Rudy the Red Nosed Reindeer

This is a drawing Madison did, just fooling around, but we really like it.  Currently, you can find it on the refrigerator, but we like it so much we just might make it our next Christmas card for everyone.  Yes, Mommy was filling out envelopes all day for mailing out Christmas cards.  It's somewhat of a lost art, as people just don't do it anymore for a variety of reasons.  Obviously, there's cost:  Daddy got the Christmas stamps today, and of course we have to make the cards and then there's the envelopes we purchased.

There were three Christmas stamps to go with this year.  Daddy got the Biblical looking one, and another one that featured Christmas baked goods.  There was a third that had a classic illustration of a kid in a snow suit on it, that picture coming from a famous children's book.  Well, apparently it wasn't famous enough, because Daddy thought it looked like a Teletubbie.  So we didn't get those.

But add that to the list of things to do this week:  we're going to send off our Christmas cards.

Today is Cyber Monday, and despite the huzzah about the day, we didn't order anything online.  Daddy did send a picture around to everyone, in honor of Madison's hero group this past Summer Xtreme.  She was a part of the Cyber Squad, so yeah, today became a day to honor that group of Summer Xtreme heroes.

It was also a day to put up the wreaths outside.  The house is looking nice from the outside with the wreaths and the Christmas lights inside.  It's nearly fully decked!  We just have to put out some Nativity set pieces, and a few other decorations, and I think we'll be set.

In the meantime, we had ballet tonight, and after that we watched "Shrek the Halls."  Not many kids were at ballet tonight, because many of the kids were practicing for the Nutcracker upcoming.  Madison is not in that this year, as she decided to take a break.  We said we'd let her do it if she wanted to, but this year she was ready to take a break from it.  This in turned allowed us to do other things, like Dollywood, for example.  But there's another thing:  Madison is starting to sniffle a lot.  In fact, she doesn't have a fever, but her cough and runny nose got pretty severe after ballet tonight.  We didn't really think it was that bad, but perhaps the exertion did her in.  The point is, she's probably staying home tomorrow, and taking her first sick day.

Tonight she did choreography in ballet, and her teacher told us she's really good at it.  When we got home, we got into the story at the Shadow Ranch again, and went to bed with the usual arsenal of items to help a sick child sleep.

We watched "Christmas with the Kranks" tonight after Madison went to bed, but really... we were fast asleep right after that ended.  Definitely need some rest tonight!