Just Me!!

The day started early with having to drive Valerie to her 1st babysitting job (she is babysitting my friends 2 dogs, so they don't destroy her house) which started at 6a-8p. I met up with my brother around 1030a to pick up Ethan and Katherine (apparently she wants to be called that now) post sleepover. When Katherine heard all the grand kids were over at Grandmas, we snuck over and crashed their party. My mom wanted to take all of them to see the reindeer at Watsons, and then a quick visit to see Grandma/Grandpa Gigi. I offered to load them all up and join in on the fun. We took them to Wendy's to eat, then to Grandma Gigi's. It was a good time to see Grandma Nagel and we made it quick so she didn't get overwhelmed with the kids! We ended the day at Watsons looking at the reindeer (not sure which two they were), who were resting up for their journey in two days. The kids did great, and I still had one more seat in my car to reach capacity. Fun day!!

We haven't made too much time for the holiday season this year so it is no surprise that we just put up the Christmas Tree 11 days into December! Charlie must remember the year we put it up the night before Christmas because she keeps asking when are we going to grandma's house to open presents and shouldn't we put out cheese and crackers for Santa (that's what our Santa eats-not cookies). The kids had early release today and I was going to keep them home but I was able to get a lot done for my return to work tomorrow, so it all worked out. We rented two movies, decorated the tree after deciding the theme to be red, blue, white, and silver, had a late dinner (Our fav--Shepherd's Pie with squash instead of potatoes), and celebrated my release of current stress that was plugging up my work calendar on Friday and Tuesday! The stressful event was cancelled and will never be something I have to do! Praise The Lord! I don't like conflict, but I'm learning that I ...

We usually just buy our pre cut tree but this year we jumped on board with my brother and went to a U-Cut farm. The one he preferred was closed so we ended up about 5 minutes from home at a local tree grower. It worked perfectly. We didn't freeze by spending way too much time at the farm plus Jer dropped our tree off for us! Ethan and Valerie actually cut the tree down themselves. Awesome, and cool use of those muscles. Mamma didn't have to lift a finger. Loads of fun! Wish we could've spent more time with them tonight. Love my brother!!!! Part two will come as soon as we get around to decorating Mr. Tree...

I planned our vacation perfectly. Several little trips for this years vacation started with the Great Wolf Lodge. We had a blast and surprising enough it was super relaxing. It was really busy when we checked in, and we had to wait for two hours to check into our room. They comp'd us a late check out for the next day. We had plenty of time in the water and the kids loved running up and down the stairs Questing to beat the Yetti! Charlie even got in on the fun. We bought her her first wand and let her go to town with the sibs. They all got along well. I finally learned after three years to bring all our own food. The kids were happy, and we saved a ton of money! Thanks to the Cortez family for the gift card.