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Comfort Food and Joy

Look at this wonderful view I had a lunch today!  We did another run to Braselton for some costuming and props related to Christmas, and while we're there Mom and I usually stop at the Cracker Barrel to get a bite to eat.  We mentioned that there's some serious chill in the air this week, so it was super cozy where we were seated, right there next to the fireplace.  Best seating ever.  Look at the Christmas decorations too.  The food was great as always - the two of us had a really nice quiet and pleasant lunch there, nice and warm from the fireplace too!

So this morning Jingle Bell had a little mischief with a roll of toilet paper.  He sort of hopped in one and rolled... and rolled... and rolled down the hall, and down the stairs, around the corner, and before you know it there was this long grail of toilet paper through the house that went straight to the bottom of the patriotic tree.

That's the new advent calendar that everything led to, which of course has a piece of chocolate for Maddie each day in December leading up to Christmas.  In regards to her LEGO advent calendar, she got some more webbing for LEGO Spider-man to fling at Venom...

So we were in Braselton for some work, and Maddie was at school where everything was starting up again.  She had a few smart comments at school in class that got the room laughing, and as always there are funny stories to tell.  Tonight she had taekwondo - we picked her up from school, and I was driving to and fro getting prescriptions and groceries.  We're spotting all these trees mounted on top of cars, live Christmas trees going home for the holidays.  It's a great time of year.  

Taekwondo was good tonight.  It's cold outside, but the group was warming up and training hard for testing and of course a demo in less than two weeks.  Edgestravaganza is almost here!

We got home, and we did watch a Christmas short or two, and all that was meant to lead up to the premiere of a new Star Wars series, "Skeleton Crew."  We watched that at 9pm like nearly everyone else, and watched a couple episodes back-to-back.  So far, so good - this was a fun show.  It's different, but the three of us enjoyed it more than we thought we would, and can't wait for the next episode.

Okay, time for bed.  Maddie had a bit of homework, but we got that taken care of, and then it was time for a few pages from our book.  We tucked everyone in, and we were pretty zonked tonight.  Got a big day tomorrow with some activities and doctor visits - just some follow-up stuff.  It's a busy season though.  We're definitely moving along through December!

December is Here

It's December!  Jingle Bell is back again, and this morning he brought along with him a new advent calendar, this time a LEGO Spider-man advent calendar, complete with some of the Spider-man characters from our old Disney Infinity game.  Maddie put together the first LEGO advent piece this morning, which was Spider-man, delivering a pizza!

We got to church after this.  It's a cold morning out there, by the way.  Freezing temperatures, which you can see because the bird bath is frozen over.  We dump boiled water over it and hack away at places with a screwdriver, and then all the birds rush to the water to get a drink.  

KidPak was great, the start of a new series.  We had a good bit of Christmas fun today, our emphasis being on the Wise Men and the Christmas story.  Maddie took some great pictures as always of our service, putting them on the church website.  I'll share a few below.

So we have this stand-up Nativity set, a larger scale one with big 2-D figures in it.  We used the Wise Men today, and we had to put them somewhere when we were done.  We weren't quite sure where to put our Wise Men so they'd be out of the way, so I put them on top of some cabinets...

We had a great morning.  We went to Sam's Club after this, getting some grocery shopping done - and that's when Maddie spotted the amaryllis bulbs for sale.  We were looking for these the last week or so, and this was the nicest presentation of them all.  We'll be sharing a picture soon enough, but how great to get our traditional amaryllis going and growing in December.  It might bloom a little later than Christmas, but that's okay.

We got home, and Maddie and I had some time playing against LEGO Kang with the Marvel characters in our video game, and we defeated the story mode.  We'll still be playing this game a good bit afterwards, as we're only forty-something percent done right now.  It's been fun, and now we can go back as any character and go collect all the hidden fun stuff along the way.

Tonight's movie was "Santa Clause 3," which was a fun way to start out December.  We also watched the Claymation Christmas, which is must-see television this time of year.  Got to see those California Raisins! Anyway, we watched a few things tonight as the Christmas tree lights glowed.  We have the halls decked here, because December is up and going.

We read "Hogfather" tonight, and we said our prayers afterwards.  The Plush Entourage was off to bed, getting tucked in with Maddie for an earlier night's rest.  School is back tomorrow after Thanksgiving break.  Don't worry, Maddie.  You've got just a few more weeks until another bigger break.  Time to get under the covers though - it's chilly outside!