Confessions

1.  The word "confessions" makes me think of kind of lame pop songs.

2.  I only got two pictures of one of my kids in their holiday outfit.  I'm kinda bummed about that, but that's the way the ball bounces, sometimes.  (There's no way I can spell that in German)

3.  I've gotten a very mild form of pica twice now, once when I was pregnant with Maya, and now while I'm pregnant with Whosis.  It's more specifically called xylophagia, and it makes me salivate when I walk down the paper towel aisle.  It's under control, don't worry, I've only eaten paper or paper towels a couple of times.  Last time I think it was because I was somewhat iron deficient, so I'm guessing that's probably the reason this time.  I'll find out when I go to the doctor next week since I just had a lab done a couple of weeks ago.

4.  I got a drawing pencil kit from my sister Adrien a couple of Christmases ago and I still haven't opened it.  I got a Prismacolor colored pencil set from my parents who knows how many years ago and while I've opened that to admire the pencils, I still haven't used any.  I think I was waiting for genius to strike but I really have no excuse.  I just need to practice and get back in to drawing again.  Jared gave me fabric pens and oil pastels this year, and I have plans for fixing up our desk area and to leave my (and the kids') art tools out so it will be easier to just sit down and do something.  Waiting for the desk to be "ready"isn't really an excuse either.  I feel guilty and nostalgic when I look at these beautiful things that loved ones have given me and I really just think I need to enjoy using them, even though I'm not going to create anything amazing.

5.  I'm not going to post about Christmas probably until 2013.  This is partly because all the pictures were taken on three different devices and I need to sync everything.  Sorry about that!

Buying and Decorating the Tree

I didn't take *any* pictures on Thanksgiving, but I usually forget to take pictures when we're all just hanging out anyway, so just imagine lots of good food and our family + Adrien and Eric.  And pie.  Mmmm.

Anyway, the day after Thanksgiving is when we start decorating for Christmas, so we went to buy our Christmas tree.

Nathan helped Jared put the lights on it that evening.  By the time all that was done it was kinda late so we left the ornaments for the next morning.

Maya loved the nativity set that Grandma and Grandpa Swinford got for us a few years ago, although after a couple of days she just started chucking the people and animals whenever she saw the set.  Now it's kind of tucked away on our console thing, not really displaying anything, really.  After the older kids went to bed Jared read How the Grinch Stole Christmas to Maya.

Saturday morning we had a nice time just doing ornaments and eating breakfast.

The next day, Rylie was tossing notes into the tree branches for family members to read on Christmas morning and I guess she wanted to change the position of one or get it back or something because she got behind the tree to reach for it and accidentally pushed the entire thing over.  Water got all over the carpet but someone kindly gave us a wetvac a while ago so we used that and some towels to clean that up.  And a fan.  I was able to push the tree back up on my own, but then it wouldn't stay upright so I had to lay it back down and call Jared.  I figured if he wasn't able to come home then I'd just call a neighbor but he was fortunately already on his way out of the church building so he came by to help me get the tree back up.  I wish I'd remembered to take pictures of the tree knocked over, but I didn't!  Here are a couple of pictures where you can barely see that the lights and ornaments are somewhat askew.