It's Getting Jolly Up In Here

It's not written in my destiny to ever attend the Wednesday morning Step Aerobics class. For the first time in months I was actually determined to go; even after a friend had to cancel going with me, I was still going to go solo. Then Fifi threw up. All over her bed. In the middle of the night, waking me from a glorious, deep sleep. So once again, it's a No-Workout Wednesday (name stolen from fellow Pampered Chef friend Beth - gotta give credit where credit is due!).

It will, however, be an errands day. I need to exchange some gifts (found the exact same thing at a quarter of the price elsewhere!) and post my Christmas cards that Banoffee Pie so kindly filled out for me last night.


I hope my UK postage won't cost me a small mortgage. (And I hope I get some UK post back, no hints or anything.)


Speaking of Banoffee Pie, he's been very helpful this year... so far. Yesterday, he made the kids a special breakfast.







On Monday, we covered Advent Activity 1: Decorate the tree. I love my hodge-podge, mismatched ornaments and our lopsided real tree. Looking at it makes me happy as I remember where each decoration came from, and Yoda at the top of the tree is a bit of a sometimes-tradition in the McFarlane house.




Yesterday, the kids were supposed to call Santa (it's free! US# 951-262-3062) but since I was working last night, the kids forgot about it. So we called him this morning after breakfast. Fifi read off her entire Christmas list and letter she'd penned to Santa, whilst Lolly sat their wide-eyed, grinning ear to ear (except when her jaw would drop) and then she froze up when it came time to leave a message. And Jaguar, well, here's Jaguar.


Today we are supposed to make Christmas cards for the kids' friends, except I switched shifts with someone at work so now I'm working tonight. I made up the Advent calendar activities to coincide with my estimated shift schedule, but it appears that's not always going to work. Oh well, maybe I'll just leave craft stuff lying out for Scott to deal with tonight on his own... Cue evil maniacal laugh.

And finally, in ever so important Christmas news, I now have all my stockings hanging, new lights on the tree (what is it with lights breaking between Christmases while doing nothing but lying in storage? Every year I open the box to find last year's lights don't work!), and all my wrapping supplies ready to wrap presents. I'm trying out an idea I read on a cute blog I follow, Natalie Creates, where instead of buying ribbon, which can be pricey, buying a 1/2 yard of Christmas fabric, cutting it into 1 inch strips and using that for ribbon. I chose three different patterns to differentiate the three different kids and will wrap everything in brown packaging paper. In my mind, it's going to be super cute... the reality may or may not comply.




Oh and most importantly, this year I finally decided to detangle and hang the Advent calendar that Scott's dear Ampy D made for us several years ago out of felt. Each pocket has three jelly beans. It's our first year without chocolate Advent calendars, so it was of utmost importance that we all get some kind of candy each morning of December, right?


I just gotta say, all this Christmasing has gotten me feeling pretty jolly!

As long as we don't need to clean up any more pukey sheets... (I'm looking at you, Fifi.)