It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas.....

Last night we had a little Christmas Decorating pizza party, complete with Thin Crust Pizza Hut pizza, bread and their Hershey Dunkers.   Delicious!

After searching high and low for the legs for the stand of our Charlie Brown christmas tree, we got the tree setup and decorated.  One long strand of our tinsel was all tangled up and after spending eons 15 minutes trying to unravel it, I gave up, so the tree is tinsel lopsided.  Oh well.  Adds to the Charlie Brown-esqueness of the tree.

We had one of Santa's Helpers stop by and help consume massive quantities of pizza decorate the tree.  After about 30 minutes, she started asking for dessert.  Doesn't Santa feed his helpers up there at the North Pole?

Good thing Santa's Helper is so cute!

Daddy lifting Santa's Helper up to put an ornament on the tree

Daddy & Santa's Helper after finishing the tree

 

Our Charlie Brown Tree

My nutcracker collection

And when you can't sleep because the smoke alarm went off at 4:30am after the furnace turned on for the first time this year and burned off a bit of dust, and you tried to fall back asleep, but gave up after an hour or so, then get up and turn on the Christmas Tree lights and admire your Charlie Brown tree!

Today E Santa's Helper and I will put up the rest of the decorations while Nick is at work.  Then it will be time to start making some Christmas cookies. Now that is MY favorite thing to do!  How about you?

♪ Reunited and It Feels So Good ♪

E's daddy got home late last night. She took a long nap yesterday so I let her stay up to say hi to daddy and talk to him for a bit.  She gave him his Welcome Home letter containing a picture she colored for him from her Handy Manny coloring book.  Lots of hugs and kisses were exchanged and then we had some snuggle time on the bed before E drifted off to sleep around 10:30pm.  

I hoped E would sleep in today after staying up so late, but nope, she was up bright and early.  Grandma Marilyn sent home a few things for E to play with so we left them in her bedroom for her to find this morning.

Two things she loves....puzzles and jewelry.

Big thanks to Grandma Marilyn from The Princess!

♫Anticipation. An-ti-ci-pa-a-tion is making her wait♫

Tonight E's daddy comes home from WA.  He has been there to visit with family and attend his dad's memorial service and internment.  Although he has been gone for short periods of time before, this time when he left, E was inconsolable.  She cried and screamed and cried and did I mention scream?  I finally got her to calm down after an hour.  He left Tuesday afternoon and she has not cried since, but has said several times how she misses her daddy.  They have talked a few times a day on the phone which has really helped. 

First thing this morning, E got up and colored a picture for her daddy.  We put it in an envelope and on one side, she decorated it with stamps and flowers.  On the back she wanted me to spell out for her to write "Welcome Home Daddy.  I Missed You Very Much." 

 

He won't be home until she is already in bed but I told her I would wake her up so she could see him.  She asked me "So I can tell him how much I love him and missed him?"  Yes E....and I know he will tell you the same.

Two Thumbs Up . . .

followed by " I love it. I Love It. I LOVE IT!" That's what E said when I showed her the new blog layout.

The background/header is a shot of E in the pool....her favorite place to be next to the beach. We don't have solar heating in the pool so it will be a few more months before we get to use it again.

Wait, what is that sound I hear? Oh, yes, our friends from the North are never jealous moaning and gnashing their teeth while playing their little violins for us because we can't use our pool. LOL

That's ok. When it's 5° and snow is 10" deep, and your car won't start and you feel like you will never thaw out, just stop by here and look at my blog and you should get jealous warmed up rather quickly. I'll make sure to post lots more pictures of us enjoying the beach over the next few months to help with your cabin fever. Yeah, I'm real helpful like that!