And let the Christmas madness begin

And so it begins, barely 2 days into the month we are off and running to our first holiday engagement.  Sounds fancy, engagement.  Yeah real fancy!  Jim even broke out the candy cane pants!!  The squadron had a Holiday party complete with Santa but alas, he didn’t see fit to bring us the one thing everyone wants – an F-35!!  Oh well there is always the new year.

By now it is the first week of December and we don’t have our tree much less have the house decorated.  Every day the children are asking us when when when!!  Even after we had decorated it, they kept asking when we were going to get ALL the decorations out.  I am not sure what decorations they are referring.  Everything we have is up.  I have been actively guilting Jim into ramping up the outdoor illuminations for several years, but it was Ben jumping on the bandwagon that finally persuaded him to outline the house in lights – COLORED lights.  This is HUGE step for Jim.  HUGE!  Of course we had started outlining in white lights because that is what we had, but then stumbled upon some colored and we switched out.  The kids were super excited, until our next door neighbors broke out their display.  Then it was back to when are the other lights going to be put up.  Can’t win (SIGH).

At least one member of the household was happy with what we did.

That is where he camped out for the entire month.  I guess he finally knew his humans loved him so much they gave him an indoor tree to lie under.

We didn’t fare so well the second week of December.  Lilly lost her second front tooth that had been loose and dangling forever.  I asked her if she wanted to wait for it to fall out naturally, but she is too impatient (wonder who she gets that from) and insisted I pull it.  Naturally I complied.  It is very satisfying to pull teeth – who knew.  Maybe I should have been a Dentist.

Right after the Tooth Fairy paid a visit, the crutches fairy came.  Lilly landed wrong off the monkey bars at school which proceeded to launch a 10 day saga of ER visits, X-rays and follow up doctor’s visits.  Fun fun fun; luckily, no fractures or tears or even sprains.  Whew, dodged that bullet.  Jim and I were convinced that the crunches were going to cause more harm than good.  We were glad to turn those suckers back in.

Jim wasn’t so lucky.  He started complaining of general crappiness on Sunday.  I told him to go see the Doc who happened to be up the street watching a football game.  Jim goes, they talk about the situation, and then Jim sits down and proceeds to have a beer and eat some chicken wings.  Needless to say the Doc wasn't concerned.  However the crappiness continued.  Here he is being attended to by one of our finest.  Sad part is, he is asleep and doesn't even realize all the love he is getting.  Notice the death grip on the remote.  Even while unconscious, he is in command.

By Tuesday was in the hospital recovering from what one doctor called a very angry appendix.  I told the other two kids that if I had to wrap them in bubble wrap I would in order to get from having to go back to the ER again.  That is all we needed was a visit from Child Services right before Christmas!

  

All the while our Elf on a Shelf (Kringle) had been having a grand old time causing all sorts of mayhem in the house.  This year we were finally able to have a little fun with Kringle.  Up until this point we had been concerned about keeping him out of arm’s length.  But the kids are old enough now to understand they aren’t supposed to touch him and so we were able to open a few doors for him.  He had several “dates” with dolls; even dyed our milk green in addition to other antics.  Lilly noticed that Kringle was up to no good more this year.  I told her that perhaps he was just mirroring what he was witnessing in the house.  Of course there were a few days that Kringle didn’t move.  We just blamed that on the children.  I came up with an excuse that perhaps Kringle had seen something really bad and instead of ratting out the kids to Santa he was giving them a second chance.  They bought that hook, line and sinker.  I even made them apologize to Kringle.  Hee hee hee, I am bad.

Third Week finds us trying to get through the last week of school before the break.  The kids are uncontrollable for the most part.  Lots of candy, parties, candy, treats, candy and did I mention candy.  I had just gotten the last of the Halloween candy out of the house and ended up with even more (if that is possible).  I am attempting to get a few "Christmasy" photo for our card.  But it looks like we will be sending out New Year's cards again this year.

