Christmas Prelude

I was seriously on the ball this year for Christmas. I think becuz of Disneyland, I made sure that EVERYTHING was ready ahead of time. And it really made for a relaxing Christmas. We got back from Disneyland on the 15th and the next night was my December Bunko. Full pedicures and manicures for EVERYONE and a whole slew of yummy treats and fun pampering gifts from robes to slippers---Christmas came early for me !

Then came our first family party---Fischbecks!

We met at Mama Maurio's on Saturday evening for dinner, followed by candy train making (we delivered three this year), followed by the child gift exchange, followed by the adult gift exchange. "Due to the economy" we did a white elephant gift exchange and I have to say that some of the gifts were a little odd. Not to mention the inordinate amount of lotion that was being regifted! But Waverly scored big and got a baby doll ---just in time to replace the horrors at the hand of Laetner. Delainee got a coat that was just a little bit too small, and Laetner got a novel. No worries that he can't read, he immediately took to coloring ALL over the pages (on both illustrations and just plain text) On the adult gift exchange we got some arbonne lotion---which Waverly BEGS to have put on her after her baths now, and we also got a baby backpack---so you can go hiking with a baby on your back. I tried to steal an umbrella from Megan during the course of the game, but that didn't pan out to well for me. Luckily she gave it up and the end of the game just to be nice. On Sunday we delivered our candy trains to the 'friends' of our choosing and sang the infamous 'Fischbeck, Choo-Choo-Choo Song'. Although most of our spectators weren't too impressed.

Monday night came the FULLER party! We met at my brother Doug's house in Maricopa and the highlight of the evening was when we dressed up the dads as Christmas trees. Scott and Jeff ended up the most colorful---with children wrapped as gifts at their feet. But I love Doug and David with the Christmas bulbs in their mouths.




Court makes for a very sad looking Christmas tree.

After Monday night we had NOTHING else on our agenda until Christmas Eve---and honestly no Christmas shopping or ANYTHING left to be done. It was such a good feeling.

Tuesday we packed up as a family and stopped by QT to make our own individual gourmet hot cocoas. We then headed out to Circle G Ranch, Cherry Lane, and of course the Temple to look at Christmas lights. It had been raining that day and so there were EZ up shades all over the temple grounds to keep the displays from getting wet. It definitely changed the authenticity of some of the scenes. But I think becuz it had been raining that everyone was staying home, becuz that place was a ghost town. We did our best to take our time, but I tell you that little Miss Waverly was a TERRROR. In our out of the stroller she was no fun, so we just hefted her over our shoulder and headed for the car. These were the only shots even salvageable from that night!


When it came time for Christmas Eve we were all prepared to do a mini version of Thanksgiving. I cheeseclothed a turkey breast to see how important the brining process really is----IT REALLY IS! But we had the homemade rolls, the mashed potatoes, the stuffing, and Marissa even made sweet potatoes for us. (We ended up inviting Court's parents over along with his siblings Mark and Marissa). After dinner we all sat down and watched Home Alone in our brand new pajammies. The kids LOVED the movie. Then it was finally off to bed to await the joys that Santa would bring....

Always Up for a Little Friendly Competition

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Dis-TUR-bing

I always joke about Court being a serial killer. He loves books, movies, t.v. shows, 48 hours mysteries, ANYTHING about serial killers. I swear that he has watched enough 48 Hours Myseries to seriously be able to commit the perfect murder. But of course it is all a joke. There is nothing disturbing about Court outside of his fascination with good who-dun-its. But I am starting to wonder if there is more to it. Maybe something genetic/ hereditary that somehow might be passed along.


Here is why I am concerned.


Miss Wavee came into the kitchen with her baby doll tonight only to hear gasps of horror from both Court and Delainee. I ran into the kitchen to see what was up, and this is what I saw my baby girl playing with....


We asked Delainee who had done that to the baby doll and she said it was either Waverly or Laetner. Ummmm....there are actually words spelled out on the doll so that pretty much rules out Wavee. But look at this thing. When we asked Laetner why in the world he did this his response was, "I wanted to add more detail." What in the world?????

Laetner is apparently a real life Syd from Toy Story. But just look at his 'details':

That is a full on jack-o-lantern face on the back of the poor baby's head---along with an 8th note and who knows what other hierogliphics on the back! And the actual face is now a clown with triangle cheeks, a Hitler mustache, and creepy lashes to boot. Plus I think we have barb wire tattoos with black fingernail polish---but then he adds cute little bows on the booties! I seriously am at a loss for words. This amount of 'detail' had to have taken him FOREVER! This wasn't just a haphazard coloring project.

