With just DAYS before Christmas...

This song pretty much sums up the holidays around my house.

I Ain't Getting Nothing For Christmas by Ray Stevens

I especially want to point out this line:

"Oh, my grandma had to go to the hospital, yea, but don't worry she's not really sick, she just had a little trouble walking for awhile after I showed her my power ranger kick."

When you go to the page, you can click on the little record at the top to hear it.

Social Gatherings

Ok so in my pre-children days in Waco I had a nice little group of friends (well actually multiple groups...my friends didn't mix well). Each group would get together at different times and go out to eat, to the movies, shopping, or just chilling at someone's house. It was really fun to have these "dates". I had my oldest son at 19. People that age don't normally have kids nor do they do kid friendly activities so when I had him my social circles died out very fast. I met my husband when he was 2 months old (my son not my husband) and I moved to Houston shortly after. Mostly because besides my mom I had no more ties to Waco. I lost touch with pretty much everyone there and the ones I had touch with I rarely saw. Since being in Houston I have struggled a lot with finding friends. Sure I have Chris' friends whom I love dearly but, I really need some of my own friends. I have since accepted that some of Chris' friends might actually be MY friends too if I give them a chance. Now here's what I don't get. Chris lives in a pretty smallish town/area. Bigger than Waco but, not by much. He has about 6 pretty close male friends. J1 and J2 are brothers and we see them about once or twice a month. M we hardly ever see anymore. D I haven't seen in about 2 years with the exception of my birthday this year. S I have only seen a handful of times the whole time I've been with my husband and J3 I have heard stories about but, I have only seen here and there in passing. I don't understand this. If these were my friends we'd have monthly dinner dates and such just to get together and catch up. I guess this is one of the differences between women and men. Women love to get together and chat and generally enjoy each others company. Men will still consider someone a "best friend" even if they haven't seen someone in years. This week I am determined to get my husband to schedule a "date" for sometime in January where we can all get together, significant others included, and just catch up. I know we will all see each other at J3's New Year's Party so hopefully that will help. Stay tuned in January for the follow up to see if this worked!

Our Christmas Card

I finally got around to getting our photo Christmas card printed this weekend. I had some handmade ones I mailed to my friends last week but, this is the one that I post here and hand out to the family. Every year after I put up the tree I get the kids in front of it with our array of Christmas stuffies and take some pictures. Normally they never comply and I get this:


This year however they were pretty compliant and went along with the appropriate smilies and "cheeses". I picked out the best one, popped into my favorite program Smilebox and got the best card I could have ever hoped for! I love it! I got 15 printed and can print more if needed. I will have the boys sign it before Christmas and we will hand these out to all Grandma's and Aunt's on Christmas!

Letters to Santa

Another fun thing to do at the Christmas in Rosenberg festival is the letters to Santa. The boys get to sit down and write their letters to Santa (which he takes back with him to the North Pole to read and pick out the requested items). Trent loves this because he can read and fill out the letter himself.

Christmas in Rosenberg

Tonight we took the boys to the annual Christmas in Rosenberg festival. The boys really enjoy this because they get to see Santa and tell them what they want for Christmas. Craig especially loves this. Trent gets more shy around people like him.

I have been putting up my Christmas tree the last two days. I now hate this tree. This is the first year my husband and I have put up our tree together by ourselves. I really thought we would divorce over this tree. I am all into decorating the house, he is into watching me do so. We usually just put up a little 4' tree but, this year I kidnapped my mothers 7.5' tree. I am 4'11". There was no way I was decorating this thing without some help. That's not to say I didn't try though. Oh, how I tried. I first tried putting the lights on starting at the bottom, only to realize I couldn't plug them in that way. Then, I started at the top and went around and around...right against the middle pole. You couldn't even see the lights. So, I finally sucked it up and asked my husband for his help. The situation that ensued shall not be discussed but, lets just say it involved a few things: 1. My husband throwing the tree. 2. Myself in hysterics crying 3. My in-laws almost wetting themselves laughing. It wasn't pretty. We finally got the tree up and properly lit last night and I was done for the day. Today I started putting the ornaments on and in comes the hero of the story. My 4 year old son, Craig, who is throughly obsessed with Christmas. He would've put the tree up in June if we would've let him. I started letting him put on ornaments this morning so I could take photos. He was so tickled pink at himself. He loved taking all the ones he liked and putting them along the bottom of the tree. I then had to go back when he wasn't looking and rearrange them. His most favorite were the snowmen. He took all of them and put them together in a bunch because "they were snowman cousins!" Even he knows family needs to stick together.

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I'm Alive

and I have an update coming within the hour but, this photo first to tide you over.