Day 332 {parade}

Today was a very busy day. First order of business: calling Nana. My sons have decided they like to talk on the phone. They have no idea what end to listen with and what end to talk with and they can't say much, but they love it. Each kid got a chance to talk and as the phone was taken away from each of them and passed to the next person they had a meltdown and cried and screamed at the top of their lungs. During the meltdown the phone rang and a Jehovah's Witness came to the door. Way to kick off the morning with a bang.



At that point I started baking 8 dozen cookies for tomorrow's cookie exchange. My choice: the Cashew Caramel Cookies I made earlier this month. I'd have to say they are one of the nicest cookies I've ever made.

Anyway, I started making them first thing in the morning and piped the caramel on just before I went to bed.



Next order of business - decorating the house. That was a much smaller job than usual because the boys will break and destroy everything I put up. So the name of the game this year is keep it simple and most importantly



Ava and I put up the tree. I almost ended up with a black eye. I was working one layer above Ava when her branch got stuck. She yanked on it, it went flying up and nailed me right between the eyes.



Jason worked out the whole outdoor Christmas light scenario. Remember our garage sale? Guess who accidentally sold their Christmas lights? Oops.



The finished decorating:



Not bad, but very, very plain. One 6.5' tree with 48 evenly spaced shatterproof ornaments. That's it. Boring. All of the nice stuff is in the basement and very well might stay there until the kids move out. Case in point my Santa Claus. My grandmother gave this to me. I remember her having this Santa Claus when I was a child and it was around at least ten years before I was born. I put it out thinking the kids would enjoy it. They enjoyed it alright. Four days later as I type this Santa is on the stairs safely behind the baby gate after one of the boys reached inside and unscrewed the lightbulb. I can't bear the thought of it getting destroyed so Santa gets kisses at bathtime and bedtime as the kids go past him but other than that, he is strictly off limits.



And finally, tonight we took the kids to the Santa Claus parade (that's Ethan on the left and Owen on the right. As you can see I still give up on the whole bottle thing).





Luckily the kids didn't notice that Santa's voice sounded awfully familiar....... ;)



That was it. A busy day but a good one. Thanks for looking!