And he says he doesn't remember everything that he wrote, but the 2nd to the last line is definitely 'Laetner' and that last line is 'Mario'---which I am assuming is referring to mario and luigi, but maybe he is threatening his own grandmother!

Shouldn't I be gettin' this kid some therapy???

Journey Home From Hell

While our entire time spent at Disneyland went absolutely PERFECT, the ride home---not so much. Tuesday night Court took the van to get it gassed up and ready for our ride home Wednesday morning. He says he was turning onto the freeway when he heard a huge thud! The window on our driver side sliding door had been hit--FATALLY. At that point there was just a hole, and while the glass was completely shattered it was still in place. So we took duct tape and trash bags and completely taped up the window in place. We figured it was good to go. I really wish I had taken shots before we left California Ü

Well about an hour or so outside of California we are flying down the highway at 80 miles or so when there is a huge phhoosh sound and suddenly the ENTIRE window is GONE! The sound scared us half to death. So we pulled over to the side of the road and created a new window with trash bags only---it was a VERY noisy car ride the rest of the way home.

But the force of the second 'blowout' actually managed to break up the glass and send it flying ALL over our car. So we typed in carwash into our GPS and managed to vacuum out the entire car so we weren't sitting on shards of tempered glass for the rest of our trip.

Here is our temporary fix--that did manage to get us the rest of the way home...

And here are shots from the inside and out of what was left.

It really ended up being a pretty clean break.

But don't think that was all, oh no, I wish.

We had stopped for lunch in Indio at McDonalds to eat, and to let everyone use the bathroom. We had been on the road again about 20 minutes when Laetner hollers that he needs to go poop. I figured it wasn't too pressing a matter since he had just used the rest room at McDonalds, but apparently he didn't go poop when he had the chance. We start searching for a rest stop of some sort when he really starts hopping around and holding his bum. And then right there in the car he poops himself. Grrr-osss! I am sure some passer-bys had MORE than an eyeful, cuz we stripped him down on the side of the road and TRIED to clean him up. Becuz we had not brought Waverly with us I had taken the wipes out of my purse, and we literally had NOTHING to wipe him with. Luckily we did have garbage bags on hand (becuz of the broken window) so his clothes were quarantined to there and we found one of wavees diapers in the glove box and put it on him.

Good time were most definitely NOT had by all!

The crowning moment of the day was we FINALLY made it back to our house. We walked in and began getting dinner ready for the kids only to find that our microwave was DEAD! They promise to have the part here by CHRISTMAS EVE---wow merry christmas to us!

Disneyland

The best time to hit Disneyland is when school is STILL in session. So we waited until I was done with my Let's Play Music semester and then headed to Disneyland before school let out for Christmas break. We left on Sunday afternoon and left Waverly at Court's sister Alecia's house---best decision EVAH. With no Wavee in the car we were able to put down the back seat and just lounge. And when I say lounge I mean it. BAD MOTHER ALERT: but we threw our pillows, blankets, and bean bag chairs in the back of our mini van and had ourselves a movie-athon on the drive over. It was sooo nice.

We got to our hotel about 8 p.m. and got ourselves all situated to hit the park bright and early Monday morning. Of course we started on Main Street in front of the big Christmas tree!



Our very first stop was to Indiana Jones, and I was really afraid for the rest of our experience, becuz they immediately informed Laetner her was too short to ride. The tears were welling up in his eyes and I was so frightened that the rest of the day would be the same, but that ended up being the only ride he was too short for (aside from the roller coaster at California Adventure.) We proceeded on towards Pirates of the Carribean (per Laetner's request) and on to the Haunted Mansion and then our first real ride: Splash Mountain. I wasn't sure how Laetner would do. The last time we were at Disneyland was two years ago when I was pregnant with Waverly, and he and I sat EVERY ride out while Daddy and Delainee had their fun. He was pretty scared during the two previous rides---shaking in his boots on the verge of tears kind of thing, and I honestly thought he might faint on me on a roller coaster type ride. But the boy LOVED it! I on the other hand wasn't too happy with how soaked we got! You can still see how wet they are as we posed outside the Pooh Bear ride....


Here we are about to ride Thunder Mountain Railroad---this proved to be a FAVORITE! By the time our two days was up we ended up riding this thing 5 different times!



