I'm jealous of all these pretty blog backgrounds. I'm trying to resist the urge to look into getting one. Like I need more time spent on the computer.

This week has been okay so far. Mackenzie fell off the top of the slide at school Monday, so I kept her home yesterday and took her to the ped to get her shoulder looked at. Luckily, it's not broken. My nephew fell on some playground equipment and broke his arm, and it wasn't even detected for a few days because it just didn't hurt that bad. You'd think a break would equal big pain, but apparently not always. So I wanted to have Kenzie's shoulder looked at just in case. Darrell had a pretty bad anxiety attack late Monday night. Well, early Tuesday morning more like it. It was the worst one I've ever seen, and pretty scary. He felt kind of weak and shaky all day yesterday. This is the first day he's gone to work this week. Which is so not what we need right now. I'm hoping and praying for enough money to pay the bills that need paid and finish our Christmas shopping this weekend. I've got to get Darrell's and my swap gifts on his side of the family (his sister and his sister-in-law), and the gift for Richard. I'm going to go to Wal-Mart today and get Hunter and Mackenzie each a gift from Shelby. They've already got their gifts for the other two. I think it'll just be a couple of coloring books and crayons each.

Last night we decided to put together a gingerbread house that I actually bought last year and never used. First of all, I filled up the water to the line on the cup that had the picture of the gingerbread house. It said '2X' on that line, so I filled it to that line twice and put in two cups of water. After about 10 minutes of mixing with no thickening in site, I realized that it didn't need two lines of water. I have no clue why it said 2X on that line. So, I had to dump a ton of powdered sugar in to thicken it up. LOL And just a tip, putting together a gingerbread house is not as easy as it may seem. I had icing all over the place. LOL It was fun, though. The kids decorated it with all the candies, peppermints, gumdrops, etc. Then we sprinkled powdered sugar to look like snow.

After that, the kids watched Rudolph and we colored. They're doing a paper chain advent calendar, and coloring was the activity on yesterday's chain. Tonight they get to stay up for 30 extra minutes. Which is good, because I need to trim Hunter's hair.

I can't believe Christmas is so close. I can't believe that this year is almost over. The kids only have the rest of this week, and then 4 days of school next week. On the 19th, they'll go in for about an hour for Christmas parties, and then they'll be on vacation until January 7th!! Nearly 3 weeks!! I hope they don't lose interest in their toys, I can totally see myself going insane. :)

I really, really have to go clean the house now. It's not bad, Darrell actually got up and unloaded the dishwasher this morning, and reloaded it with all the gingerbread house makings. We ate McDonald's last night so there were no dishes from supper. But I need to straighten the bathrooms and living room, wipe the counters in the kitchen, sweep and swiffer, fold a load of clothes and wash another. Shelby will probably be awake by then and we can go to Wal-Mart. I've got to take some candles to my Mom too. She's buying all the candles in a jar that I have, I'm giving her a discount on them at $5 each, they're regularly $5.99+tax. That's still more than I paid for them though. I get them for $3.80 apiece, so I'm still making a little bit anyway.

Maybe more later, if I can find the time!