fa la la

so....christmas season is upon us.  we put up our tree last weekend.  you know how you have those pictures in your head of a fire in the fire place, everybody with hot chocolate in hand, christmas music playing in the background, and everybody just joyfully hanging ornaments on the tree?  that so completely happened at our house.  not.

it was more of a snatch and grab, push and shove, you're in my way!, don't break that!, that is breakable!, get out of the way!, i told you that was breakable!, i was here first!, this is my side of the tree!, do you know what breakable means?, stop playing with the outlet!, don't put that in the outlet!, why on earth does anybody give us breakable ornaments?, do we really even need a tree? kind of time. it's like that at everybody's house, right?  don't answer that.

before all the commotion, the little people got to open their ornaments for the year.  "curi-a-nous" george along with a lego darth vader and a lego storm trooper (at least i think it's a storm trooper...don't judge me if i'm wrong) are happily hanging on the tree this year.

we got the rest of the stuff put up, and every little person is in full blown christmas mode.  they each even got a fiberoptic christmas tree to put in their rooms this year.  they think it's pretty cool to sleep at night with it twinkling.

but the best was the nativity scene.  wes wanted to be in charge of setting it up.  so i let him.

i am certain that i would have laid it out a little differently.  however, he was adamant that all those shepherds and wise men came to SEE baby jesus.  they didn't want to just stand around in the field not looking at him.  so he made sure that they all could see.

i'm pretty sure that the wise men didn't ride their camels up in the stable, but i guess it probably did look a little more like this than the way we always set it up.  if angels came to me and told me to go see the baby, i guess i might ride my camel on up in there to get a peek at him, too.  maybe i should put wes in charge of this every year.

so...the halls are decked.  the stockings are hung by the chimney with care.  we've only been through one bag of christmas M&Ms so far.  and the tree is still in one piece.

but you know we couldn't usher in a new season without an injury.  it had been about 4 weeks since anybody over here had been stitched up, so wes thought it was time!!

fa la la.

thankfulness

it's all over our house.  every day my kids come home with turkeys and pumpkins and wreaths listing the things that they are thankful for.  there are the typical answers like "my mom and dad," "my brothers," "jesus," and "my house."  and then wes throws in the "the turkey" just for good measure!  hey...we gotta eat.

so since thanksgiving week is upon us, i thought i'd list a few things that i'm thankful for at the moment.

1.  the carwash

i've never seen a carwash make any kid so happy.  besides, chase is a clean car freak, so going through the carwash on a regular basis keeps everybody around here happy.

2.  friends

i love that all of my kids have super sweet friends.  i love that chase and i are friends with the parents.  i love that we all feel completely comfortable dropping a kid or two off at a friend's house/toting kids too and fro (even on short notice), and it's perfectly acceptable!

3.  a pumpkin carving daddy

he was a superhero around here when he was able to carve out the vampire that the little people requested.  i'm still not sure it looked like a vampire, but i didn't have to do it, so.....it was the most fabulous vampire ever! 

4.  safety from enemy aircraft

i thought we were playing golf.  but, i soon learned that we were being attacked by passenger bomber planes.  good thing that reed had his 7 iron to shoot him down and protect me.

5.  that i don't have to try to get a christmas card picture except once a year.

is it really that hard to get everybody to smile?  or even to look in the direction of the camera?  i mean goodness gracious.  chase said i just needed to send out a pic of the two of us and say, "merry christmas!  sorry....we tried."  i might have to.  geez.  you are super excited to get our card now, aren't you?

6.  veterans

i love celebrating and appreciating our veterans.  the little people got into it this year because they had a veterans program at their school.  i have a recent fascination with WWII, and there were two WWII veterans there. i spoke to one who was on the USS Hope.  i had to come home and google it to learn that it was a floating hospital, but it was exciting nonetheless.  go usa!

7.  my boys

i absolutely do not understand how their brains work.  i don't understand why wrestling is the only way to solve a dispute.  i don't understand why it's so difficult to tell that your underwear is on backwards. i don't know why ninjas are so awesome.  i don't know why it's impossible to not pee on the floor, but i wouldn't trade in a single one of them.

not even the big one.

hope you all have a great thanksgiving week!

halloween

halloween.  i don't get it.  if putting on a super hero costume and ringing strangers' doorbells while asking for candy isn't weird enough, then the grown women who parade around all day in black spandex and wings with antennas on their head totally is.  true story.  i mean, i've always wanted to be a spandex bumble bee, but seeing as how i am over the age of 9....i think i can suppress that desire.  if the teller at the bank handed you your money wearing a spiderman mask, would you re-count that money?  i would.  if the nurse walked in to take your blood pressure/give you a shot while dressed like the grim reaper, would you ask for a different one?  i would.  i'm not a fuddy duddy, but i guess i tend to enjoy holidays where people wear regular clothes.  at least the grown people!

back in the day, i used to be able to get a picture of all three little people in their halloween costumes.  but now, the school where the two older ones go doesn't do anything for halloween, so they don't don the costumes until that night.  by that time, the littlest one isn't having anything to do with a costume.  and let's just be honest...i can't get the three of them to even look at a camera at the same time with regular clothes on.  throw in super hero costumes and copious amounts of sugar, and you can just forget about it.  can you feel my excitement about taking a christmas card picture this year?!?!  should be fun.

reed had a party at school on halloween morning.  he went as the biggest super hero of all...the UPS man.  i mean, they get more excited when they hear that big brown truck rumbling down our street than they would if spidey himself showed up at our door!

by the time our church festival rolled around that night, reed wasn't having anything to do with putting on a costume.  i did good to get a mississippi state jersey on him.  batman and spiderman were happy to comply.  they knew exactly what the night held, and they were ready!  i couldn't get them to be still for pictures, but what else is new?

anne reece likes the camera, though.  she and reed were tight on this night.  once we got back to our neighborhood, they had the shortest legs of the whole bunch, so they stuck together at the back of the pack!

we made our way around the neighborhood in the back of chase's truck and on the warren's golf cart.  and by that i mean....the kids ran full speed around the neighborhood while the adults were either in the truck or on the golf cart hollering/hoping/praying that they didn't get run over by all the other adults riding 4-wheelers/gators while screaming at running kids.  a fantastic time was had by all.

at some point, we finally gave up and came home to sort out the loot.  i don't know why my children prefer the fake, green tootsie rolls and suckers to reece's and snickers, but hey...more for me!

and i have more than enough to last me until the cadbury eggs make their way onto the shelves at kroger!!  :)