Then it was off to the Dumbo ride on our way over to Tomorrowland...

where we rode the Astro Orbiter for the first time...

and discovered one of Laetner's favorite rides---Buzz Lightyear astro blaster! In this shot I rode with the kids to steer for them so they could both shoot. But on two other rides the boys were in one car and the girls were in another car. And the girls beat the boys scores EVERYTIME! Considering my accuracy with my shooting, it really should reenforce to Courtney how he SHOULDN'T get a gun in our house!

The whole trip we kept switching off who got to be partners with mommy and who got to be partners with daddy! I was lucky enough to be with Laetner on Autotopia---he thought it was soooo cool that he got to drive the car!

Of course we had to spend some time doing to princess watching. When we headed to the line to take pictures with the princesses it was PACKED! So we walked over to the store on the other side to see if we could get a glimpse of the princesses. We TOTALLY lucked out. Cuz as we were standing on the wall three princesses walked right out of a door in front of us. Mulan, Jasmine and Cinderella waved and smiled at Delainee and Laetner and then walked over to relieve the princesses already on duty, and out came Belle, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty who also walked right by us! Too perfect! While there we had to try out the royal gear!

This last picture is of us on Space Mountain--which we rode about 6 times total! On our first ride we weren't sure if Laetner would be okay---considering it was pitch black and we had no way of seeing how he was doing during the ride. But when we ran over to see our picture the first time, little Laetner was the only person in the entire shot with his hands up over his head! We had to go down again so we could all join in the fun!

We left the park about 4:00 to go find dinner and recuperate. But showed back up at 7:00 and stayed til closing. There was a HUGE Cardinals game on, so Court actually stayed at the hotel for the first part. So while it was just the three of us we stayed around Sleeping Beauty's castle hitting the more 'kiddie' rides!

Apparently the game STANK! And Court came to join us for some night time rides! The best was when we were on the Astro Orbiter at exactly 9:25 when the fireworks show was going on. We had just got out rockets up into the air with the fireworks blazing when the ride suddenly came to a stop. I figured they weren't letting us do the ride during the fireworks, but it turns out some moron unstrapped their child to lift them up to see the fireworks better so they stopped the ride to make them strap back in. But instead of making us all unload, they just started us all over again, so we were actually flying around in the air for the grand finale of the fireworks for the most pefect view in the park! On a side note I HIGHLY recommend riding Thunder Mountain Railroad at night time!

On Tuesday morning we did start at Disneyland (since it opens at 9:00 a.m.) and hit space mountain, thunder mountain, and buzz light year before 10:00 rolled around and then he headed over to California Adventure!

This shot is in the front of Disneyland and we left the park that morning. I had to post it mostly becuz of Court's face. I can tell EXACTLY what he was saying to me in this picture---BAD NIGHT!

'F' is for Fischbeck!

We started off on the Tower of Terror---Delainee still suprised us with how much of an adrelanine junky she is---she LOVED the free fall drop. Laetner on the other hand---not so much. But I don't blame him. One of my least favorite rides. But then she got on California Screaming with me. Her only comment was that it made her tummy feel funny. Couldn't have been too FUNNY cuz she rode it again with Court!

That is when my real terror ride began---the FERRIS WHEEL. I absolutely hate the ferris wheel. I always have. I can handle a fast coaster that whizzes you up and down. But when I am so slow that I actually realize how high we are, then I FREAK out! Plus I was dumb enough to let Court talk us into going in a seat that actually SWUNG back and forth as well. I was literally squeezing my eyes shut to keep the tears of fear from coming out while I just kept TRYING to will the ride to let me out!!!! I still can't believe that I didn't wet myself---I was really that scared! We topped that off with a tame ride up and down on the jelly fish!

At this point we had some dissension in the ranks. Part of the crew wanted to ride the grizzly river run, but I had NO desire to get wet. So I happily volunteered to be camera man!

Can you see how wet they got!

So glad that wasn't me! Ü

We then headed over the Bugs Life portion of the park to get in some bumper cars! Laetner managed to plow into the side of Delainee and thought it was the BEST thing EVER!

We left the park at closing (which is 8:00 p.m. for California Adventure) and headed back over to Disneyland to hit our favorite rides one last time. Our poor little feet and legs were EXHAUSTED! On the way out Laetner and deLAINEE wanted a picture in front of the L for their names! Laetner was upset that Delainee is actually a D, but we call her Lainee most of the time anyway, so he dealt with it! Of course we had to get a parting shot in front of Sleeping Beauty's castle before heading back to our hotel.

