Decking Our Halls

...and turning us grey.

We spent some of Saturday decorating our house for Christmas.  It hasn't been as lovely an experience this year and still isn't done.  Here's some of the evidence of the decorating 'joy.'

I actually like the kids' decorations.  That's sort of fun and festive and little kid magical.  What I don't love is the lack of lights.  Seriously.  We've had this tree for only 3 years and it was not cheap.  1/3 of the lights are out.  The section at the top was out; the section covered by the hats was out, and another large section on the other side was out.  Stanton got really fed up by the whole situation and decided he was going to remove all the lights from the tree.  Yes, 4, 500 lights.  Each one individually clipped to the branch.  We considered taking the tree back, but we know it's just going to happen again, so we worked together (Stanton did most of the work) and got all the lights off.  Tonight we finally got new lights strung.  The kids begged for colored lights, which we were happy to make happen.  I also bought a star for the top of the tree this year.  The days of a pretty decorated tree with white lights and ribbons is behind me -- it's all about the kids now....and I love it.  Christmas is about the kids anyway.

Anyway, while we were decorating on Friday, Cannon kept himself busy.  Gads.  That kid is killing me lately.  He's as cute as ever, but holy cow, he is a mess making machine.  I feel like I'm following him around every second cleaning something up or washing his hands (and mouth) after finding him with the plunger handle in his mouth.  
Here he is, entertaining himself while we get the decorations up.

He emptied almost an entire can of hot cocoa and ate the rest of two pans of Rice Krispy treats.  I about lost it with him, but somehow kept my cool and vacuumed up the mess, gave him a sink bath, and got his clothes in the laundry.  The plus side was that the vacuum smelled chocolaty for a good little while after. 

Thank the heavens above, we had plans for a dinner date with the Westfalls that evening.  I needed a break from the frustrating decorations (the tree wasn't the only thing whose lights were dead) and mega disaster baby.

The house is sort of coming together, although I still feel like we're sort of living in chaos.  I'll get a picture of the tree once it's decorated.  I'm sounding like such a Debbie Downer right now, but I think it's because I'm tired and hormonal.  Bleh. 
The house is looking pretty nice, I just need to break out of my funk and finish the last little things so I can get all the boxes out of the house and move on to organizing and wrapping presents.

Oh, man, I need to go to bed.