Happy Monday again all. I’m doing the Monday Pull Up for Laura this week. She has a sick boy and between us, I think she’s just celebrating her Bears huge win today.
We spent the weekend putting up our Christmas lights and decorations. Oh my was it ever nice to be able to do that without fussing with gloves or mittens. It was also nice to look in every direction and see my neighbors doing the same. I got to see Vicki’s lights lit up for a minute and it’s lookin’ good. I do swear though, there are little gremlins that get into my Christmas lights each year and tangle them up because I KNOW I put them away neatly last year!
Do you put up lights? Decorations? What did you do all weekend and what’s up for the coming week?
Remember to be kind to one another. No bullying or being snarly or you’ll be put in the dungeon to separate tangled Christmas lights.
Us Girls..Our Views 
Our lights are done…I think. I still want to get some more little figurines to hang up. Still need to get all the extension cords hooked up, but other than that we are done. I love looking at all the lights. Today was rather chilly. We wanted to do some more stuff outside, but ended up being inside.
Well, that’s a pretty picture! Puts me in a quietly festive mood. (Except – oh, crap – it reminds me that I am already behind on my Christmas shopping!!)
This weekend we still have Halloween decorations up – but then, I am not the person who does decorations around here. We had some really big winds today, so it might have been hard to string lights anyway. If only I didn’t have to sit indoors and work most of the day, it would have been great to go out and play in the leaves or something. I did lay down the law and make my kids dress warmly and put on work gloves and go work in the yard. They have gotten so lazy in their old age, I tell ya. So they earned a couple of bucks picking up leaves (though you can’t tell by looking at our yard – they could make $hundreds and still have more leaves to gather.) And they ran and laughed and played. It’s sad that the things I took for granted as a kid are only occasionally available to my kids – like an afternoon of playing in the yard. With the time change, it’s now pitch dark long before daycare pick-up time. The only chance we had for bike riding was yesterday for about a half hour. Miss E is still such a goof about it, though you can see her balance getting really good. She’s a wuss and can’t seem to keep her feet on the pedals long enough to figure out that she isn’t gonna fall down and die. I really want her to learn this year, because I feel that it will be harder if she is older. And next year she will be way too big for her 13″ bike. Plus, the girls would have a great time if they could ride together.
We finally made it back to church after missing a couple weeks. Of course several people commented, but I can’t worry about that. They are just starting to work on the Christmas program, which is only a month away, if you can believe it! Yikes! Here’s hoping Miss E doesn’t refuse to sing again, LOL. One thing I need to do is buy Miss E some better shoes, or figure out some way to put straps on the shoes she has. She could live with them, but she has a dance recital coming up, and I can just see her shoes flying off while she’s on stage. That could threaten my mother-of-the-year award. Ha!
Not sure if I mentioned this already, but this past week we watched the musical Oklahoma in 3 installments, finishing on Saturday. I had only seen it once before, years ago, and didn’t remember much. Gosh, it was pretty intense (for kids) in many places. I took the unusual measure of fast-forwarding at one point. But Miss A loved it. Miss E was too scared to watch all of it. She moved into another room where she could just barely see the screen while she played with her toys. Eventually she ran upstairs. Then once the movie was over, she wanted a blow-by-blow description of all the horrible parts. LOL!
I have to make a plan for us to watch some holiday movies in the next month or so. Have to plan movies way ahead around here! In addition to whatever we watched last year, I want to add It’s a Wonderful Life, a good version of Scrooge (suggestions?), and maybe one or two others. White Christmas maybe? What am I forgetting? (They are too young for anything that suggests there might not be a Santa Claus.)
This week I have some work meetings that will probably stress me out, but I will live through them. I am getting some to-do items done and hopefully will be in a better state by mid-week. On Friday, I am scheduled to take my kids for a volunteer food-packing event at a children’s home. Although I’ll be taking them out of school for this, I feel it is important enough. Other than that, I think this week will be like most other weeks. I do hope that I will hear something from the school about Miss E’s evaluation process.
