November 29, 2013

(click here for today's pictures)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

• Another early morning around here-my Graham has "forgotten" what a seven looks like.  Last night we had threatened to make him sleep in the bonus room if he woke everyone up this morning.  But we are softies and he isn't up there tonight-though he sure should be.  
• Reagan did crawl in bed with us and was pretty still. Keaton used to be the one to join us but now she has started finding the others and will play with them-she is growing up.  Whitman woke up later as the kids were eating cinnamon rolls.  
• My kids are getting too smart-they saw the cans of cinnamon rolls in the fridge in the garage and asked for them this morning.  And why not?  It is still a holiday weekend.  So we had cinnamon rolls and then started our morning.
• Aunt Dana wanted pictures of every room in the house for a commercial that will be filmed here possibly.  So we used that as an opportunity to clean the place up and then Robby took pictures of the house.  When he was finished, I told him that I was glad that we didn't have to do that again at the first of the year.  He looked at me like I was crazy-he thought I was talking about cleaning again at the first of the year.  I was talking about when I take pictures of the house each January.  
• Of course, the kids only helped up clean and then sit patiently for Robby to finish the house pictures so we could start on the Christmas decorating.  I was the first to the attic with 5 little folks following close behind me.  I pulled out the first bin and started pulling stuff out telling them where to put things.  We managed to get through 3 bins before Robby made it upstairs.
• Then the kids and I started on their tree and Robby escaped to the living room to start on our big tree.  The kids did really well decorating.  Reagan was all about it and all about telling everyone what needed to go where.  Campbell would hold an ornament, look for a perfect spot and then hand it to me and tell me to put it up high.  Keaton liked to hold the ornaments and occasionally take them off of the tree.  My boys, well, they aren't too much into tree decorating and started working on their train but were constantly running downstairs to check and see if the ball game had started.
• We managed to finish the kids tree and get a few strands of lights on ours when the ball game did start.  The boys went upstairs to watch the game while I started pulling out school work for next month.  The girls and Whitman stayed with me-they made a zillion Christmas cards.  
• Soon we joined the boys for the end of the second half and then it was snack time and time to work on a few more strands of lights for our tree.  Then back to the school room for me, a nap for Keaton and Whitman and the ball game for the rest of them.  I could hear my Anderson yelling from the other side of the house for the poor hogs.
• After the disappointing game, I played a game with the girls and I let the kids put a few ornaments on my tree while Robby made supper.  Then it was time for pajamas and you guessed it-The Price is Right.  Whitman couldn't stay on the floor long because he managed to crawl to the tree and start grabbing at the branches.  Good thing his other mother (Campbell) was hot on his trail.  (Though she may or may not have let him fall off the bed this morning-he was on the floor when I left the room.  Either way, he was pretty mad when I came back into the room and she was acting like she should be in trouble!)
• The kids were thrilled to go to bed with their tree on-we may just have to keep them up longer this year.  Last year we took the tree down in the dark, cold house on Christmas night.  We knew by then it was going to be a while before we had power and we really wanted to finish putting Christmas up, so we even "vacuumed" the floor with tape.  We are silly!  
• I worked on my tree and added as many ornaments as I could.  Since I keep buying ornaments on my trips, I have enough for 2 more trees-seriously.  It makes me sad to leave some off the tree though-like I am hurting Napa Valley's feelings by not displaying my ornament from there.