I can't believe it is December already. It seems like we just celebrated New Year's such a short time ago and here we are doing the holiday season all over again. Ho! Ho! Ho! Here we go!
OOPS, I FORGOT TO REPORT one thing we did last weekend. You'll remember that I painted the hallway back in October when everyone was gone to Virginia. Last weekend Vicki and I bought more paint and painted the back hall the same color tan as the main hall. For those of you who have never been to our house, our back hall was originally the back porch to the house so two of the walls are clapboard like the outside of the house. We could forget all about the roller as this job required a four inch brush. It looks much better!
DECORATIONS. We typically decorate for Christmas on Thanksgiving weekend and can get almost all of it done before Monday comes around. This year, since we chose to paint the hallway, we have had to decorate throughout the week, and we are still not done. I will hold Thanksgiving weekend as sacred for decorating for Christmas from now on.
I'll have to say though that Jenna is now old enough to be a really good helper. She and I made quick work of putting up our tree, Pauline's tree, and Mom and Aunt Mar's tree. We have discovered one product that is THE THING TO GET--NET LIGHTS! They come as a 100 light set in a 6 foot by 4 foot net. I have always dreaded putting the 6-8 strings of lights on our 9 foot tall tree in the past. I always get the lights too close together as I wrap them around the tree and run short when I get to the bottom. Now I can put 3 nets on and fill in the bottom with a string or two of lights where the nets don't reach in less than 15 minutes.
I'M SLIPPING. Vicki has always wanted to put some kind of outdoor lighting up on our house which is something I have completely refused to do. I have no interest in spending that much time up on a ladder on a cold day hanging lights just to take them down on another cold day a month later. (Although, I guess I could do like some houses I see and leave it up all year.)
Well, this year we put up a plywood nativity set in front of our mower shed. We have always hung a large wreath on the back of this shed for the cars going toward Cross Plains to see but never had anything for the traffic going the other direction to enjoy. Now we do. The kids were very enthusiastic about the project.
We got this set from my cousin, David Lee Thompson, who moved this past summer and did not have room for it in his new yard. He made the figures and Betty Jo, his wife, painted them. There are about 15 figures. The tallest ones are about 3.5-4 feet high. I have two flood lights aimed on them and they show up very well at night. We pray it will be a blessing to all who see it.
MIKEY HE'S NOT. Nate eats everything. He is a pleasure to feed because of this virtue, but we have to be vigilant about baby proofing the house because he also likes to dine on dead ladybugs, potting soil, and long, lost Cheerios.
OUR PARROT. No, we don't have a new bird. I am talking about Nate. He is in those early stages of mimicking sounds and words he hears us make. As I was leaving the other day he said "Ah-Ba" to me. He is also waving now.
I'm really curious as to how Nate will pronounce some words as he gets older. We thought is was funny when Jenna would say "think um" for "thank you". Ben says "fink you" for his version. Another example is Jenna's "fellffunt" and Ben's "ef-flent" for the word "elephant".
CALL THE RAILROAD. For those who don't know Memorial Boulevard is the main drag through Springfield. At one place there is a railroad bridge that goes over this street. The other day there was a train parked on the bridge. As Vicki and the boys were going to the YMCA Ben said, "Uh oh! That twain's battewies have wun down."
Joe
