Quite A Year

Another year gone, but it was a fun one.  Hope the new year offers all the fun and excitement as the last,  maybe a little less of the scary excitement (Mom's cancer and surgery, the flooding of the upstairs, etc.).  Gonna try and add some pictures from Christmas to this post too.

The Perfect Storm

Carpet, Jennifer's surgery, Christmas, work, kids... all combine to make the perfect storm of getting the house ready.  I am in the process of getting everything piled into the kitchen and family room into the  garage where Layne's new bed was.  Her bed is now in her room and the garage is now empty, well, just not as cluttered.  We need the kitchen and family room back so we can actually eat and sit down.  Neither of which was really possible the last two days.

Some pics of Charlie our elf and Layne painting.  Charlie made his presence known via graffiti on Layne's wall, that Charlie.

The Price of New Carpet

Yes, the carpet is in, but the house is an absolute disaster.  I know I've said the house was a disaster before, but this... this on a biblical level, this could put us on the show "Hoarders".  Want to sit down and eat at the table, well there is a path that can get you to the table, but you'd need a chair five feet high to reach the top of the stacked piles.  Our bathroom didn't fair much better.  Some stuff has been put back so it doesn't look as bad as the kitchen.  Looks like we've got a dirty clothes monster growing in the tub.  "Don't Walk, Run from... The Dirty Clothes Blob... in theaters just in time for Christmas."  It's making for an interesting holiday season this year, but we'll pull it off, we always do somehow.

We are leaving it like this for a reason, we want to really get rid of some things and go through it all and keep only the stuff we need and want, the rest goes.  It will be hard for all of us, but this a great opportunity to clean house.  Almost like a fresh start.

The good thing about it all is the carpet.  Jennifer and I like it, but the kids are ecstatic.  They like it so much, the first thing they did when we got home was take off their shoes and go upstairs to see and feel the carpet, then the realization that it's just carpet kicked in and the deity that is tv regained it's dominance.  We'll see how much of the house we can put back in order before Christmas and get decorations out as well.  We don't have any holiday stuff up at all.  Time to crack the whip and get those kids working or I see coal in their future.

A Festival of Lessons and Carols

Today, on the 2nd Sunday of Advent, we had A Festival of Lessons and Carols at our church.  Joshua is the only one who is singing in the choir at this time.  He is in the Epiphany Choir.

It was a bit of a rough day.  Joshua is pushing all the buttons right now.

We had instructions that the children singing were to wear their "Christmas Best" as they were leading worship this afternoon.  So, our son, who was upset last night that he did not have a suit coat to wear to the Puppet Theater - and "settled" for a shirt and tie, would not dress up for church this afternoon.  He ended up wearing his new tennis shoes, khaki slacks, and a guitar t-shirt.  The mention of the guitar t-shirt at this point would be foreshadowing.

Joshua did well in the first half of the singing.  He was a little fidgety and couldn't seem to stop waving at us - but did sing along.  For some reason, even though he knew where we were sitting and waved at us the whole time, he didn't know how to find us when it was his time to join us.   So he wandered a bit and then got a little frightened and was very snuggly for a bit.

Then Joshua was my sweet kid for a few minutes and asked if he could go give Rev. Jenna a hug.  I think she was surprised, but he gave a real good hug.

Then he got antsy and had to go sit with Layne, Jacob and Zackary in the front row with Miss Wendy.  He started to get real silly and I had to go sit with him and use my Mommy Voice and give him the Mommy Look a few times.  So when it was time for him to go back and sing he was so not happy.

He stood up there in front of church with his arms crossed and shooting daggers at me.   Then he started taking his choir robe off and playing air guitar with his t-shirt.  We were soooo proud.  The best was when he started giving me 2 thumbs down - just to make sure I really knew how upset he was with me.

I at least got a cute picture of the 3 of them in front of the Christmon Tree.  You wouldn't know the day we had and they yelling and screaming that is coming from upstairs by Joshua when looking at this picture.

Well - Merry Christmas!!!!!