. he finished the tile in laundry room and it makes me smile every time i walk in there. he fixed the mixer that he may or may not have dropped a spoon in while he was making pumpkin rolls he even helped me entertain noah last weekend.  and he has been planning...more like plotting, but that is a story for another time. 

we attended conferences for our kids.  angel's sing and light shines upon their very existence.  seriously.  i found myself wondering why i don't see these particular versions of my children very often at home.  nadia handled her student-led conference like she was a ceo.  so focused.  so meticulous in her notes.  she is still her silly self but she knows how to turn on the business when it is needed.  aidan's teacher had aidan smiling from ear to ear the whole time.  he has great marks, minus this little paperwork snafu that is mostly genetic, but he is determined to turn that around. he read us a story that had me choked up.  not because of the dragon meets duo of children storyline, but because of the sentence structure and elaboration and even the penmanship!  he writes like a flipping grown up! 

margo's been margo'ing and

spark has a bit of a cold. 

the weather is turning wintry.

and me...i am just playing it cool.  you know, in case something exciting should happen...