Hustle and Bustle

It's one thing to take a family trip.  It's another thing entirely to be gone OVER two weeks at a time.  Throw in the fact that you did it during the Christmas season and you have an entire month through which you will just never catch up.  I think if I didn't have to do school with Noah every day, I might could have gotten a better footing with getting us back in working order, but there just aren't enough hours in the day. 

HOWEVER...

We did get the tree up last week.  And we've been double timing it with our Jesse tree devos to catch up to the right day.

The kids and I took advantage of a slow morning and "made" ornaments.

And yesterday, we finally went to see The Dancing Lights of Christmas at Jellystone Park again.

While we were there, we knocked Santa off our to-do list, too. Anna asked for a FlutterBye and something else that she can't remember now. That's my girl!

 

Bless his heart, Noah didn't ask for anything specific.  He just said he would like to be surprised. ♥ Santa enjoyed that and responded with a heartfelt, "Ho Ho Ho!  You WILL be surprised!"

This morning I made the mistake of leaving out last year's Santa pic along with this year's pic.  Noah asked me why he looked different this year.  "Are there several Santas?" he asked.  Uh, um, well, I, uh... I stammered.  I never really did answer that one.  This just might be the year that Noah puts two and two together.  Not a big loss, really, just a milestone for the remembering.  We shall see.

Silly Santa shot.  I think this was my favorite of all the Santas we have seen.  He was a natural with the kids.   

He was also touched when Anna doubled back with a gift for him.

And I know this is totally off the wall, but before we left, Santa was feeding a donkey with his mouth.  Seriously.  It's been a strange, strange holiday season indeed. :S

The only thing odder than that is the fact that Josh and I had to do the bulk of our Christmas shopping last weekend.  In my life, I have NEVER waited this long to take care of presents.  It was an eye-opener to be out in the holiday shopping mob scene and we vowed to never fall this far behind again.  Now all that's left to do is wrap everything (ugh), get Josh to the hospital for a procedure that shall remain nameless (don't ask), set up Anna's new bed (apparently we are gluttons for punishment) and hit the grocery store before family gets here on Monday.

Wish us luck!  We just might catch up by the 25th after all.