Oh my goodness we had such a good time! And their were hardly any lines ANYWHERE. The weather was absolutely perfect, and aside from the fights of who got to use the card to open our hotel room, the kids got along great! Plus, El Torito is now our new favorite mexican restaurant Ü. We got up Wednesday morning to start our journey home. A journey that would prove to be the trip home from HELL! More on that too come....

Snow Day in Gilbert, Arizona?

Hard to believe to believe that we had snow in Gilbert, Arizona!

Court's good friend from High School (Tyler Robison)is an orthodontist, and for Christmas, Robison Orthodontics invites their friends and patients to a snow day in their parking lot. It had snow fighting, sliding, hot chocolate and muffins, face painting, a bounce house, and even a video game trailer!

Laetner did NOT want to go near the snow---not sure why. But I finally coaxed him to at least STAND on it so I could get a picture of him. Although in this outfit he looks like a crotchety old man in a jogging suit!

An added bonus was a visit with dear old Santa Claus to make our requests for Christmas.

Wavee doesn't appear to be making her way to the 'NICE' list this year!

From Our House to Yours

(click to enlarge)

Coming Up For Air

It is DEFINITELY that most wonderful time of year when we all feel like we are running around with our heads chopped off trying to get it ALL done. Aaack!

This was a 'Fischbeck' year for Thanksgiving, so we headed up to the cabin in Pinedale on Wednesday night to start the preparations. Of course I had already started my 'Martha' preparations and had been brining my 24 lb. turkey since Tuesday morning. The Thanksgiving meal is the ONE meal start to finish that I got down pat. And I don't mean to brag or anything, but you have NEVER tasted a bird as yummy and moist as my 'martha stewart, brined, cheeseclothed, butter basted, roast turkey'!

Wednesday night we stayed up til midnight making about 12 pies---YIKES! Cheesecakes (3), pumpkin (3), pecan(2), coconut cream (1), oreo icecream (1), apple crumb(1), and a few berry. Then Thursday morning we began the task of preparing EVERYTHING from scratch for the Thanksgiving feast. This was the first Thanksgiving year that we actually had lots of helpers in the kitchen so Mama Maurio and I did not have to everything. But I still was on the turkey, the stuffing, the sweet potato casserole, and I helped teach Tara how to make rolls.

The meal was FABULOUS!

These were taken as Court was carving up the Turkey! Again, if you look at him with that knife (that looks like it is ready to slit my throat btw) he seriously looks like a serial killer!



But I did NOT want to miss out on some smokin' Black Friday sales, so we actually packed up the kids Thursday evening and made it home about 11:00 p.m. I then hopped out of bed at 4 a.m. to go brave Wal-Mart. I don't want to give anything away to a certain person that lives at my house, but lets just say that the cashier at the Apache Junction Walmart price matched me a deal that gave me an item normally priced at $129 for $59---MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ME (glad I bought two of them!) That alone made the early drive home worth it. I stopped by a few more stores before heading home, and then we spent the rest of the day getting all the Christmas decorations situated. Last year I got smart and bought small trees on clearance AFTER Christmas. That way each of the kids have their 'own' tree and don't feel bad about my always putting their decorations on the backside of 'MY' tree---I did tell them that their decorations were so important that I wanted them on the side by the window so people driving by could see them! But it is so fun that they each have their own tree in their rooms as their 'festive' nightlight for the season. Each year I am certain that Laetner will have grown out of how overly excited he gets about anything do with Holidays from Halloween onward---but I am here to report that his spirits have not dampened in the slightest! WOW !


On top of the normal holiday craziness I was insane enough to agree to work a show with Marc Denton and play in the orchestra pit for CGCC's production of a Christmas Carol. If you have never seen the show in a musical version (written by the same guys who did Beauty and the Beast) I highly recommend it. But EVERY night this past week (including two matinee performances on Friday and Saturday) was spent sitting on a piano bench playing all sorts of crazy sounds. But now I feel I can really start focusing on the holiday season. Which of course means there will be a mad dash figuring out gifts, and putting together holiday cards, and getting those all mailed off.

Sometimes it is so hard to get into the Christmas Season ya know! The kids and I sat down to watch this movie...

I really, really like this movie. I love how they portray the relationship between Mary and Joseph. But we were almost done with the movie when Laetner turns to me and says, "I thought this movie was about Jesus. Where is Jesus?" I had to explain things a little better than I obviously had done. But if you have never seen this one---it's worth it.

Here's to hoping we all get into the Christmas spirit this year.