Finally it is the week before Christmas.  I am trying to fill the kids days with something, anything just to keep them entertained.  It is all about containment by this point.  I had pretty much given myself the deadline of the Friday before break to finish up the Christmas buying/wrapping because I knew that once the kids were out of school I would get NOTHING accomplished.  Boy was I right.

Here they are posing for a picture while taking a break from making Daddy’s nuts and bolts recipe and before decorating the Christmas cookies.

Christmas Eve FINALLY creeps up and we go out delivering our treats to the neighbors and our Niceville friends.  This is something Jim started with them when we moved to Niceville and hopefully we will be able to continue to do regardless where we move.  The John Deere Gator plays a huge role in the execution of the nuts and bolts operation as is evident from pictures below.

After a quick trip to church and then to a friend’s Christmas Eve Open House it was FINALLY time to read “Twas the Night Before Christmas”.  Then it was just a short wait for the kids to pass out.  And we were ready for Santa!!

The kids, mercifully, slept in on Christmas morning.  Which actually was not a good thing considering we wanted to be on the road headed north by 10:00am.  We did not make our timeline, but it was worth it!  Everyone seemed to be happy with what they got.  But we didn’t give them long to think about it.  We had ato get on the road! 

I don’t know how many of you have travelled on Christmas day.  But NOTHING is open.  We picked up lunch in a really bad gas station just over the Alabama state line which consisted of a questionable hot dog for Jim, lunchables for the kids and a container of yogurt for me.  Dinner was better.  When nothing else is open you can count of Waffle House.  They never close unless dictated by the government in cases of inclement weather (read hurricane curfew).  I posted this picture on Facebook of our 2^nd annual Christmas Dinner at Waffle House and was surprised at how generous the comments were.  Some thought we were sooo creative and crafty, but really it is because NOTHING else is open.  The last two years there has even been a wait to get a table.  So we are comforted in that we aren’t the only ones who are doing this.  Last year was a classic in that we stopped in Auburn, AL and it was snowing.  No picture, which Jim is still kicking himself over. 

We made it to Wintergreen and true to it’s name, it was green, as in NO SNOW!  Oh sure there was man made snow on a few of the slopes but a FAR far cry for the conditions of the last 3 years.  There was enough snow for the kids to go to ski school though.  Lilly quickly progressed through the levels and found herself out on the slopes the second day.  Lucy was a tad more hesitant, but she was also moved up the ranks.  Ben really had the furthest to go.  Last year he would barely go out in the snow so this year he started in the snail group.  After one day, he INSISTED he be put with the big kids.  At first the ski school wasn’t buying into it, but then Daddy got on the case and used all his sea lawyer skills to bump Ben up.

Lucky for us, because Ben stepped up and did a wonderful job!  He spent the entire day on the slopes and went to bed a happy tired boy.

The kids had a blast with all the cousins, we had a blast with all the family and the FREE TIME!!!  I even got a massage that was one of my Christmas presents from Jim.  AHHH, heaven!

All to quickly it was time to pile back into the car and head back south.  We stopped in Atlanta for dinner and just happened to find the Original Chick-Fil-A restaurant.  I will admit, I didn’t read all the plaques in the place, but for some reason it started out being called the Dwarf house.  You will have to Google it to find out why and then tell me, seriously.  Here the kids are in front of the Dwarf door.  Again, I don’t know why there is a dwarf door there.  Also – they sell HAMBURGERS at this Chick-Fil-A.  Do the cows know?  Curious!! Are we sure we are at a Chick-Fil-A? Ben isn't.

Back in Niceville, the weather is great!  So great in fact we borrowed a boat to get one last boat ride in before the Ball dropped.  With the move to Rhode Island looming before us, we are tying to enjoy as much as the area has to offer.

Bye bye 2011, What will 2012 hold in store for us? So I totally ripped this idea off from Pinterest, but it is still a pretty cool shot.