Deck the Halls

Oh dear me, it is December!

Our Elf the Shelf, Lightning McQueen, showed up and on the second night I almost forgot to move him. Might be a long month of this, especially now that the Lady and her girlfriends text each other photos of their elves.

Moms--you are killing me! I am doing the bare minimum of remembering to move this thing at night and now I have to scroll through the Lady's texts to make sure that Lightning is up to par with Chippy or Lulu or Buddy! I am literally putting this elf on a shelf. And really do they need clothes? What a freaking racket!

After the stress ball that was last December with packing and moving and trying to get it all together, I was thinking that come December 1, I would unpack my carefully organized Christmas decorations and deck the halls.

This is what my mantle/fireplace looks like right now.

A few things you may notice:

1. Lightning McQueen in a vase
2. A Halloween pumpkin painted like a black cat that hasn't started rotting yet so I haven't tossed it in the woods.
3. Two gingerbread Turkeys
4. Some fall artwork by the Little Lady
5. Two out of our 5 Advent calendars (I have a really cute wooden one in the attic)
6. QT and the Little Lady's school photos (yes, the Little Lady is wearing a leather jacket)
7. Some Uggliest Pet Shop dogs, which are disgusting but very important to QT
8. The shattered hopes and dreams of a mom with three kids who thought that she would be living with a garland draped mantle and cinnamon-scented air

Oh well, I guess I could get it all out tonight.

Have you started decorating for the Holidays?Fa la la la la. . .

Some Sticky Seasonal Situations

The Little Lady glued three, colored 8.5x11 pieces of paper to the wood floor in her room.

Oh Elmer, you are lucky it was your glue and not super glue or glitter glue. I guess I was lucky she wasn't playing on the rug.

These types of things seem to be happening with greater frequency in my house if that gives you any indication of how things have been going this fine holiday season.

QT wrote with permanent markers on my refrigerator (thank goodness for the magic eraser), he also upended a huge container of Rainbow Loom rubber bands that we have almost gotten back into the bin (on a side note, I do kind of find the sorting and organizing of the bands quite soothing, especially after trying to subdue the copious amounts of rage-a-hol pulsing through my bloodstream after finding paper glued to the floor).

The Lady insists that none of the messes have been made by her (although she is the one who was using the permanent markers for an art project and then left them out).

The one positive outcome of all this mess is that it has given me the impetuous to just get rid of stuff.

You can't play with it and put it away? Gone.

And I am talking garbage gone.

As much as I am trying to remember the meaning of this season, be grateful for the imagination and creativity of my glue and permanent marker-bearing children, I am wondering why I am even working myself up about bringing more stuff into our house, especially if it isn't going to be taken care of by the kids.

We need nothing else and clearly I am having trouble trying to get them to take care of the things that they have. I am trying to find a way to teach them about the spirit and magic of Christmas and about caring for people other than themselves in this world. It sometimes gets lost between Christmas lists, 50% off sales, and that freaking Elf.

The Elf, who the Ladies left a strawberry out for because they were concerned he didn't have enough time to eat during his nightly excursion to the North Pole, "found" a dry erase board and a marker and compiled a Naughty List with the names of the Three Beans listed. Not my proudest moment as a mother.

The Ladies came down to find the Elf holding the pen, sitting next to a half-eaten strawberry and on top of a dry erase board that listed them as naughty.

The Lady couldn't tolerate that for a second and found a way to remove the pen, without touching the Elf, and change naughty to nice. Not sure if that lesson sunk in.

I love that my kids are at the age that they can all play together relatively unsupervised and that they enjoy each others company. Granted, we have a few minor incidents but overall they have fun together. I just wonder why it is at always at bedtime when I am at my lowest and just ready to crash that things seem to go so astray. Maybe I throw away a few more plastic things I find on the floor, maybe I just let them turn their room into one big art installation, but in the spirit of the season, why can't they just be good for goodness sake?

The "Hugging Incident"

I published this photo on my personal fb page of all the cousins on my side of the family. I got more than one comment on why the Little Lady looks so pissed. Watch as the hugging incident unfolds below. . .

and finally. . .

I feel like this whole sequence needs special care and attention. QT's antics are priceless, The Lady is a consummate model (please ignore her lack of arm support on Little Shooter's neck), the Wild Man is trying to check out the scene and the Wild Woman clearly has her own face on.

They were good sports and I am glad we actually got a photo of them together. Here is one final one where the Little Lady is actually smiling.

Counting Down the Days

My husband arrived home last week and I couldn't have been happier. It is just a lot easier to have an extra hand here and there with the Ladies.

The Lady was very excited and has spent every morning since calling her daddy down to change her diaper. This frees up my mornings some!

We are in full holiday swing at our house and actually got a tree that isn't potted this year. The Lady was very excited to trim it and only broke two ornaments. Needless to say most of our more fragile ornaments are still wrapped up and packed away.

I still haven't finished shopping, but I am almost done. I wanted to be super organized this year, but as usual, things have been left for the last minute and finding the time to actually get out has proved more difficult than I thought.

Also, wrapping gifts takes considerably longer when the Lady helps put the "sticky tape" on.

I am trying to take a few extra deep breaths and I am also trying to stop shoving as many baked goods in my mouth as I can. Oh, the Holidays. . .