Yes, yes, I'm here! I know I'm the worst blogger ever. I've been trying really hard to stay ahead of things this year for Christmas. Every year, I get all caught up with buying the perfect gifts, and going into stores, looking around and feeling completely overwhelmed until finally one day, the stars will align and I get everything done. I kinda do the same thing with decorations...wait too long to put them up and then I panic and stay up all night putting everything up. So, this year I said NO MORE!! This is going to be my first stress-free Christmas! I did most of my shopping on line, which is wonderful for someone who hates to shop (yes, I hate to shop). I managed to pick some things up at Target or Marshall's, Sam's, etc when I was there shopping for other things, and I've attended (and hosted) some fun parties at which I bought some gifts. So, I'm in pretty good shape now, although I still need to make that final big trip to Target to do stockings, bows, and put the final touches on everything. Oh and gift cards...which are NO fun to buy but take up a large portion of my budget. I also have my decorations up around the house, which I did in 2 phases. First, I worked on the first floor. The living room gets crowded really quick, last year I bought a 4 foot tree that I put on top of a table in the corner which is awesome. It fits there perfectly, E doesn't try to take off the ornaments but yet I still have a tree to admire in the living room. Eliseo especially loves those decorations that you push the buttons and music plays, lights flash and things move around. He has learned how to squeeze the hand and he sits in wonder while the lights flash and music plays. But, it wouldn't be the same without our big tree, so on another night when Glenn was home, we put that up and again decorated it as a family. OK, so I put up the tree while he was working on the lights outside. The tree was stored in the basement and it goes in the 2nd story loft, and I was on E duty....and he would cry anytime I went in the basement or upstairs... so I carried the tree up 2 flights of stairs piece by piece with Eliseo on my hip. What can I say...it was good exercise. After I had it up, G came inside and we hung all the special ornaments. I would tell E the story of each ornament and put them on the tree. Then he would point to them and "tell the story" in the same intonation I told it in his cute toddler babble. Oh yes, he was taking some off too, until I finally just let him carry one around that had glitter all over it...and hence glitter all over him. We also went to see Santa this year. Eliseo did pretty well, Santa played with him for a minute before taking him from me, he had a candy cane that he handed to E, then E would hand it back to him and Santa would laugh....HO HO HO. Then E would laugh too. So he didn't really want to hang out on Santa's lap for too long, but long enough to get a decent picture.
OK, so despite all this, my season hasn't been totally stress-free but it's been better. Its not only Christmas I stress out on, but the combo of work stuff and trying to get everything done each day (been working on weekends a lot too). I find myself exhausted and after I put E to bed, sometimes I just crash. So, sorry readers, but the blog post is the first thing crossed off the list for now. But, for those of you who don't follow me on FB, here is your picture fix!
