Land!

Today I spent 14 hours in the car driving home from Tennessee. I am so tired and the room is still moving all around me. I did, however, get a few minutes to download my 122 pictures from the trip and I think a handful of them are good enough to share. But only after about elenty kajillion hours of sleep and food that is not made entirely of sugar. So I will get back to you on Monday with all my vacation goodies. In the meantime, here is one picture I just can't wait to share...

My handsome son wearing jeans and hoodie. I took a picture so it would last longer :)

I went and moved it, moved it!

I have now been up here in Tennessee with my brother and his family for over 24 hours and we have been having a great time. We have eaten, hung out, eaten, stayed up late, been sightseeing, eaten some more and this morning I did something I have never ever done before. Something that I have read status updates about, heard commercials about, seen bumper stickers for but something I have never ever actually tried for myself until this morning. And it is called Zumba. Molly took me with her to the Y for a morning class and I can finally say, I get it. I understand what the big deal is. It is actually insanely fun. It doesn't even feel like exercising! It was like a real life class of Dance Central! So fun! I will say however, there are some moves going on in those classes the likes of which I did not anticipate :) Now I just have to wait to see if I can move when I wake up tomorrow...

New Plan: Never Eat Again

Oh my gosh, I had to have gained 5 pounds over the past week. Despite my running and my P90Xing almost every day, there is just no way to overcome the caloric catastrophe that has occurred at every meal. And also every 5 minutes in between meals. I have no willpower, plain and simple. So whatever is out and available on the counter is what I will eat. If it's brownies, candy, carrots or mung fish, I will eat it. Okay, maybe not mung fish, but you get the idea. Mostly it has been brownies. And cookies. And crackers. And chips. And chocolate. And more chocolate! And best of all is that I leave on a road trip to Tennessee with the kids and my parents tomorrow morning! Which means I am trapped in a car without 1. the ability to exercise and 2. massive quantities of snack foods. Oh, great and glorious metabolism! Please don't let me down over the next few days...

By the way, Christmas was totally fantastic! I called an audible on Saturday night at about 7pm and decided we were opening presents on Christmas Eve. To this news I was hugged ever so tight and loudly proclaimed as "THE GREATEST MOM ON THE WHOLE PLANET!!!!" I just figured that Christmas morning would be kinda busy with church and all, so why not have a leisurely evening and open all the super awesome amazingly fun presents I got for the kids and have something to actually do on Christmas Eve, right? RIGHT. It was great! We got games and movies and ate chocolate fondue (we needed something to wash down all the candy) - and best of all is that Santa still came with their Santa gift Saturday night - so the kids were still treated to one more awesome present and stocking goodies. It was glorious. I highly recommend this schedule :)

So it's kinda good news/bad news. Bad news: Due to my trip, I won't be posting some lame Christmas pictures until much later in the week. Good News: In honor of my trip tomorrow (and because it is Tuesday tomorrow- getting this in a little early):

(wait, maybe that was actually a bad news/bad news situation...)

TOP TEN LEAST POPULAR AMERICAN ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS

(I really, really hope we get to visit #5)

10. Captain Blake's Liver Emporium
9. Madame Toussad's Wax Museum of Senate Minority Leaders
8. Oversized Funyun that looks like Ryan Seacrest
7. Secret Bunker for Obama's 14 Backup Teleprompters
6. Childhood home of Joy Behar
5. Four Square court built in the middle of an Iowa cornfield
4. The Wonderful World of Ferrett Fidoras
3. Halloween Costumes of Hollywood's most influential Best Boys
2. Photo Op with Pat Morita's hand twin
1. Little House of Cobras

Merry Christmas!

Just wanted to take a minute to wish everyone a Merry Christmas from Sweeneyville! We have been having a wonderful Christmas break so far- too much to eat, too much to do, too much time to spend with family and friends - (oh, wait, is there such a thing?) - it really has been awesome. I honestly could keep another entire blog dedicated simply to cataloging all my blessings. They are seemingly without end. And among them, I definitely count all of you. Some of you I even count twice. Some of you half. And still others I count by a factor divisable by 12. Just kidding! It's actually a factor divisible by 13 :)

These two monkeys I definitely count a few times...

Hope you got everything you wanted this year! As for me, I realized I already had it :)

Are we positive it's really December?

My temperature gadget over there says 82 degrees right now! Wow, I like warm weather, but whoever is praying for a mild winter, would you cut it out already? I am still running my A/C at night and that is completely uncalled for. (Actually, what the heck? It just came on it's only 5:15!) I can't pay my holiday bills unless I'm not running the A/C, you know? I'm not really complaining, though. I mean, yesterday I packed up the kids and went to the beach! With the possibility of actual swimming!! And it was kinda busy for the first day of Winter! (Actually, I noticed that, much like last December when we went to the beach, there were a lot of visitors there due to the local football bowl games going on- so there were a lot of Marshall fans there that day, fresh off the previous night's win in the "Beef O'Brady's Bowl.")



We stayed for about 4 hours and the kids were completely content to jump over waves, dig holes and beg me to bury them and give them all kinds of "legs."


