We're going to take Catherine to see Santa this year - possibly Thursday evening, possibly over the weekend, but, one way or another, she is going to see Santa.

I just don't know where we're going to take her. I should e-mail my mall project managers and find out which one has the best Santa.

Catherine experienced the Christmas tree this evening. It was the cutest thing ever. The "OOOooo"ing was constant, and she actually said "Wow" a couple of times. I think I'm going to enclose one of these in our Christmas cards this year.

Click to see a bigger version.


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The tree is up and decorated. Other decorations are up, but I'm not quite done. I had to use the backup tree, because half the lights on the bottom part of the main one were out, and it's a wiring rather than bulb issue. Probably a blown fuse, but, since I HAD a backup tree, I wasn't all THAT interested in finding the problem ( Read more... )

Two years ago, I started buying the pieces of the "A Christmas Story" village they have at Sears. I've got Ralphie's House, Cleveland Elementary (which wasn't called Cleveland Elementary in the movie but we'll let that slide), Chop Suey Palace, and Higbee's, plus a few of the little figurines to litter about. Now they've got more buildings, and I ( Read more... )

Okay, this little gadget that I got at Home Depot is the most wonderful invention in the history of the world, especially for people who have pre-lit Christmas trees on which a strand has gone out. Mine had three strands out, and I figured I'd be lucky to have them fixed when it was time to pick Catherine up. It took me less than five minutes to ( Read more... )

Rex has been chewing on my briefcase, unbeknownst to me. Mom got it for me for my birthday - so I've only had it for three months, and he's managed to chew a nice little hole into it. Thanks, Rex. :-p

We watched Transformers tonight. Good flick. I remember most of those characters from my brother's Transformers. Joe was surprised that I knew ( Read more... )

Well, anyway, the prep for it ( Read more... )

Okay, the tart is in the oven. It isn't perfect, but I hope that, for a first effort, it'll be okay. And there's the cheesecake, also - Joe did that last night. The equipment we bought was all wrong: the tart pan too large, the springform for the cheesecake, too small. Sigh ( Read more... )

This tart is NOT going to get the best of me ( Read more... )

I just did something that made me shake my head in wonder at myself ( Read more... )