I can't believe it's almost Christmas. We only put one tree up this year (I usually do at least two and I have had as many as five trees), which I think is a big step for me. I've learned to scale back, not necessarily due to the economy, but due to the fact that I am dead tired.
Drake is almost fully potty-trained now. He still wears a pull-up at night, but I'm OK with that. I got most of our Christmas shopping done in November this year. I've just been trying to decide what I want to get for George this year. Honestly, he's so hard to buy for.
Skylar is having major drama with her PE teacher. She thinks the PE teacher has some sort of personal vendetta against her, but in reality, I think her personality just rubs Skylar the wrong way - she seems perfectly fine around Bart, who also has her for tennis lessons.
Friday night I didn't work, so I was able to go on the Young Women's trip to Bath to see a live nativity scene. It was outdoors in an amphitheater. It was a REALLY cold night and we were all freezing, but it was definitely worth it. We had a lot of fun. I brought Bart and Sky along with me. Bart was so funny. He didn't know what to do with himself around all those teenage girls. We had to make him settle down and stop sitting on people. I think he developed a little crush on at least one of the girls.
Lucy is being a little pill lately. She is perfectly adorable, but when she gets it into her mind that she doesn't want to be changed, she makes it almost impossible to change her diaper or her clothes. Sometimes she pitches a fit and kicks her feet on the floor. Once in awhile if she's standing up, she stamps her feet if she's angry. It's pretty funny, but also pretty annoying when I'm trying to get the big kids to school on time. The other day, I could swear she said "Dora" and pointed to a Dora toy in the store. Today, she put her arms around Drake's neck and hugged him for a long time, until Drake got tired and pushed her off.
Having kids is great entertainment.

At the beginning of December, I was able to go with Skylar to the 4th and 5th grade Colonial Camp field trip ("field trip" because it was in the field outside their school). It was a lot of fun. The kids played Colonial games, got their faces painted like Native Americans, ate a Colonial lunch cooked over a fire, got to shop in the trading post, dressed up in old-fashioned clothing, and made crafts. It was a really cool field trip.

the Battleship

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we took a trip to Wilmington to see the Battleship. It was pretty chilly. The kids pretended to cook themselves in one of the ship's kitchens. We hung Bart from a meat hook just for laughs.

We realized around 2pm or so that no one had eaten any lunch and the natives were getting restless. So while George, Bart, and Alan went to explore some more, the rest of us took the children into the lounge and dropped a small fortune buying drinks and snacks.

After the Battleship, we followed headed over to Mike's Farm which is in Beulaville. Bart had gone once for a pumpkin patch field trip, but my family had never gone for the light display before. The lines for tickets were so long and it was COLD out. Lucy was getting cranky and George was overreacting and saying how he was going to take Lucy home and I should get someone to bring the rest of us home. Ha! I got sick of it and told him that we were leaving RIGHT THEN. So we loaded up the the three youngest and allowed Skylar to stay with the rest of the family. Then we switched vehicles with Alan. I was pissed at the way George was acting, but reprimanding him wasn't going to do much good. I reminded him that it was his sister's birthday which was why we were going to the lights display and then to their delicious restaurant. After everyone had calmed down, George turned the car around and we headed back for dinner, apologizing to Mindy if we were rude.

Let's just say the food was delicious!

Here is Mary with the three older kids.

Today Lucy waved and said "Bye, bye". It was so cute I couldn't stand it.

This morning Skylar was inducted into the Elementary Honor Society or something like that. I was such a great mom, of course, that I left my camera at home and someone else's mom had to take a picture for me. Also, I spent the whole ceremony standing up in the back of the room holding onto Lucy and shooting Drake dirty looks to STOP TALKING AND WHISPER RIGHT NOW, MISTER.

I knew Skylar was going to try to con me into taking her out of school early (it was only 10:15 by the time we were done) and had steeled myself to be firm and unyielding in the face of her excuses. I was unprepared for tears, however, and I let her sucker me into checking her out early. She really hates school right now, which is a shame. I'm afraid she's losing interest in learning because she is so bored/frustrated.

Right now I'm mad at George. I'm not really sure why, but I think it has something to do with the fact that he barely said ten words to me all night and when he did it was to ask me to unload the dishwasher, put dinner away, and to add that it only takes "a few minutes" to cycle laundry through the washer and dryer. I had been hoarding my arsenal of four-letter words for just such an occasion and felt it was appropriate to drop one in response. It felt pretty good.

Me and My Big Mouth

Why can't I just ever keep my mouth shut? Today it was 75 degrees. I want to throw up.

December

I'm so happy that it's been chilly so far this December. Of course, now that I've said that it'll probably be 75 degrees this week.
It rained yesterday, so the New Bern parade was postponed until next weekend. Unfortunately, I work next Saturday. The flotilla was still on, but as we loaded the kids into the car, it started raining so we decided to go to Jacksonville instead to go Christmas shopping.






Today I took the kids to town hall after church for a Christmas ornament-making party and visit from Santa. Lucy was freaked out and screamed whenever we brought her near Santa. As a result, we have only one picture with her and Santa together and it was only because Santa snuck up behind her when she wasn't looking and someone else snapped the picture real quick.

Ha ha. Lucy has absolutely no idea.

Drake, meanwhile, is suspicious of the Big Man in Red.

He warms up, though, when Santa starts talking toys.

I just threw this picture in because it's so dang cute.
Rub a dub dub.

A little bummed

I just buried Drake's hermit crab, Mr. Krabs, under the magnolia tree out front. We also buried Tuck, the turtle there last year. I gave him plenty of time in case he was just moulting, but finally I had to make the decision to bury him because he obviously wasn't doing real well.

He and Drake had some good times.