I should be in bed...

I am plenty tired enough. But. Not wound down enough yet. Paul is coming home tomorrow, yay! And I am getting super-excited about Christmas! Yes, I know we haven't even had Thanksgiving yet. We aren't having our Thanksgiving on Real Thanksgiving anyway, we are having it on Friday night, because Emily-The-Nurse has to work.

So in my excitement, I decided to put some Christmas lights up. Now, this should be relatively easy, right? I bought new ones for the upstairs windows, and those nice little battery candles for the downstairs windows. They even have timers so we don't have to turn them all on and off each day. Well...blah. It took me so long to get those lights hung up...and do you think the kids in the bedrooms downstairs wanted those nice candles in their windows? Nope. I put my foot down. I told Aaron if he didn't have one, it would make the whole house look awful. He probably thinks I am nuts, but he consented to have one.

So...then it was after dinner (corned beef, roasted carrots and potatoes), and time to pick Samuel up from basketball tryouts...Aaron just happened to have just asked me to make him some cookies...so I bribed him. He picked up Sam for me, I made cookies. A triple batch of chocolate chip. One bag of Ghiardelli milk chocolate, and a bunch of regular dark chips...I use half shortening, half butter, and a 2/3 ratio of brown sugar to white. The dough was so good, I ate like 300 calories worth. Good thing I had an otherwise excellent eating day. I did eat one cookie this evening, too, oh so good. I packed up some for Aaron and Mirielle to bring to their clinicals tomorrow.

It only took two hours.

But Sam was doing homework at the table, and I had kids coming in and out for tastes and to "help", so it was fun. At bedtime Jon remembered that he also had some homework (bad Mom award!!). oops. He finished it up and got in bed a little bit late...he wants to go to the airport with me so badly tomorrow. And since I am so nice, I think I will let him. Just the thought of him at school thinking of me going to pick up Daddy without him, too sad. Sonja doesn't care as much, and Charlotte Claire would be fine to see him when she gets off the bus. But Jonathan...he is fascinated by the airport. It makes me wish we could actually take him on a plane. We need to win a family vacation to Disney or something. Ha, Jon would be so excited and overstimulated we would have to drug him to take him on the plane.

Not really.

Anyway, moot point, because we are not going to Disney.

Suzanne did have an ear infection, I took her to Dr. today.

We went to Wegmans for her prescription, and I got a huge turkey, almost 30 pounds.

Every year we count down to Christmas with chocolate calendars. The cardboard things with a little chocolate behind each door. They only cost a dollar each from Aldi. Well, for quite a few years we had kids sharing, sometimes three to a calendar. This year they get their own, because only like seven of them are interested. But I told them they have to each pick an older one to share with. Because it makes me feel like they are too spoiled to get their own.

Oh, I think the over-eating this past weekend helped break my plateau, I lost another pound. Until I ate that cookie dough, that is. blah.

I did fit in some exercise this afternoon after the dr. and grocery shopping. It wasn't easy. Kitty Kitten and Camille keep me distracted. And if the school kids come home, they come in and find me and have a laugh at me jogging in place and exercising my arms. But as Sonja so kindly said to me this afternoon, "Well, it does look like it's working. You aren't nearly as fat as you used to be." Thank you, dear.

And now, I shall try to go to bed. (Kitty Kitten is being crazy, racing down the hall and jumping at invisible enemies, batting things around.)