Tree decorating with 3 year olds

Yesterday after I picked Emma up from school, we headed home to decorate the Christmas tree. I said decorate the "tree" and was promptly informed that, "No, Mama - you said the wrong thing. It's the Christmas tree." I was unaware that my daughter knew how to use italics but the point was made. So, we headed into the garage to get out the ornaments and other junk to decorate the Christmas tree and the rest of the living room.

I dropped the first ornament. That's the thing about having hardwood floors, ornaments break when dropped. I had purposely started with the cheapy, Wal-Mart ornaments for just such an event although, honestly, I had assumed little Miss E would be doing the dropping. I blame Pregnancy Clumsiness. It's a condition. Really. We continued with the decorating using the colored glass balls from WM. 15 minutes later, the front of the tree was loaded with ornaments (mostly blue and green glass balls) from the bottom of the tree to about 2 feet up. That's it. Not ornaments on the back or sides of the tree. At this point, we (Emma) had broken 3 more ornaments. That's when I had the brilliant idea to go get the unbreakable ornaments to let Emma work with. See, I'm a thinker. We spent the next 30 minutes loading the tree with unbreakable items. During this time Andy came home and nearly lost it when he saw the tree. He also pointed out the the entire thing was leaning noticeably toward the front and we might need to rearrange. Emma, of course, was adamant that we leave everything exactly where it was. So we did. Until she was asleep. Then we rearranged everything. She was quite complimentary of our decorating abilities when she got up this morning. Although she did say, "Mama, you shouldn't let Daddy do the Christmas tree by himself. He needs our help to make it pretty. He can't match." How correct she is. But let's me honest, it wouldn't get done without Andy's help. I can't reach the top.

Prayers Please

Some of you know my friend Tammy in Springdale. Last week, on Tuesday, her youngest son, Harper pulled a cup of boiling water off the counter onto his face. He has been in Children's Hospital in LR for the past week battling 2nd degree burns, flaking skin, and a swollen face. Then, he developed pneumonia. Please keep Tammy, her husband, and all 3 of her boys in your prayers. Harper is a fighter and seems to be recovering as best as possible but they can use all the help they can get. Take a look at her blog listed on my site (My 3 Sons) for the detailed story.

Santa pic at the end.

Yeah, so the blog has been sorely lacking lately, I realize. What with attempting the novel and gestating, I've been tired. Not that I haven't had time to post, mind you, I just have been too exhausted to even get the computer out of the desk. Pathetic.

We've been extremely busy here with holiday activities. Thanksgiving was spent here in Tallahassee with the Mauks. They drove down for the week from AR. It was great to have them here and Emma enjoyed it. Plus, there was no way I was making a turkey by myself. Janet was amazing in the kitchen. We did the whole shebang: turkey, stuffing...the works. I even attempted Grandma's cranberries. It was more of a sauce really, kind of like liquidy jam - it flowed off the serving spoon quite nicely. But that's OK. It still tasted fantastic. I even got out my (Nana's) china. It was the first time Andy had ever seen it since I've not ever used it since we got married. It was well worth it. Made me miss my Nana. She loved holidays. I've even named one of the characters in my novel after her.

By the way - the novel - it's not going to happen. This month anyway. There was no way I was hitting the 50,000 word goal by this Friday. But at least I've started the damn thing and now I can just continue working on it - slowly.

Went to the doctor today to check on baby boy Mauk. Doing fine, growing well, weighs about 3 pounds right now. Projected to way 7.5 or so upon arrival. Feeling good.

We are now in the home stretch heading up to Christmas. Andy put up the Christmas tree tonight. Emma told me 3 times, "Mama, I lub the Christmas tree!" Then, when Andy was doing bedtime stuff, Emma thanked him twice for putting it up. Andy now says that since the "hard part" is done, he'll leave the ornaments and other accoutrement to me and E. Too bad we have a pre-lighted tree that folds out of the box. Yeah, he'll still be helping.

We had E's picture taken with the big guy yesterday. She talked about it for 3 days including a MASSIVE meltdown in the dressing room at Burlington Coat Factory when we tried on the Christmas dress. The transcript follows:
E: I DON'T WANT TO TAKE IT OFF. IT'S MY CHRISTMAS DRESS!
Me: Emma, we have to pay for it first.
E: BUT I WANT TO TAKE MY PICTURE WITH SANTA NOWWWWWW!
Me: Santa will still be there tomorrow. We have to get some shoes, and tights, and a hair bow.
E: A pretty hair bow?
Me: Yes, a pretty hair bow.
E: With pink and purple on it?
Me: Yes, pink and purple.

I get the dress off E while detailing all the other items we'll buy to prepare for the Santa photo. Then we head out of the mall but have to pass the "Santa Station" to get to the car.

E: Where is Santa?
Me: He went to eat dinner.
E: CAN I EAT DINNER WITH HIM?
Me: No. He's eating with his parents. (Obviously I was grasping at straws here)
E: Are they eating here in the mall? CAN WE WATCH THEM EAT?
Me: No, they went to a restaurant. They're not here.
E: Is he coming back?
Me: Yes.
E: Can we wait for him?
Me: No.
E: BUT I WANT TO WAIT FOR SANTA TO FINISH DINNER AND PUT ON MY CHRISTMAS DRESS AND SIT IN HIS LAP AND HAVE MY PICTURE TAKEN WITH SANTA!!
Me: picked up screaming child and ran the rest of the way out of the mall

A pair of shoes, pink tights, and a PRETTY hair bow later, we made it to have our picture taken with Santa. She was psyched right up until he sat down. Then she used my legs as a protective shield against his obviously firey laser ridden eyeballs. She hid from him for 3 minutes. Then he started talking to her about Dora (these guys are trained professionals, you know). After they chatted about Dora for a minutes. Emma told Santa, "I want some presents for Christmas, OK?" Santa said sure and we were off to the races. Here's the result.

Halloween Pics

Here are a few photos of our little trick-or-treater. The ones taken outside are really dark so I've only loaded one of those. The girl in the 3rd photo lives down the street from us and was dressed as a princess too. Wish I had gotten a pic of the ninja and Spiderman we hit the houses with. They were too cute. But I think our girl wins the cuteness contest for the night.

Even fewer posts than normal?

Our first real foray into Halloween madness was a success. Emma was a beautiful Snow White and I made a pretty decent "Micked" Queen. We went around the entire block. By the end of the night, she had blisters on her feet from the princess shoes and sucker stickiness in her hair, but she was happy. Every time she lost a shoe, she's say, "Wait for me, Mama. I lost my glass slipper!" So she's mixing her princesses - she was having a blast. It was a little difficult to explain to her today that we weren't going trick-or-treating again tonight, but she was happy to make do with a piece of candy from her haul last night. Now, of course, she's currently tapping out a rhythm on her bedroom wall as she crashes from the sugar-high. At least she'll sleep hard. I'll post pictures this weekend when I have some more time.

Today is November 1st. For those of you who don't know, November 1st is the beginning of National Novel Writing Month. I have pledged to try to write a novel in one month. Minimum of 50,000 words. Needless to say, I will be busy in my free time. It could end up a huge failure but at least I'm trying. So, I'm off to begin my great American novel - 1200 words a day, one day at a time. Yikes!