Cindy of course requested the Mermaid tail... No problem!





Luke then told me he wanted "Iron Man Legs." Now, I'm not an expert on things of life, but here is a tip, Luke: when Mom is making you Iron Man Legs out of sand, it is probably NOT a good idea to say, "These don't look very good" and "I don't think these really are very good Iron Man Legs" while I am building them. It kind of kills my morale.

Besides, I thought they were awesome! So life-like!


And they were soon followed up by my even more awesomer SpongeBob Legs. I promise I didn't take a class that taught me how to do this, I am just super talented.


I also successfully taught my children the art of eating their lunch under a towel in order to fool the disgusting, evil, verminous seagulls that were scavenging all around us. I hate those guys. The seagulls, not my children.



It really was a good day. Lots of sun, a very strong sea breeze and not a cloud in the sky. Florida, you complete me :)




And I can't wait to give a little update tomorrow on how Luke, Grandpa Sweeney and Jacob all spent the day at Legoland today. From the texts and pictures I have gotten from Jacob, Luke might be a closet daredevil! No, seriously.

A Cindy Quickie

During the indoor soccer game yesterday, I saw that I had missed a phone call. It was from DeAnne's house. The kids had actually spent the night with her the night before, so I knew that it was probably just Cindy calling me. However, I was worried that DeAnne might need us to come and get the kids in case she had to go somewhere, so I didn't call back but sent DeAnne a quick text telling her that we would be on our way back soon. DeAnne texted me back the following: "No rush- that was just Cindy calling you to tell you not to come." I love you too, Cindy :)

Wait, What Day Is It?

Yeah, yeah. I missed yesterday's post completely, but today I will more than make up for it! Yesterday morning I went with Jacob and his girls soccer team to Kelly Rec Center to play indoor soccer in their annual Christmas Cup tourney. I was really nervous about playing with the girls. I don't really know a lot of them, and I haven't played soccer in many moons so I didn't want to look like some kind of soccer tard and embarass myself. But I can say that it went well. All my running and P90X paid off and I was actually able to keep up with them and play like I had some soccer experience. I guess later at the Varsity Christmas party last night (which I did not attend) the girls were asking Jacob "Who was that girl that played with us this morning?" Really? Who did they think I was? Some girl off the street that showed up with coach? His girlfriend? Maybe it was my straight hair and un-makeup'd face, but sometimes I wonder about those girls...


And now for something completely Bingham


I don't know what Chris has in his hands or why his bathrobe seems to be filled with something to make him a very burly Joseph, but the overall strangeness of this photo makes perfect sense. I think I was a junior or senior in high school in this one???


I like Dad branching out with the striped comforter we had yet to use. Exciting!


Doesn't Chris look majestic in Mom's bathrobe? And I am still the angel! Dave taking the photo maybe?


I must be taking the picture in this one...


I think these four photos bring me to twelve, but I still have a few more that need to make an appearance. I'll see what I can do over the next day or two. I am headed to the beach today, I got some movies I need to watch, I'm finishing up all my Christmas wrapping tomorrow- I'm swamped!

O Little Town of 12 Top Tens

Just in case you missed last year's 12 Days of Christmas here in Sweeneyville, I am just giving you a friendly reminder that it did feature 12 Awesome Christmas-themed Top Ten Lists. If you need a refresher, check out any of the links below. I won't lie and say I didn't laugh my head off re-reading these this morning. But then again, I wrote most of them, so I would hope I found them funny.

Top Ten...

Alternatives to a Lump of Coal
Off-season Elf Jobs
Signs You Hate Christmas
Carols Sung at Hogwarts
Ways to Mispronounce How the Grinch Stole Christmas
Rejected Christmas Cereals
Other Things Stolen By the Grinch
Little Known Grinch Facts
Worst Christmas Gifts
Surprising Fruitcake Ingredients
Reindeer That Will Not Be Pulling Santa's Sleigh
Leftovers From All the Top Tens


And now, because it is Tuesday, here is one more for your reading pleasure:

TOP TEN THINGS I AM MOST EXCITED ABOUT FOR THE UPCOMING NBA SEASON

10.
9.
8.
7.
6.
5.
4.
3.
2.
1. Jimmer

Squeaking It In

You can see why I wasn't exactly chomping at the bit to get this picture on the blog today...Behold! My chubby phase! Yes, this picture obviously skips a few years since yesterday's picture, but Dad gets the beard going again, you can see my pet parakeet in the lower right hand corner and Brian does a fabulous job in his impersonation of Frauline Maria. I think this was the Christmas right before Dave left on his mission, so he was about to wake up to an awesome trench coat and a lot of socks. Lucky!!

A Dad Quickie

On Saturday my parents and I attended a white elephant gift Christmas party. When it was my mom's turn to go up and open a present, she got a fruitcake. When she announced what she got my dad yelled out, "A fruitcake? Hasn't this poor woman suffered enough?!" Indeed, it is just like the comedian Jim Gaffigan says, "It just doesn't add up. Fruit: good. Cake: great. Fruitcake: Nasty crap."