Dress Rehearsal

Right now we are working on our dress rehearsal for The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. I am thankful that this is almost over with. My life is stressed as enough as it is, but this is something big for PJ and I want him to remember this as a good time in his life. Life has been hectic lately, but I understand why, and I try to go with the flow of things. I get home after the rehearsals and just crash. Last night I told PJ to get his clothes, change and we were leaving. He thought he would argue with me, but to be honest with you, the director could have looked at me and told me no and it wouldn't have been the best of ideas to do. I personally didn't care at 9:45. I was tired and worn out and just wanted to collapse. We are working on our last few dress rehearsals, they go until 10. Tonight is the last night and I am very happy about that. At least tomorrow night I will be home with the boys and with Chuck, I may actually have a moment to rest. We didn't get complimentary tickets, why? well, I don't know. But I do know that I can't afford to go to all of his performances unless something happened and made it available for me to attend. And something did happen, I was asked to usher. This makes it possible for me to be a all performances and I am happy that I will be able to go. There is always something different at each live show. I am so excited about that. PJ plays a little boy named David. He is so cute, and I don't say that because he is my son, I say that because others have come up to me and told me this. So, just because he is mine doesn't mean that I am bias in any way! In the play, David doesn't want to be a shephard. His mother tells him that she just doesn't want to be a shepherd. The other night, PJ came out in the Batman robe, and he was so excited. He couldn't help but show me that he was Batman! The main part of the play is about this family, and rough crowd they are, the Herdman family. Basically, they are a poor family, never attended church and didn't know anything about the Christmas story. Tough family too, but it all comes together in the end. Tonight is our last rehearsal and then Thursday is the big performance. This is a school day performance and there will be two tomorrow. Without the director, but I think that it will work out,everyone knows what they are doing and they are doing a great job.
I will have more to post when I get to go to the real thing Friday. I am so proud of PJ, he has been a trooper throug all of this and I know he is tired, but he has been to every rehearsal, and he is having a good time. I will keep you updated on all of this and how it goes.
I was sitting in the back of the theater, so you will have to turn up your volume on the videos. This is the first time for me to upload and to take videos with my camera. I will have more to post, please be patient with me.

Every year on Black Friday, we don't go shopping, unless needed, we stay in bed, have a good breakfast, get the decorations out, and put up the tree. It has been like this for years, and it will stay this way until the boys move out. I don't care how old they are, this is part of our fun time during the holidays together. I love that they are at an age they just love to do these things and to help out too.

So, out comes the tree, and I search up and down for all the lights. Well, I knew that I had some one a roll. And I knew that there were some more in the house, ok, but where. Oh no, I had to go out to Ace and get another 250 lights.

We get home and Eric picks up where he left off and he gets that much done. I had started pulling out the ornaments and the boxes that belong to each one of the boys. Well, they were mixed up, Eric had most of PJ's and PJ had most of Eric's. I think somewhere in the mix of last year, when I was taking down what I had put up, I just dropped in the boxes and thought I would figure it out later. Well, it is later, and someone figured it out just fine!

I sat back and watched them hang ornaments. They know not to touch the others ornaments or there will be trouble. I enjoyed watching them do this, I guess because I didn't have to this year was a part of it, and it may be because as mom, I watch they way that they interact with each other. They just had too much fun.

Eric looked back and admired his hard work and continued to decorate different things. And begged me to wrap gifts too. He got the skirt out, and he had me wrap the sewing machine that I bought earlier that day for me, and maybe wrap a thing or 2 of their stuff too. So, I did just that. He put the skirt under the tree, watched the cat walk around a few times. I wrapped more than I wanted to, but why not. It is fun for me to watch them try and figure out what they have.

Sometime during the night I was looking at the tree, thinking it was crooked. It was, and it was driving me up a wall. I couldn't stand it, it was one of those things that you just have to correct, and well I did. And it landed on top of me. Chuck was home and he came running. The only thing I remember is "Oh Chuck that wasn't supposed to happen!" Apparently the legs are not even and there needs to be a notebook under one of them. The cat tore it up last year and I forgot that I needed to make the proper adjustments.

We get the tree up and damaged looking, it was pitiful. I couldn't fix it that night, it was too late. I just left it like it was and prayed that there was nothing too badly damaged.

