Already??

I can not believe that Christmas is in two weeks. I wish that we had another month (at least) before it was here. Definitely another paycheck would be nice too. We're about half done with our shopping, and it looks like we've barely started. I did mail off my nieces' gifts today, which accounted for some of it. But still.

It's very weird to not be sending anything to my best friend. We had agreed that since I bought his ticket to see Madonna, that would be his Christmas gift. And to be honest, it was more than I would normally spend on his gift. It just bums me out to not be sending anything to him.

And I'm being kind of pouty that I won't be getting much this year either. See, my ticket to see Madonna was my Christmas gift as well. I was totally okay with it too. But now I'm sort of sad that the only gifts I get will be from my parents. I think that my kids will probably make something for me which I will love, but nothings coming from Shell. She is a master gift-giver and always gets me the best gifts. So I'm mourning the loss of that. I know it's awfully selfish of me to think this way, since I know there will be many people sacrificing their own gifts in order to be able to afford ones for their kids. And I am totally on that bandwagon. I really wish we could afford to do more for our kids this year, but we can't. And I need to stop the "poor me" pity party.

I took pictures of the kids last weekend in hopes of choosing one for our Christmas card. There were a few good ones to choose from, but we made up our minds, ordered them and I picked them up today. They will start going out in the mail tomorrow. I had hoped to get them out by the end of this week, so I am pretty happy. Here are the ones we chose from:

So you can see my dilemma. My kids are SO FREAKING CUTE, that it was very difficult to make a decision. I really wanted to use the last one, but the sun shining on my boys face really washed him out. Same with the second one. I'm not going to post the one we used just yet, since my best friend is actually getting the card and I'd rather not put it here before he sees the card itself. I'll put it here next week for sure.

StephLove tagged me for a photo meme. Thanks, this one was really fun! Here are the rules:

1) Choose the fourth picture folder on your computer
2) Choose the fourth picture
3) Explain the picture
4) Tag four other people

My picture is:

My boy on Easter 2004. He is 5 years old and at my parents house. The assortment on the floor is what was in his bucket from them. My mom goes crazy buying stuff for the kids at Easter. We hardly get them anything at all because of it. The plastic eggs are his haul from the egg hunt.

I tag Karen, Teaberry, Vikki and Vee.

We will be getting our tree this weekend and will decorate it and put the presents under it. The rest of the house is decorated as is the front of the house. I don't put lights on the house, mostly because I've never done it and have no idea where to start, but also because I'm scared of being on the ladder. So we have two prelit trees in the yard, lights all around the railing of the porch and stairs, and a lighted wreath. It's bright and colorful, the kids like it and I didn't have to climb on any ladders to do it. Everyone's happy!