We ate ghosts for dinner earlier this week:

We tried on wigs:

…and liederhosen:

The best part is that Engineer has been talking for the past couple of days about the wedding slideshow he will have at his wedding.  (My sister just got married and had a slide show of her and her husband as kids.) He said in passing earlier this week, "I’m going to have a slide show when I get married.  It’s going to have pictures of me when I was a kid.  And it’s going to have pictures of Audrey R when she was a kid too…"  When we snapped the shot of the liederhosen, he said, "this one’s going to be in my wedding slide show."

The Census Bureau is wasting paper like there is no tomorrow.

First, I get a letter saying the census IS COMING in three days.

Three days later I get the actual census form.

Two days later I get a letter saying I should have received the census, and if I hadn’t filled it out would I please hurry up and do so.

And that brings us to now, three weeks later when  another census form with accompanying letter saying fill the darn thing out already arrives in my mailbox.

I mean the census form is like 30 pages long.

That’s a lot of wasted paper.

So I filled it out today because I do not want any more trees to lose their lives because of my perceived procrastination.  

And you should too.

I grew up in the pacific northwest and EVERY year we bought a real-fresh-dead Christmas Tree. Charming grew up mostly in Florida where if they had real trees they cost like a million dollars or something so he always had a fake tree. The first Christmas that Charming and I were married, we were poor students with little storage space. I didn’t want to buy a tree stand and a tree, so we decided on a $20 fake from Wal-mart.

We’ve been using that tree for the past seven years.

This year, on a whim, I bought us a real tree. I was so anxious I bought it like December 5th or something. It dried up completely two days later, and we had a fire hazard in our house for the next four+ weeks. But there were some definite things I enjoyed about it, as well as the er.. drawbacks.

So for your education, my post Christmas analysis of buying a real tree versus pulling the fake one out of the garage.

Category 1: The deadness factor Perhaps this category should be more appropriately dubbed, the fire hazard factor, as both real and fake trees are in a sense already dead. Real tree scores in this category for fresh smell, but loses points in the fact that it "dies more" over time. Fake tree gets the plus in the unchangedness of it’s lack of living.

Category 2: Maintenance and Convenience

When you put the fake tree up, you pull it out of the garage, decorate it and that is the end until you take it down. Score for the tree in a box. real trees must be shopped for (both a plus and a minus depending on your sense of Christmas adventure).  Real trees need to be watered (until they stop drinking) and they shed much pine needles which need to be vacuumed. I would give this a minus two points except that I actually like vacuuming and the pine needle vacuuming created a fresh smell. Minus 1 point for the watering.

Category 3: Variations

With a real tree, you get something different every year. Plus one. Fake trees are the same year in and year out. Minus one.

Category 4: The Easter Bunny Factor I once heard that in Norway they leave their Christmas tree out until Easter as symbolism of the birth and resurection. Since I have Norwegian ancestry, I have always felt rather justified in leaving my tree out until March or even April. (I kid you not). But since real trees become a fire hazard so quickly, I took ours down just after new years. This can be a plus or a minus depending on how long you like to celebrate Christmas for. I actually think though that the real tree scores in this category.

Category 5: Authenticity I think real trees create more warm and fuzzy feelings of tradition and chestnuts. Fake trees have a metal pole running up the middle– that just doesn’t tug at my heart strings. And since every analysis needs a chart:

 Well the results reveal that the fake tree is better than the real tree by a one point advantage.  These are just the facts folks, I am not biased.  Because honestly, I think I might go real again next year.  Piney smell gets like 10 points in my book.  And the vacuuming….

We saw Santa, it snowed and since we skipped church on Sunday due to inclement weather, we reenacted the nativity.

Santa was not so much of a big hit.   My kids actually really don’t know who he is.  We asked Sugar if she wanted to go and she was like, "uh, sure."  Spider said no until we told her he had candy…

Which is why she is now smiling.

The chickens did not know what to think of the snow.  They’ve been staying in their little house a lot.

Daddy insisted we do something "spiritual" on Sunday.  It was fun anyway.   

The art project today was a gingerbread journal.  The supplies were paper, cookie stickers and a gingerbread man pattern.  I decided to participate with the children because we had extra and I like doing preschool crafts there was nothing better to do.