I went to each of the boys and told them to leave the tree alone, I would fix it in the morning, not to worry about it. So, that is what I did. I got up the next morning only to go shopping and then to start from scratch. It was not what I wanted to do on my Saturday, knowing of all that I needed to get done. But I promised them and I was going to put it back up again.

Yes, I took it all the way down. And started all over again. This time I used all the lights and I made sure that there was a notebook under the one leg that refused to lay flat. And made sure that it was going to stay up this time. I should have left it alone, but I can't. I guess I am OCD that way.

After the ordeal of the tree on Saturday, I had time to get done what I wanted to get done. And one was to get the boys to put together the gingerbread Christmas tree. Now, we usually make a house, but this year I found the box for a tree, and I was so excited that I had to buy both. I don't know why, but I did. I guess it is because I never had a great Christmas as a child, so I try my best for the boys to have the best that can be provided to them.

I read the package for the icing, mixed, it seemed a little thick, so I had to add more water. Yep, that didn't work out well. The kit came with bags and tips for the icing, but when my watered down icing got in the bag, it just sorta dripped out of the tips, I knew it was not gonna be right. But for some reason, the boys didn't care.

They each operated a different color. Put the ornaments on the tree. Popped bubbles, squeezed bags and had fun with it. They didn't care that I messed up, and that just means so much to me. I just watched them have fun, fuss at each other and do what they needed to do to put this together. At least now I know that when we make the house, not to use so much water.

The kit came with a star and gifts. They decided to share them, so PJ had the honor of putting the star on the tree. I guess when Eric gets older, he will be in charge of the angel on our tree.

It is funny how we become like children at Christmas time. We don't care what others think about us. We just have fun. And that is how I am. I love Christmas, not because of any gift that I will be getting, but because it gives me the chance to be a kid all over again.

Our Thanksgiving Memories

Our Thanksgiving was not what we had planned to do. But when does anything go the way that we want it to go? Chuck hadn't been feeling well this past week and I thought that maybe he was done with the crud that he had. I was wrong. He came home from work on Wednesday night feeling more run down, and looking rather sick. I tried to get him to go to the Dr.'s on Tuesday, but he is stubborn and was feeling better. He got up on Thursday feeling worse than what he had all week. Not good.

Well, he decided that it wouldn't be good for him to go, and I thought that the boys and I could go, but he made a good point. It was cold, rainy,and windy.And this was being held in an open pavillon, and we didn't need to take a chance of all of us being sick. Ok, good point, but this is Thanksgiving and we didn't have time to thaw a turkey,what were we to do.

I wasn't too happy about all of this. I really wasn't. I wanted to go help others and show the boys how thankful they should be. But, because of whatever Chuck has,we stayed home.

I was not taking this well, I pretty much pouted the morning away. We had no turkey, no pies, no cakes, no rolls. Of course, we had the potatoes, green beans and the dressing that my neighbor gave to us. So,we did have some things. And I am so used to the fact that we always have everyone over and a huge meal. But, there was none of that. No family here, no laughter throughout the house, no parades, no wonderful smells coming from the kitchen. I shouldn't complain, I really shouldn't. It was what Johanna had told me that made me realize that I have a lot to be thankful for. Yes, I do. I can go to the store and buy food for a meal, I have a car to get me to the store, I have a roof over my head, a warm house, and everything that I ever need in life. And here I am complaining about not having turkey. I guess it is time to get out of my funk.

We head on out to Walmart. And all of the turkeys were frozen, then we looked in the turkey section, nothing but necks. Ick! We headed to Bi-Lo. Everything was frozen, nothing in their turkey section either. We got a chicken, and some things to make it taste really good, rolls, and yams. I had made pumpkin bread earlier that day, so we had dessert all ready.

I started to feel a bit better.Still not too happy about the entire thing,but Chuck can't help being sick, and it wouldn't be Thanksgiving without the family together.So,it was to be that we stayed home. It seemed fun for the boys, I didn't cook, Chuck did all that. I pretty much did nothing. It was just another day for me. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to write home about. Ok, we had dinner together as a family, we had a quiet meal at home. So, I shouldn't complain about anything.

It just wasn't the same without my dad here,without Chuck's family around the table. But,we did have a hot meal with leftovers, there are so many out there that can't say that.

Shame on me for being so selfish!