Less Than 2 Weeks Till Christmas...(Cross Post)

We've only got about 9 days till Christmas. The kids enjoyed their birthdays and as usual, made out like bandits.

We got Chris a cool new lamp for his bedroom because his bedside one died a while back thanks to the bulb being too close to the shade and it melted it. We got him one that has 3 lamp heads and he loves it. We got Koty a Disney Princess dress-up trunk with interchangeable outfits and she went nuts over it.

My parents got Chris some Ben 10 stuff and gloves. Koty got the My Little Pony Teapot thing.
From Dave's mom and her husband Chris got a new twin size bedset with Cars on it, along with a 2 disk Looney Toons collection of old cartoons, the Cars soundtrack and a towel and washcloth Cars set. Koty got a small jewelry box with Lipsmackers, gloves, a Disney Princess toddler bed set of sheets and comforter and Princess panties.

Both kids got small boomboxes from Dave's dad and his wife, which the kids are tickled with. Koty has spent more time in her room in the past few days than I've ever seen her do. In fact, yesterday afternoon, she stayed in there listening to a cd and cleaning her room up! LOL
Saturday morning we went up town to pay the property taxes and then stopped by Dollar General Market and Pamida so I could look for a new set of lights to wrap around my wreath on the front door. The other died in a big way. At DGM I didn't find the type of lights I'd like, though I did find my old-fashioned Christmas cookies for a buck. But, at Pamida, I did find the LAST box of the LED blue & white snowflake lights I had seen up there and thought were really cool.

I will tell you now- LED lights, even "covered" with snowflake twist on caps will MESS WITH YOUR EYES! It's like watching a strobe light. And if you're moving the string of lights around...it can almost make you nauseated! LOL I was looking away while I wrapped it around my wreath! It looks beautiful though and I told Dave I think I might just leave them up till after winter and the "chance" of snow passes away into spring, since snow isn't just about Christmas. And even if we don't get any real snow in our area, at least I've have my snow on my wreath! Haha!
I finished my refreshing/editing and got back to where I was in my novel. I wrote the 22nd chapter and started the next one. Of course the weekend has gotten in the way, but I feel confident that tomorrow I can pick back up on it.

Yesterday I made homemade vegetable beef soup. It's my version of my mom and grandmother's. Something I'd been wanting to fix for a while now. My husband ate a little, but my recipe isn't MINE (or my mom's or grandma's) without cooked cabbage. He HATES cooked cabbage. It wasn't until it was too late that I realized I could've divided the recipe and made two batches...one with cabbage, one without. He said he'd eat it all, so long as I left out the cabbage. I told him next time, that's what I'd do. Koty though LOVED the soup with the cabbage...That's my girl though...when I fix regular cooked cabbage with butter, salt and pepper, she will eat it up. Especially if I fix cornbread to go with it.

I still have some cabbage leftover, so I told her we'd have some of that later in the week. She started jumping up and down in excitment. Then later yesterday evening before she went to bed, she asked me if we could eat more of the soup. That's what we're having for lunch today- leftovers. That made her happy too.

Oh, on the height front- Chris grew just about 2 inches exactly and Koty grew about 2 1/2 inches in the past year since their last birthdays. We have a growth tree stickered to the wall in Koty's room, that Dave had put up in there when it was Chris's room. Chris was a bit disappointed the Koty grew more than him, but we had to explain that boys and girls hit growth spurts differently.

Hiding the "surprise" Santa present just got a little harder yesterday. Of course, I did slip off into the spare room and hide one night to wrap the Singing Machine (which BTW was on sale in the Pamida salebill for $20 less than what I paid online and comes with 2 mics instead of one- BUT I wouldn't have been able to sneak it into the house like I did...I couldn't have even gotten it without involving someone outside the house)...but yesterday the CDs arrive and just as I came back in the house, hoping Dave and Koty were in the other room, he came into the living room just as I slipped into the spare room to hide the box until I can wrap it. UGH! He's starting to get suspicious about what I'm up to. I'm biting my tongue in excitement though...so long as he doesn't figure it.

I've been trying to figure out how to put them under the tree on Christmas Eve without him seeing the boxes, and I think I've got a plan. I realized yesterday that Dave will HAVE to go to his mom's to get Chris's television from over there that night, so as soon as he leaves, I'll slip the surprise under the tree and then start stuffing the other presents in front it as I get them wrapped so he CAN'T see them until the following morning. hehehehe!