A small update.

12/9/09: Nathan's birthday and I totally didn't call him. Ugh. Sorry about that, Nathan! Life has been hectic and busy, as usual. Hope you had a perfect 39th birthday! Wednesday was also my weigh-in day. I only lost 1/2 pound, but hey, that's better than zero, and definitely better than gaining. So, I've lost a total of 8 pounds. Now, I just need to start some serious exercise. :)

12/10/09: Kale and I went in and met with his school counselor at RHS. Yeah! He's going back to Roseville in January. I'm happy that he got to do the whole Independence thing, like he wanted, but he had a good reality check in that he is seriously bored to tears being at home all the time, and he's looking forward to going back to "regular" school.

12/11/09: Carcerys Vale had a show in Fresno. Shawn allowed Austen and the guys to go without him (he just couldn't make it with work). They drove the 3 hours down there, did the show, spent the night at La Quinta Inn and came back on Saturday. All went very well!

12/12/09: Bailey and I had lunch with Lisa and Lauren at Prime Wok. (Their treat ... so nice!)They are both such wonderful friends to both of us. We love them dearly. After, Bailey went to play at Lauren's and then about 5:00pm, they both came back here and Lauren spent the night. Kale went and hung out with a friend and then went to her indoor soccer game. Austen went to RHS' holiday dance show.

12/13/09: After Lauren left this morning, Bailey and I watched Eloise at Christmas. Such a cute movie! I'd never seen it before. It was very sweet. We will also be wrapping gifts, and hopefully finishing up any crafty things we're working on. Fun stuff. My fingers are crossed that the rain will let up so Shawn and the boys can get some Christmas lights put up on the house. It's not looking good, but a girl can dream, right?

Decorating the tree.

One of the many things I love about Bailey is the fact that she is passionate about holidays. She truly adores everything that goes in to a holiday, especially when there is decorating involved. On the Friday following Thanksgiving she quickly made the comment that she couldn't wait to take down all the fall decor and get out the Christmas boxes (all 47 of them). Haha. That is an exaggeration on the number of boxes, but suffice it to say ... we have alot of Christmas decor. So, since I'd already nixed her idea of going out for Black Friday early morning shopping (Blech! So not going to happen!), I gave her a glimmer of hope with this simple comment: "you know, Bailey, another big tradition on the Friday after Thanksgiving is to put up all the Christmas decorations". I think she almost died on the spot. She was excited!

We spent most of Friday decorating the house, minus the tree. If she'd had her way, the tree would have been done too, but I had a splitting headache for most of the day, so resorted to telling her we'd do the tree either Saturday or Sunday.

Sunday about 6pm she was getting pretty discouraged. Haha. She thought we'd run out of time to do the tree. But a promise is a promise! So she and I put the tree together, the boys did the lights and then the kids all decorated the tree.

Roxy helped supervise. :) She has a real fascination with lights, so once the lights were on, she had something to really entertain her.

These are the kids' annual Hallmark ornaments:

Drums for Austen (of course).

"Where the Wild Things Are" for Kale. Not so obvious. He just really wants to see the movie, and sometimes we're limited on choices. Haha.

A cute little puppy for Bailey (of course). Anything dog, puppy or animal related will work for her.

I sure loved having all the decorations done before December 1st! Now, if I could just convince Shawn and the boys to work on the outside.

Wednesday Weigh-In

Yesterday (Wednesday) was my second weigh-in day at Weight Watchers. I'm happy to report that I was able to lose another 2.6 pounds, even over the Thanksgiving holiday! So my total weight loss is now 7.6 pounds. Yippee!