15 Peppermints 'Til Christmas

"And there are lots and lots of things for us to do."
My favorite part of that peppermint song was always the words and actions for "pick a purple tie for Uncle Lou." Poor Uncle Lou.
We have been trying our best to get Christmas organized and finished here before we take off for Christmas in Salt Lake. It's fun, but sheesh. Jake is down two finals with two to go this week, and then we're off!
So these are our pictures we got from JC Penney's. I just took a picture of the actual pictures, so they're really dark here, but you get the gist.

This week my heart fell into the pit of my stomach. I ran some errands and was trying to get a little bit of Christmas shopping done. I went to my bank ATM machine to make a deposit and to buy stamps. I made sure to get my receipt on each, and then I was off and running with Tessa to get the other things done on my list. About an hour later, we were at the register in TJ Maxx when I realized my debit card was not in my wallet. I LEFT IT IN THE ATM MACHINE! Who does that?! Me. Now, it's not like we've got a fortune in our bank account, but we certainly don't have a fortune outside our bank account to make up for it either. I thought I was going to be sick. I immediately called the bank and told them what happened and said I'd be there as soon as I could. I handed my daughter off to a friend and frantically drove back to the bank. A lady in our ward who works at that bank calmed me down, assured me I wasn't a total idiot, and let me know that no other purchases had been made on the card. She cancelled the card and told me that the machine probably sucked it back in and shredded it. I'm now waiting for a new check card in the mail. I was fortunate it wasn't worse. Sigh.
We had a bit of a storm which finally blew most of the leaves off of our tree. Our front yard was covered. Since there was some sunshine the next day, I went out while the babies were napping and raked up twenty piles. The whole clean up the yard project turned into a four day progressive job since I needed help getting the leaves bagged and we had so many things going on between us. The rain didn't exactly move things along. Finally we forced time in to finish it up and just made Tessa watch us from her blanket laden stroller.
I thought I would have a break from creepy crawly bigger in Texas bugs since it's December. Naw. I found these two friends next to each other while scooping leaves into a bag. At least the cold has slowed them down.

We had a fantastic and busy Sunday. We enjoyed church and came home to get immediately started on the traditional Christmas treats. We needed to have them done by that night for Jake's home teaching families. We realized we weren't going to finish in time when we had to stop and hurry to get dinner ready for the missionaries. That's when we came up with a plan. Feed the missionaries and then coerce them into a service project of stirring caramel corn and making and frosting sugar cookies for us. That's what we did. What troopers.

Tessa update: So far we've only been able to trick her into standing. She'll only do it when she has no idea. She was very interested in holding a box the other day, and it gave her a false sense of holding on to something stable. So, she stood for a few seconds until she figured it out and then squatted to sit. Tonight I had the Elmo's World DVD babysit Tessa so I could vacuum the house, and I caught her enthralled enough not to care about hanging on. She's getting there.

She'll say, or just mouth, "Ho, ho, ho." It makes me laugh every time. I think she is starting to associate it with our Twas The Night Before Christmas book.

And last and least....here is our AA center picture. I was fanning myself with the tickets. I think I'll just stand and smile next time. There's got to be a limit to my spazziness.

Merry Christmas!