What resulted is what follows.  I cannot stop laughing at myself and my creation, and yet it porbably isn’t funny to anyone else.

I tried to make her look like she was still looking at the cookie.  Don’t know how well I did.  Am I such a nerd?  Happy Gingergreading! 

is so totally simple– you could do it too!

First thing you need to do, (and for some it is too late for this Holiday, but Christmas is coming….) is visit a crowded mall about a week before the holiday.  Touch as many surfaces and small children as possible and do NOT wash your hands.

This will help you contract some kind of infectious virus.  IE Flu, cold, something else unpleasant.

The next step is to be sick.  So sick that nothing stays in.  (Try for the flu, I don’t a cold would work as well.)

And finally by Turkey day (or whenever) you will either be so sick you can’t touch hardly a ham, or you will have lost so much weight in the past few days that you could gorge yourself and still be ahead of the game!  Although, in all likelihood, you probably won’t be up to gorging yourself…. so…

All the skinnier!

Who’s with me?  Oh, yeah, that’d be me.  Lame. 

Yep. Spider was sick.  But her cranky face made a pretty good Mistress Meriweather, don’t you think?

I tried teaching them the song, but they were too busy being silly:

Of course here’s what Charming and I went as:

Being a nun for Halloween wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be.  I don’t know how they get anything done with the habit flowing all over the place.  Oh well.  On to the next Holiday! 

Yesterday was a good pre-Halloween day.  I am going to tell you what we did, but first, this picture, because my children are artists.  They did this to their pumpkins and then they photgraphed it.  I think they did a pretty good job, don’t you?  They’re still in trouble for nicking my camera but…

So like any crazy preschool teacher, I decided we would take a field trip to see the great pumpkins yesterday.  I would be alone with the children and we would be walking along a semi-busy street.  Fortunately for me, I had only four children instead of six and a very clever idea for keeping them all together.

But first, since we are finishing a unit on spiders, we decided to eat our snack the way that spiders do– by drinking it.  Some were thrilled.  Some were not.  It turned out to be more of an ordeal than I had anticipated.

But c’mon how could I not take pictures of that?

So then we rounded them up and made the trip to see the big pumpkins.

They did not want to leave.  For me, this was not that entertaining of a place.  Just a stop on the road with some hay bales and big jack-o-lanterns (which are cool, don’t get me wrong.)  But for them it was endless fascination and delight.  After much whining about it being time to go, they finally trudged home like a chain gang.

And then preschool was over and Halloween Eve festivities ceased until I realized I had some costumes to hem.  Beautiful costumes made by my dear and talented mother.  The pattern had made them too long and so like the fairies in Sleeping Beauty, I found myself surrounded by pink and blue fabric, a dangerous pair of scissors in my hand, making a mess of things. 

Where the heck did I put that magic wand? 

I’ll give you one guess as to what Charming is going to be for Halloween….

Jack Black– We heart you.

My sweet little Spider,

In my prayers last night I told Heavenly Father how thankful I am for you.  You are our little act of faith– an unexpected blessing.  You are the child that brings balance to our family.  My little snug a bug and my source of endless smiles and laughter.  You just continue to become more of a delight the older you get, and that makes me glad.

I can’t believe that you are two!  I love watching you grow and hearing you learn to talk. You are so teachable and a quick learner.  Yesterday we got to put all my eyeshadows and cheek colors away and I found joy in hearing you repeat all the color names with me.  How many other people get to hear their two year olds say "sunny spice", "sweet plum", or "ivory 1"?

I love your love of animals both real and inanimate.  If I could give you a real dog, I would, because I know you would be best friends.  As it is, watching you tote around all your pluffies makes me smile.  I love that you need them to sleep.

I love your general cuteness.  You are going to be the end of me!  It is so hard to resist when you pull me hand and say "Come wis ME!" and lead me to the fridge where you tenderly ask for a "pockle" (popsicle.)  It’s so hard to say no to you!  And even when you get mad you are cute. I could just give you kisses all day long.

And I love that on your birthday, you and me had some special time.  You sat and played with me and my sunglasses (and my earrings and necklace…) and we got to take crazy pictures together.  I love you, Spider.  I am so glad Heavenly Father gave me you and that I get to be your mommy.

Happy Birthday baby!