Someday I'll be on the Other End.

One of these days I am going to be on my sister's end of the phone during one of these conversations. (She's in red.)

Ouch! Ouch, ouch ouch!! No you can't have another snack! Ouch! You just ate an entire bag of marshmallows and washed it down with another blue cupcake.

Ummm, ok?

I hate wearing shoes. I just tripped coming up the stairs and jammed my wrist trying to get your call. And now I've stepped in dog poo. Has anyone seen my camera? But considering the poo I'm glad I have shoes on right now.

(beginning of giggles)

Please don't touch that! At least until I get a picture. And watch out for dog poo! So how was your day? Oh and yes I did get the e-mail but I think that question might be left over from lunch. And knowing me I already anwered it. I said LOOK OUT FOR THE POOP! Don't eat that!

(hysterical laughter) Yes you answered the question. (followed by more hysterical laughter)

And now I think I know your answer to my humor hunting at The Bowl. When you are looking for laughter you pretty much just call me, right? By the way, I didn't even have pants on this morning when I got your first e-mail about the inside out pants but I'm pretty sure my bra might be on backwards so that makes for about the same day.

Why do you have your brother's shoes on? I can't believe more people didn't know this was a daffodil! Please don't stomp the flowers.

Have I told you that you make my life seem normal?

Don't rub it in!

Love you!

Love you too. WATCH OUT FOR THE...I gotta go.

(hysterical laught.. "click")

What is a Tannenbaum anyway?

So I think with this post I am back up to date with posting. The Comp Crash of 08 as we are referring to it (more child friendly than the blue streak I was emitting yesterday) put me behind the ball. So now to just catch up with all of the other participants and let you know what I think and it's party BACK ON!! Woo Hoo!

On the way home from church on Sunday I saw someone with a Christmas tree on top of their car. No kidding! Before December even gets here? I so don't want to vacuum that house on the 15th! I'll give you 3 guesses what we're talking about today!

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Drum roll please.....And the query of the day is....

Do you decorate for the Holidays? Do you have a themed Christmas tree? Share pics! Do you think there is such a thing as OVER decorating?

Do we decorate? Does the Zoo decorate? Really? We sure do! Are we over the top? Not by a long shot!

But we do have rules. No decorations before Thanksgiving. In my book Thanksgiving is very important and I would say that this year it is even more important than in years past. Soap box moment – make sure you take time to be thankful before you move on to Christmas.

We usually have some kind of theme to our tree – not really by choice. The Lion inherited all my decorations when we got married so he got a snowman, snowflake tree by default. Four years later we finally moved on. Poor guy. He sure is tolerant! Last year we did an old fashioned tree. The exhibits and I made homemade ornaments out of baking soda clay and cinnaclay and I painted them up. We dried oranges, grapefruits and apples and even went so far as to attempt stringing popcorn and cranberries. Not as easy and delightful an experience as one would have hoped. It was Lion’s favorite by far so there will be a repeat of it this year. The great thing is that it won’t be exactly the same because all the fruit starts new. And of course Auntie B added more to our Hallmark collection as well!

Is there such a thing as over decorating? Oh my YES!! I had the perfect picture for you to illustrate but since the Comp Crash of 08 I can't scan it in. Let's just say that mini Santas, mini snowflakes, candy canes (all by the dozens!), two Nativities, three sleighs with reindeer and about seven different versions of Santa grace the front of a singlewide trailer. And that happens every year and gets bigger every year. Did I mention that the folks across the street from this particular house used to try to compete? Yeah it was a landing strip heading into our little country town in PA!

We try to keep it simple. White lights in all decorations. Two simple wreaths over the garage and one above the fireplace. Daddy’s Japanese maple landing beacon (800+ lights on a 3 foot tree) in the front yard. Garland on the banister railings and mantle with stockings. And the tree. Not a lot of special candles or centerpieces. No huge yard art displays complete with inflatables. Just a simple decorating philosophy.

Need some more decorating ideas? Head over to MomDot and see what the rest of the crew is up to. Think you can top theirs?