Weekend snippets

1. Today was a milestone for me. For the first time in my life, I have Christmas lights adorning the outside of my home.

I grew up in a house out in the country, in the woods at the end of a very long driveway. I suppose my parents' rationale was that there was no one to see the outside lights, so why put them up? So it was that I just sort of grew up an inside-lights-only kind of Christmas decorator.

I've changed. My kids so love seeing the Christmas lights on other people's houses that it has always been a disappointment to them that we didn't have them on ours. So this year I decided to change that.

(I admit it's early, but if you follow me on Facebook - and why wouldn't you - you know that I have two very busy weekends coming up after this one, AND the weatherman says snow next weekend. It was cold enough hanging them today when it was 45 degrees outside. (That's Fahrenheit, Shannon!))

So . . . raise your hand if you think it's a bad idea to let me have a staple gun. Raise your hand if you think it's a bad idea to let me balance precariously on a ledge to hang lights.

You there, in the back row . . . the one without your hand raised . . . have we met?







Amazingly, I managed not to kill myself, though Josh told me I looked like a sloth when I was in that last pose. (I had my leg wrapped around the post for leverage.)

Despite my proclivity for accidents, I did not fall off the stool or the ledge. Though I did have to ask David if it's bad to pierce the wires on the lights with the staple gun. My aim wasn't so great when I was bending over backward. Apparently, yes, it's bad. Especially when I managed to pierce both of the wires with one staple. Good thing I keep a husband on hand to fix such things.

2. Is this the cutest helper you've ever seen or what?



Joshua did all of the picture taking today, and I thought this picture of Lauren was quite good.

3. Another reason it was a good time to get out and hang the lights today was that we have barely gotten out of the house at all for the past week. We have had one little sickie after another.

This is how Lauren and Ethan have fallen asleep (around 6 pm) for the past two (Ethan) or three (Lauren) nights:



Ethan is on the mend but still running a fever. Joshua also decided to start running a fever on Friday, and the problem with more than one kid being sick at the same time is that we have an exception to the "no sleeping in mommy and daddy's bed" rule when a kid is sick.

Ethan slept in our room Wednesday and Thursday nights, but Friday night they both had fevers. What to do? Friday is waaaay too far removed for me to remember what we did, but I do know that I ended up on the couch last night and by morning, I was sharing it with TWO other people. The couch. Ouch.

4. Lauren has been on a knock-knock joke kick. She cracks herself up with "jokes" that all involve eating.

Knock-knock.
Who's there?
Tissue.
Tissue who?
Why do you have to eat all the tissues?! Hahahahahahahahahahahah!!!!!

She will say the same thing over and over with a different object each time. Cracks. Herself. Up.