I remember the version that Patrick Stewart did of A Christmas Carol (I looked it up) in 1999. It’s available on Netflix, if you do that. I really liked it, if I recall correctly. It was made for TV, but Stewart (a favorite of mine) did a nice job as Scrooge. But I would pre-watch it if I were you, just to make sure… I haven’t seen it since it was on TV, although I do have the audio of it around here somewhere. And of course, you can’t discount my favorite version of all time… Mickey’s Christmas Carol! That’s a standby here.
The other two standbys, I won’t show to Josh just yet: The Santa Clause, and Christmas Vacation. I watch both multiple times each season. It’s not Christmas without those two movies…
Oklahoma! Was one of my favorite musicals as a kid – I saw it the first time when i was about 10. I didn’t see it on TV until I was older, and even then, the “Poor Jud” scenes freaked me out. I can imagine that they’d give a 4-year-old some pause.
Otherwise, I don’t know what to show for Christmas… we’re more Rudolph folks around here. We tend to watch all those classic claymation movies, and, like i said, Mickey’s Christmas Carol. But then, Josh isn’t a big movie guy, at all. I think I will netflix the Muppets Christmas for him, though. He loves Muppets, and he loves John Denver.
I just looked up scrooge movies. I’m pretty sure the one I want to show the girls is the 1970 version of the musical Scrooge (British). That scrooge looks so crotchety, you can practically smell his bad breath. Plus I can remember some of the music from decades ago. Hopefully the girls will like it.
White Christmas was definitely NOT the movie I was thinking of.
We do Rudolph, too, and Charlie Brown Christmas, and the Grinch. Last year I bought The Polar Express, which was just OK, but we’ll watch it again. We have one that we haven’t seen yet – Year Without a Santa Claus? – and this will probably be the year for that. I also own It’s a Wonderful Life. And the kids have watched Meet Me In St. Louis like 12 times already (it has somewhat of a Christmas theme). We also have some Scholastic Christmas books made into DVDs.
I still feel like I’m forgetting something.
Oy. What a day. Started out all bright and sunny. Had a pretty slow day planned… head to Farm & Fleet early to pick up some screening for the door of the dog crate, then assemble it and get Hobbes settled in his new home while we spent a really quiet, do-nothing day at home, waiting for den members to come and pick up their popcorn.
Josh came to me about 11 and said that his stomach hurt… it was all “burny”. He’s had some issues with reflux, so I have him half a tums and told him that no, cherry pie was NOT a mild food and he couldn’t have a piece to “settle his tummy”. But he wanted to go to F&F with me, so off we went. We pulled into the parking lot, and he says, “I need a bathroom NOW!!” So we race into the store and to the back, and the minute we get there, an old guy slides into the bathroom before Josh. So I made him use the girl’s. Well, he was ok… false alarm, but geezopete, was he pale! So I added a trip to Wal-mart Grocery onto my list, and as I’m picking up crackers and sprite, we see a friend’s mom there who suggested some Maalox. So I head to the pharmacy, and while I’m talking to the pharmacist (who told me that ONLY Tums for Kids is acceptable, ’cause the other meds have no-no stuff in it. Learn something new…) Josh says, “MOM!! Bathroom!!” I turn to look at him, and tell the pharmacist… I need a bucket NOW!! And Josh exploded. All over the floor in the Wal-mart pharmacy. Poor thing.
Well, the kid just stayed pale, so we headed home. He fell asleep in the truck on the way home, and this boy NEVER sleeps in the truck. Got home at 1, he went into bed without another word. Woke up a couple more times this afternoon to be sick. Such fun.
Then, about 7:30, he wakes up again, rarin’ to go. You’d never know the kid was sick. He downed two glasses of apple juice, a bunch of crackers, and half a can of chicken and spongebob soup.
I finally got him back to bed at 9:15. I suspect he’ll be at school tomorrow. I’m SO glad that bout was fast. He’s had some runs with stomach bugs that have lasted for a week.
Thanks, Joy, for covering the Pull Up. And it had nothing to do with the Bears…. although I am SO giving Steve the crap for his prediction yesterday!!!
Hate those pukey days! I should probably have a sympathetic anecdote, but I think I’ve learned to block most of those incidents out. The 14 pukes in 8 hours is still fresh in my mind, but at least that was at home.
I’m glad Josh is feeling better. I hope it stays that way! (And I hope you dont get sick now!)
