Oh Christmas tree, Oh Christmas tree

Our family is having a real tree this year. Its our first real tree as a family. I am not used to them; and Cowboy grew up cutting down their own real one--don't know how he handled our Charlie Brown artificial one all these years. I got the privilege of picking it out and I think I did a great job. I arrived home to see it tied up and held hostage in the garage. Cowboy had cut the bottom of it and was letting it drink. However, he didn't want to lean it up against anything and have it be squished; so he cowboy tied it up with three ropes!

Paige to help Gramma Shelly decorate on Sat. afternoon. The outfit of choice when I showed up to get her--T shirt and undies. A classic outfit to decorate in.

A few days later we have our tree in the living room and were decorating it. Paige loves her Disney ornaments and is ecstatically showing me Nemo. Note my helper in the back.

Our almost finished tree. Note the blur on the side of the photo--that's Paige running out of the beautiful picture of her in her pretty dress in front of the tree. Sigh. I tried all day today to get good pictures of my family and none of them worked.

Thanksgiving

We had a lovely Thanksgiving; and once again, I didn't take a picture of the huge table of food. I took very few pictures; but thought I'd share these two. The first is of my mother in law and her granddaughters. Lovely ladies, aren't they? The turkey art is courtesty of Cowboy. I didn't know he could draw such a good turkey! We hosted at our home, and this was my 2nd official Thanksgiving. Nothing was burnt and everyone ate too much; so it was a success. Many thanks to dear Cowboy who stuffed the turkey for me. I have an issue with putting my hand inside of birds. I could do it, but he loves me enough to do it for me :)

Ina. .Matt; Matt. . .Ina

I had to giggle when I saw Paige's beloved play horse, "Matt" sitting on the counter this morning. He had been assisting her eat her egg and watch Mickey Mouse. She had ran off and I had changed the channel and was doing dishes. I glanced over once and got the giggles when I saw the horse still sitting there 'watching TV'--absorbed in Barefoot Contessa.

Matt goes pretty much everywhere Paige does. Sometimes he goes to daycare, but most of the time he stays home or in the car to protect it. He is a necessity for bedtime. He has escaped once; and I had that horrific parental moment envisioning bedtime without him and wondering how that would go. Thankfully he was found in time.

Oh Deer

The mighty hunter asked that I get the pictures off of the camera of his deer and share. I am obliging. This is the 5 by 5 that is now in our freezer, may he rest in peace. He was taken on Saturday, the 7th before 8am. So my lovely hunter didn't have to trek all over for several weeks chasing deer around. I am not a deer hunter and was actually delighted that I at a concert the first weekend of deer hunting and missed this lovely specimen hanging in my garage. No watching skinning, skull sawing, meat cutting time for me! I couldn't go shoot a deer or anything that is fairly cute and fuzzy. I think I'd have no trouble knocking pheasants off the face of the earth--but Cowboy says I'd have to do hunter safety and learn to clean them. Not going to happen, so therefore, I just cook his kills.

Paige-isms

"Can you go get that, dear?" I asked Cowboy the other day. A 3 year old looked at me and asked, "Mom, why is daddy a deer?" She had just been hearing about deer hunting all weekend.



I was telling Cowboy how neat it was that I get to be a godmother. Paige says "Mo-om, you are NOT a fairy godmother!"



As I try to wake her up in the morning, she grabs the covers, rolls away from me and shrieked, "Mo-om, my eyes are not awake yet!"

We were at a craft fair and Paige found some pretzels. Gramma asked her if she had any money because she couldn't just take them. Paige fishes out the penny from her pocket and replies, "Yes." Gramma and Aunt Connie are suckers for big blue eyes acting cute and donated the $3 to the cause. Paige paid for them herself, and tried to give the lady her penny with the cash.

"Let's go shopping!" after our lunch break while out at the craft fail. That's my girl--she's a good shopper.

Paige's Christmas List

Soooo, I know its early but I am getting inquiries from grammas, etc. of what Miss P needs for Christmas. She doesn't need anything. Seriously. I don't think she is deprived in the toy department at all. However, I know that's not an acceptable answer. I was sneaky and have purchased a gift that the bearded man in red will deliver on Christmas morning. I got her this. Technically I got her the swan castle and the horse drawn carriage. However, it is a whole little world with other pieces to buy--which are under $20! I find that a great trait in presents. She's very into princesses right now and I was thinking a dollhouse; and found this. Seemed like the best of both worlds--for a very decent price.

Other than that, she's into horses, princesses, and dress up stuff. She's seen some pretty horses with fairy wings that Breyer makes, and oohhed and awed over those. She has almost outgrown her princess dress; so another costume dress would be great.

Clothes are always good--size 4T fits right now. She has lots of jeans and t's--but needs some sweaters, sweatshirts, etc. A cute dress that isn't for Christmas would be a hit.

That's about all I got--but feel free to be frugal and limit yourself--that is my goal! Grammas of the world--restrain yourselves! Or buy savings bonds--she can cash them in for college :)

A beautiful day

Paige and I enjoyed the day on Veteran's Day by not going to work/daycare. Perks of being a banker. We did spend some time at the park. Otherwise, we were lazy and in our pjs until about noon and decided we better leave the house for a bit. Its so nice to have those days.