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My kids have been asking me since before Thanksgiving when we were going to put up Christmas lights. The problem with Christmas lights is that I’m completely afraid of heights and can’t bear to get up on our roof again after the first time I put lights up several years ago. Last year I bought new lights but couldn’t bring myself to put them up. This year I found a great neighbor who isn’t afraid of heights and volunteered to climb up to the highest part of the roof (thanks Aaron!). While he was on the peak of the roof, I used the ladder to put the lights up around the lower portion of the roofs. In about a half hour we had the job done.

Thank goodness for good neighbors

We also decided to take a Christmas picture today. After about 10 different takes this was the best one we could come up with. Not sure what Diana is grumping about but everyone else is smiling…

Christmas 2010

I am sure glad that I took care of the tomatoes yesterday because this is what my garden looked like today.

A couple of days ago we had some snow, but not enough for the kids to play in. Luckily last nights storm brought in enough for the kids to enjoy!

Since it is supposed to get to the freezing point tonight I decided it was time to get rid of all of the tomato plants. It was hard work especially because we had at least ten plants. Most of the tomatoes were still green, but I heard that they will ripen okay inside so I decided to pick them all and get rid of all the vines. As you can tell by the picture I could not fit all of them into our garbage can. Instead I have to leave them in the middle of the garden until little by little they will get to the landfill. Here are the pictures of my labors……….

It doesn’t look like much, but it took me all morning to get it done!

Now I just have to wait for them to turn red!

We also had a very good crop of raspberries this year. I tried to tie the raspberry bush up using twine, but I didn’t buy very strong stuff so here is the result.

We did get lots of yummy raspberries which we turned into yummy raspberry muffins!

Today is my birthday and Sam made a special picture for me. It is interesting that when my girls draw pictures they draw a scene, but when Sam draws a picture he tells a story. Can you see the story behind this picture?

Here is our basement with nice new carpet!

Once Brian is done with the wiring, this is where the entertainment area will be.

Now we have our own cupboard under the stairs.

This will be Anne’s room

This will be Emily’s room

This year Caroline and Diana were the only kids who wanted to play soccer. Diana was improved from last year. She finally ran with the hordes of kids to get to the ball instead of just standing there looking at it. Caroline’s team was really good and only lost one game. Caroline’s best position on the team is defense, she is good at kicking the ball out of the way so the other team can’t get a goal. I am proud of them for doing a good job this year.

Diana’s favorite time in soccer

Caroline posing for a picture

Diana amongst the horde

This year Caroline and Sam started swimming lessons at level 3. They can now swim well enough that I don’t have to keep a constant eye on them when they are at our community pool. Diana couldn’t take lessons at the beginning because she had a rash that took a long time to get better. By the second session of swimming lessons Diana’s rash was better so she could start at level 1. Caroline was able to pass level 3 after the first session, but Sam had to take it again until he finally passed. The kids love to go to the indoor pool here and they are looking forward to taking more swimming lessons when they go off track from school.

Sam’s second grade class did a puppet show last school year and I thought it was about time to make a post about it. The class broke into groups and did a tiny puppet show about a story they read in class that year. Sam’s group did theirs on Tops and Bottoms. The kids prerecorded their story so they could concentrate on working their puppets and props. I was not on my best form that day taking pictures so I only got one good picture. Here it is:

Sam is the rabbit on the left.

The cabinet guy got done with his work for today and here is the semi-finished product.

A couple of months ago we decided to finish our basement. Brian thought that it would also be a great time to get cabinets put in his office. Today was the day that they got put in. Even though there are a few more touch ups to be done on them, I think they turned out really nice.