O Cannon Bomb, O Cannon Bomb

We put our tree up a little earlier than usual this year (several weekends ago). We made the annual trek to Lowe's because that means I get to avoid walking around a tree farm in -8 degree weather.  We are NEVER at Lowe's more than 12 minutes total.  And Silas and I are usually back in the car warming up after 6 minutes.

We got home, turned on the Christmas music, poured the eggnog and got out all the decorations. I noticed that Silas was singing very heartily to "O Tannenbaum" (Nat King Cole version) but Si's words were a little off - "O CANNON BOMB!  O CANNON BOMB!! Mah blah mah bah bu bee bo. O CANNON BOMB!  O CANNON BOMB!  Ba dum ba dee bo moo boo."  I know I'll never hear the words to that song the same again...

Ella decided that she wanted to be the Christmas Lion.

This was her wreath that she made last year in Kindergarten

- it now hangs on her bedroom door.

It's nice to have a (tall) teenage boy in the house for things like helping his dad string the lights on the tree - that is a job that I don't care for!

I like this picture (below) because you can't see who's holding the lights.

Mason was walking with them and I hadn't changed the shutter speed - hence the "ghost" 

Miss Ella Boo is also very helpful in the decorating of the tree - she loves to hang the ornaments and her job is to be the angel topper (at least while she is still small enough for Daddy to lift her up there)

We've been lucky that Cleo has not showed any interest in the tree or batting the ornaments off of it.  She is much more interested in sleeping in the basket of junk on top of Ella's book bag (she sleeps on it everyday if Ella leaves it on the floor or anywhere accessible).  Like I've said, she's a funny cat.

I CANNOT believe that Christmas is a week away.  It totally snuck up on me this year, especially with the events of the last few weeks.  I was out shopping until 11pm tonight (sounds worse than it was - I didn't even go until 9pm).  Target was dead and it was a good time to go (thanks to Margie, otherwise I'd have been in my pj's in bed at 9:05). 

I'm feeling pretty good - starting to bounce back and somewhat ready for the holidays.  I think the kids are going to be happy with Santa this year and I am taking time off between Christmas and New Year's to get some organizing done around the house, recharge myself, do some fun stuff with the kids AND to mourn turning 40.  I think I see some massages, pedicures and wine in my near future...