Painting Decorations for Day 9 and a Birthday to Boot

Today's activity was painting tree decorations.

The idea came when I opened up a box of Christmas things, and found a bunch of unpainted wooden ornaments with the tags still on them, and I remembered my friend Maria using the same type of ornaments a few years ago for painting.

There's not much to say about it, other than the kids enjoyed painting them. And surprisingly, they didn't get paint everywhere. Not even my childminded 18 month old! She was perhaps the most precise of all!

So what could be more interesting to tell about today?

How about the fact that I spent a ridiculous amount of money at Tesco buying stuff in for Lolly's birthday party this weekend? See, this is what happens when you don't count how much you are spending as you go. I just saw stuff and put it in the trolley. When the total was rang up at the end, I nearly collapsed.

I can't believe Scott and I did not think ahead when we decided to have another baby. Why, oh why did we not think about the fact that 9 months later would be Christmas?

There's also that worry that poor Lolly will get fewer presents because her birthday is close to Christmas. This could so easily happen so the way we get around it at the moment is I buy both Fifi AND Lolly's birthday presents at the same time so that no matter how much Lolly insists, I can assure her she got AS MANY PRESENTS AS FIFI GOT. This year they both have exactly four presents from us for their birthdays, three of them being somewhat identical, and one being individually unique to the child.

So Sunday after church we will have just a small, mostly family thing in the house for her. It is a week early, and it is also not what we planned, but with trip to America right around the corner, and Christmas and everything everything everything else, we decided it was the best way. I would've liked to give her a big party, but it just isn't going to work out that way this year.

But more about that on Sunday! (Lolly's party being the Advent Activity of the day.)