Oh, pukes always scare me. When he was four, in KG, he contracted something evil. I suspect it was Norovirus (I think that’s what it’s called), and he was pukey for a week straight. Couldn’t keep anything down, got all grey, lost weight (this is a kid who has NO FAT). It was scary as hell. I took him to the doc, and they gave him some meds… if it hadn’t worked in like 2 hours, he’d have had to be admitted to the hospital for IV because of dehydration. So I always get very nervous when his tummy gets upset. Colds, we can handle. Injuries, slap an ice pack on it and get back in the game. Pukey? Mom freaks out.
Yuck! I remember the 14 puke night, and I was thinking, is this dangerous? At what point do I go to the hospital? Because obviously she was puking out a lot more fluids than she was taking in. But luckily it was over soon enough. We went out to dinner (at a fancy restaurant) the following evening, LOL. Talk about brave!
We have a 40 cedar tree in our front yard that looks like a huge Christmas tree. So last year I hired the tree trimming guy to come out with his buket truck and wrap white Christmas lights around it. It looks awesome and we had many comments on it. We left the lights on it and I am anxious to plug them in!
I remember that last year. The pics were pretty cool.
I doubt we’ll put lights up outside. I always want to, and it never happens. I’m about to start decorating in the house though, just to lift my spirits.
This weekend was not the best, but not awful. Jason was sick, still is. Bailey, I swear I don’t even know what the kid looks like anymore. He’s either at his friends, or upstairs with friends. Apparently, we aren’t that cool anymore. 😦 I had an on/off headache all weekend. I hope it doesn’t come back today!
The new quarter starts for school, so Bailey starts band today. He’s very excited. His end of the quarter grades were outstanding. I’m a little surprised, because so many parents warned me about middle school.
Anyways…I hope everyone has a good week! I can’t believe Thanksgiving is next week! It really came up quick!
I’m so excited to hear how he liked band.
PS. I think you’re cool.
I think you’re cool, too. And just wait for Marching Band. Get on the Parent/Pit Crew, and you’ll be cool again!
Last night Jason showed me an add in the paper for JMCremps outdoor adventures for boys. Sounds cool, and its right in Dassel!! Who would’ve thought this type of store was a few miles down the road in a small town? My mom and I went and checked it out today. Outdoor stuff, hunting stuff, army things…toys etc, you name it they probably had it. All boy stuff! Their clothes were cheap. I got Hunter a Carhartt camo shirt and a Cat Skidloader. Very reasonable for prices! Very neat store and we will be going back there. They said they do most of the selling online and just moved to Dassel a yr ago in Oct.
Holy crap Thanksgiving is next week already!!!!!!! I just read Nikki’s post and didnt realize it was already next week..sheesh!!! lol
Im so glad we got a bulk of our outdoor decorating done this weekend, We put about 6-7 hours of nonstop hanging lights setting up decor and stringing cords this weekend and it went smoothly, either it was the nice weather we had or we’re catching onto this decorating stuff finally. I cant wait to get everything going next Thursday night..woohoo!
It is. A week from Thurs.
Yeah, Thanksgiving snuck up on a lot of people! I wonder why?
I don’t usually do outdoor decorations… we live in the country, on a hill behind a bunch of trees, so you really can’t see anything that I can put up. If I had one of those handy-dandy personal cherry-picker, person-lifter deals? I’d be ALL over putting lights up on this house. But I can’t, because the roof is so bloomin’ high. So I do a bunch inside, including putting those single little candles in the windows. That looks really cool, ’cause it’s the one thing that you CAN see from the road.
But I have a firm rule about decorating for Christmas – it doesn’t begin until Dec. 1, and even then it’s ONLY the “Open Early” box. One holiday at a time around here. I think it’s because we always had a live tree when I was a kid, so we wouldn’t put it up until about a week before Christmas. We’d decorate with other things, make cookies, listen to music, etc., but the tree was always the last thing, so it stayed fresh. And then it stayed up for a week or so after; it usually came down around the first week of January. So I do that, too. It kinda spreads the work out, especially since I have to do most of it myself. Although Josh is getting to be much better at actually helping, rather than the 5&6-year old version of “helping”…