Busy Day Again

Today was another busy day. I went to work for a few hours and when I got home I spent two hours doing some outside Christmas decorations. We don’t do much, just some lights on our bushes in front of the house, a grapevine reindeer, and a snowman on the porch. We have some small, grapevine snowmen as well, but after taking them out I couldn’t put them out without a little bit of work. The metal frames are painted white and they have spots of rust bleeding thru the paint. Plus, the paint that was on the grapevines is chipped and peeling off all over. Maybe I’ll make a project out of it after Christmas and touch them up with some rust-o-leum so we can use them next year.

The one thing I don’t like is running cords all over the yard. My short extension cord is about 3 feet too short to use, and I’m not about to go buy a new cord just to be able to get the exact length I need, so I settle for a coiled, bunched up cord along the side of the house. The other problem is that I have to run a cord around the back of the house. When the new garage was built, I had an extra outdoor outlet installed so I wouldn’t have to do that, but I realized yesterday in order for the lights on each side of the house to go on and off at the same time, I needed them to be on the same light sensor. This was something I didn’t think of when I was planning out the lights this year. Maybe I can still see about doing something because I really don’t want to have a cord running around the porch where someone could potentially trip on it.

After that was finished, we piled into the car to see about getting some stickers for the girls’ powderpuff derby cars. We didn’t get real creative with the design, just a plain Mustang look. They thought they could customize it with paint and stickers so we hit Michael’s to see what kind of stickers they had in the scrapbooking aisle. When we got back home we primed and applied the base coats. They are drying right now. Hopefully I can finish the base coats today before we leave for the Christmas Parade.

Christmas Time Again

The annual adventure of getting the Christmas tree up has been completed. Once again, I believe I have gone overboard with lights on the tree. Every year I tell myself I am going to tone it down, but yet every year it seems I use more and more lights. I will say that I am still under as far as the record goes (which is in the neighborhood of 2400).

This year we have 2050 lights on the tree, though I tell myself that isn’t quite the case as there are a few lights that are out here and there. That way I don’t feel so bad. We have to be careful with how long the tree is on because the heat from the lights will actually warm the room a degree or two.

After getting the lights on we spent a couple of hours unpacking/unboxing the ornaments and hanging them. The girls love this part the best, taking out their ornaments, hanging them, and then just looking at them. It really is cute to see Alison on her knees looking at the lights and the ornaments. The only problem is that we put the tree in a corner of the room so we lose about a third of the space of the tree because no one ever sees it. The result is that we have many ornaments that don’t even make it out of their boxes. One of these years we’ll figure out a good way to arrange the room that will allow us to have it more in the middle of the room so we have more actual hanging space for ornaments.

Pictures of the tree will be coming shortly, so look for them.

Last Minute Shopping

Last night I had to stop at the grocery store for a couple of things for Thanksgiving dinner (veggies, biscuits). What is the deal with people getting their last minute supplies? It was almost as bad as being out at 5:00 a.m. on Black Friday! People rushing around, banging their carts together... It is only food people! I mean it isn't like you are fighting to get an HDTV for $50. You are buying milk, pie, veggies... Get real! Kris told me she didn't want to step foot in the grocery store the week of Thanksgiving and I poo-poohed her. I guess she was right, although I can't for the life of me figure out why people would be so ridiculously crazy just buying food.

November 25th

I have finally gotten around to starting an online journal for my family, and this is the very first post. please bear with me while I arrange my settings, etc. Soon you will be able to read all about the happenings of our family and what is new in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. Admit it, you know you're curious now.

I tried to make the name of our blog unique as well as fun. What do you think?