It's beginning to look...

...A lot like Christmas! Those that know me know how much I love my Christmas tree! I bought it many years ago on a day after Christmas sale and got a beauty of a tree for a sweet price. It's been a wonderful tree, but she's showing her age and each year I plug her in and hold my breath to see if she will light completely. The last year or two the lights in one little section have not lit, but I just shove that part to the back in the corner and no one is the wiser. I've known it's only a matter of time before Old Faithful refuses to light, and so this year I decided to retire her in her prime and let her go out with dignity. On Black Friday we hit Home Depot and got a deal on a new tree that isn't quite as magnificent as Old Faithful, but it's pretty and I hope it will last as many years as my other tree. We decorated the inside first, Colin helping decorate with me to take his mind of the stomach bug he had, and while Shelby was at work.

Colin was terribly bothered by the fact that our tree has no star on the top. So finding a star is on the top of my to do list right now. I was worried about how Caleb would do with the tree and you'll notice there are no ornaments close to the bottom. So far he's done very well and mainly just wants to scoot underneath it to chew on presents. The present he is particularly drawn to and goes for every time is actually one of his and I could care less if he chews it. I've been shooing him away when he gets under there, but it has not been a battle as of yet and I am grateful for that!

Next up were the outside lights. We have had many of our C9 strands since we married ages ago, and prior to that they were actually hanging on my house when I was a kid! Hard to imagine anything electrical lasting that long these days. Like my Christmas tree we never quite know what is going to light and what is going to die on us each year when we plug it in. This year we decided to just start fresh with all new LED energy efficient lights in hopes of not having to pay any more than we already have to for power. Here is what we came up with...not too shabby! 

Happy Thanksgiving!

As usual today we hosted Thanksgiving dinner at our house. We had several families Shelby works with join us and ate entirely too much food. Caleb celebrated his first Thanksgiving and he really enjoyed the food. He loved the stuffing, cranberries, mac and cheese and sweet potatoes.

Wordless Wednesday

Native American Celebration

Colin's class, along with the other first grade classes have been studying Native American culture at school. To end the unit they had a bit celebration where they participated in all kinds of activities that taught them about Native American culture. They made dream catchers, got their face painted, wrote in symbols on their (paper) animal hides, tasted foods like beef jerky, cornbread, dried cranberries and popcorn, practiced weaving, and more. I volunteered and helped with the snack station. I was able to snap some pictures of Colin visiting different stations. At the end the classes competed with one another in a traditional game of tug o war. Those kids were serious! LOL

Colin impressed the volunteer at this station with his arm. He was the only kid to throw through all three hoops in the designated order on the first try. Colin was quite pleased with himself of course!

Colin's teacher (right) and another first grade teacher competing in a silly race.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Caleb the Terror

Caleb has been mobile for a while now and pretty content with just exploring and checking stuff out. He is fairly mindful of me telling him "no" and redirecting him. These last few days though his stubborn red head is starting to show and he's decide he's taken a real liking to the things he knows he is not supposed to be messing with. He discovered the kitchen cabinets while I was cooking dinner and now that he knows what fun they are he keeps going back. I have to get locks ASAP.

Then the next day I ran to the bathroom for all of 5 seconds and returned to find him dining in the dog bowl. He had shoved a fistful of food in his mouth and was happily chewing away. Cooper in the background does not look so happy about this, lol.

And the day after the dog food I noticed he was happily playing with some pumpkins in the corner of the living room. It didn't seem like he was eating them, just enjoying the smacking noise his hands were making on them and feeling the textures. I was wrong. I discovered my pumpkin looking like a little mouse had snacked on it. 

Now that he has discovered the fun in all these things, and the shoe rack by the door, he is adamant on visiting these spots as soon as I put him down. I've had to keep a constant eye on him and you should hear the protests as I drag him away. LOL Rotten child!

If you give a kid a camera....

You'll find images like this on your disk.