almost done Christmas shopping...

Abigail took this picture of me with the poor snowman. One is not crazy until one purchases an inflatable snowman. No, I didn't buy one:)

Abigail bought herself a Christmas present though...a remote starter for her car. She had to leave her car while it was installed, so she asked me to come along and take her out and about. I did. We were in Kohl's when Kathryn called asking what Jonathan was supposed to be doing, besides watching, "Phinneas and Ferb" on his tablet. Um, math. Reading. Writing. Cursive. I had gone over all of it with him last evening. Anyway. To the dollar store, BigLots, then home. phew. Home to clean up after a long day, home to help Jonathan with his multiplication of fractions, home to find out that there was still no propane. It ran out yesterday, I called in the afternoon and was assured that, "he will be right over". I guess "he" forgot, because when I called this afternoon, "she" was surprised that "he" never came. Anyway...the pilot light went out on the hot water tank, and Joseph couldn't get it to light. He tried twice. I begged him to try once more, and I actually prayed it would work, I just wanted a shower and to wash the dishes in warm water....and, it worked.

Anyway....the older kids all had places to go, so I took the three youngest to the mall....
It was actually a fun mall trip, because I had no intention of looking at anything remotely boring...boring to the kids, that is. We started in the Bass Pro Shop, where we tried out the Christmas toys in the Santa's Wonderland. We shot the guns and played with the slingshots, raced the cars around the track, and took turns with the remote control monster truck. They weren't interested in getting their picture taken with Santa, so I didn't push it, even though I would have liked one. We looked at the fish, then wandered out into the mall. There was a band there in the food court playing Christmas music. The kids were more interested in sitting on all the four-wheelers on display. So we walked through the mall, and: there was a new toy store! Now, to me, there isn't much that is more fun than a toy store. And this one had un-current toys, which were all marked down. Most of them were half off, then half off that. Oh joy....Camille got a little Melissa&Doug craft kit with a wooden box and paint and jewels to decorate it with. For $2.50. There was an area with ride-ons to try, and they did try them. (on the way home, Camille was explaining why she liked the toy store, and she said, "I liked that we were allowed to play and that it wasn't illegal.") I found some fun stuff! They did not see the dolls I bought, either. Madame Alexander dolls, the 18 inch ones like American Girl dolls, for ten dollars each. I also got Jon a few cool trucks.

I considered eating in the mall with them, but the pizza was expensive, and I really wanted to get home...so I offered to pick up pizza from Little Caesar's on the way home, then wrap presents with the. We watched, "Elf", wrapped presents, and had lots of fun. They didn't go to bed until ten, Jon stayed up until eleven, then the girls came trooping in from their youth gathering. Kathryn, Evelyn, and Suzanne helped me finish the present wrapping. They were SO silly. Fooling around and laughing and joking and hitting each other with the wrapping paper rolls....then Evelyn wrote, "scarf" on a wrapped scarf for Sonja, instead of writing Sonja's name. Why did that make me fall back on the couch and laugh until I could barely sit up? They kept passing the tape to each other by whipping it hard, and the scissors...I decided to go get my own tape and scissors. We got most of the stuff wrapped, now it is all stacked here and there, waiting for a Christmas tree to park under.

Tomorrow...Emily is going to be Daddy and go get the tree! I have a corner cleared out for it. I just wish I didn't sign up to go to the dome in the afternoon, I want to stay home and help them decorate it. But I also want to help fundraise, and be with my friends. Abigail is going to do something fun with the kids, so I really have nothing to feel bad about, except for missing them.

Paul is having fun in France. He misses me terribly though. At least I hope he does. Nah, he does. He said he misses me. I just threw in the Terribly.

It is almost two a.m., and I have to work at the basketball stand tomorrow, plus I am going with Em to get the tree so the kids can help choose. So I need to get to bed now.