Burrrr

As I write this the thermometer says that it is nine degrees outside. NINE!! I love snow and I love winter, but this is cold even for me! I'm sure glad we got the outside Christmas lights up last weekend because it is supposed to be cold for awhile. I had a hard time getting motivated to decorate this year, which was kind of strange. Big Daddy has been dealing with a fairly intense cold since last Saturday, so he really wasn't up to dragging boxes up from the basement. He still helped out a lot considering he felt so bad, but it was one of those things that made it less enjoyable. It's finally done, but it took me four days to get it all finished. It wasn't an easy job this year either. I just seemed to have a hard time figuring out where to put everything, plus I twisted my back on Tuesday which was just another thing that seemed to get in the way of getting everything done.  Like I said, just nothing about it was easy this year. Now that it's all done, and the house is (mostly) clean, I'm really enjoying having everything up. Although it took awhile, I am very happy with how it all looks.

This is me hanging out on the roof putting up Christmas lights. I love the looks and comments I get from the neighbors for being on the roof. They are SO nervous to see me up there and it doesn't bother me a bit!

This isn't a great picture, but it gives the general idea of how the house looks when it's all lit up.

A better shot of the yard decorations. In the middle there is an animated teeter totter with Santa on one side and two elves on the other. This is my favorite Christmas decoration ever! I love that it moves!!

In other news, Little Miss has had another rough week at school. I know that part of it was having a long weekend at home and then having to readjust to her routine again. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were all tough days with temper tantrums and attitude. It seemed worse in the morning and her teachers were saying that after her nap she would be much better. Even Little Miss said "my brain feels better after a nap." As a result we've made some changes to the bedtime routine at home to see if getting her to bed earlier might help the mornings go better for her. We've moved bed time from 8:30 to 8:00. We've also taken everything out of her room that is a toy. She can have her stuffed animals, her books and her music, but no Barbies, pencils, paper, cars, dinosaurs or things like that. When we told her the new plan she was of course, not at all on board, but the funny thing is last night after we put her to bed she opened her door and told us she found some more toys that needed to come out of her room and set them in the hallway. Today was a better day at school, so hopefully we're onto something if we can get her to go sleep earlier. Tonight I found some contraband in the form of colored pencils and paper dolls when I went into check on her. She wasn't happy when I took them out, but at the same time she didn't have a meltdown or anything. It's been about 15 minutes since I was in her room and it sounds pretty quiet in there, so that's a good sign!

On Tuesday we had the chance to see my Dad and his wife on their way back from Thailand. They had been up traveling for nearly two solid days, but they still found the time to have dinner with us and share some about their experiences half way around the world. Little Miss was so excited to see and talk to them. She was just a little chatter box! One of the things they brought back were some shells and coral. They let Little Miss pick out some to keep and you would have thought they had given her gold bars! She LOVES those shells. She held them in her lap the whole way home and put them on the book case next to her bed where she can see them at night. Every Friday they have show and tell at her school and she told us on the way home she is taking her shells to show her class this week and the coral next week. :-)

Tomorrow night we're headed to Disney on Ice. I learned my lesson from the Circus and I haven't been talking much about it or hyping it up. We talked about it some tonight.  I'm looking forward to it and I think Little Miss is too. Should be a fun family night!