L.E.K.: The Angel is UP (finally)

We were in the car on the way to school this morning, listening to Christmas music, and Tommy looked up and said, "but pouting isn't necessarily naughty, right? I mean, what if someone snatched your favorite toy out of your hands? Pouting is okay then." I said yes, and vaguely implied that Santa wasn't going to skip him this year. It's a fine line, isn't it, because I get a month out of the year with guaranteed decent behavior from my children, but I'm not mean enough that I want them to think that they'll be crossed off Santa's list of good kids.

You guys. 'Tis the season and all but I am so freaking stressed out. I realized yesterday that most of the stress is from the trip home and preparations that are not done. But we've got Christmas Wonderland at school this afternoon, a four-hour choir rehearsal followed by Lizzie's birthday party tomorrow, a choir concert on Saturday (as well as the real birthday -- so some birthday things to organize before then), the women's group holiday lunch on Sunday, and cupcakes to Lizzie's class for her birthday on Monday (I stopped at the bakery today to order them as I realized there was absolutely no way I was baking them). On Wednesday we have Tommy's holiday concert, and Lizzie's is on Thursday at the same time as Tommy's holiday party.

And. Guess how much Christmas shopping I have left to do? Oh, 80% or so.

I've been up at three am worrying about the weirdest stuff and last night I slept through the night but I dreamed I had lice.

Thankfully, my littles are completely in love with the fact that they have only one more week of school left and Christmas is almost here. Lulu wakes up each morning to ask how many days until her birthday (and in the backseat she practices holding up four fingers as we drive to school) and then she asks how many days until Christmas.

Pretend there is a photo of the Christmas tree here, okay? As the title of this post implies, I intended to include a photo of the tree, but I just can't get a good one. I offer to you this random assortment of photos instead. Merry Christmas.

(The angel has a little story to go with her about how she wasn't on the tree for two weeks because the tree top wasn't strong enough to hold her up and so Eli went out and bought wire and that sat in the kitchen basket that collects all of our junk for at least a week and then last night I begged him to do the project and just get the sweet angel up and out of harm's way (that would be Tommy & Lizzie) and so he stood up on one of the end tables and pulled the tree top up and put the angel there and it was a Christmas miracle because she stayed up! She didn't need wire!)