First Ornament!

Elijah got the honor of hanging the first ornament this year. So far I have four ornaments on the tree...Joy hasn't hung one yet. I spent a good part of the day clearing off tables and wrapping up decorative items that are out year-round. The stack of boxes grows taller in the hallway. The good thing is that all those boxes are now either empty or have "normal" decorations in them. I still have the shadow box in the kitchen to turn into Christmas. I had forgotten all about it till sometime this morning and then couldn't find the box with the little Christmas things in it. I ended up finding it downstairs with the Christmas tree ornaments. Esther helped me a lot this morning. She carried boxes up and down the stairs. While she was here I got the dining room table all cleared of tissue paper and boxes, etc. and then she and I got the "center piece" ready for the table. I can say that the dining room is totally finished (except for removing the step ladder...so guess it isn't completely finished!). Late this afternoon I finally managed to cut out a doll dress...that will let me get the sewing things off my sewing table. Then I will move the sewing table closer to the Christmas tree so I can put the boxes of ornaments up on the table so I won't have to bend over so much. Woody and Elijah went to the "can man" to recycle the aluminum cans. The money that they got will be put in The Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions. There are quite a few at church who save their empty aluminum cans to be recycled so the money can go for this offering. We happen to be the drop-off place for the cans...or Woody picks them up from church at a drop-off spot...then they are stored in our garage till enough gather to make it worth the trip to "the can man." Woody also got another treasure hunt going. It started with Abigail this time, but she quickly got Graham in on it with her and lost interest before Graham did. But then the rain started and that stopped the treasure hunt for today and probably for the next day or so. We ate supper over at Nathan and Kathy's this evening. Woody left from there to go to Monday Night Prayer Meeting at church. I stayed a bit longer looked at the latest robot that Graham had built and watched Graham and Nathan practice passing juggling rings and then Kathy joined them. I read a couple of stories to Elijah, Esther and Joy. The girls showed me the new toys that they got this weekend when they juggled for a Christmas program in Kentucky. Now I think that I will sew for a while on this little dress since it needs to find its way into a wrapped box to send off to AZ. I feel quite behind with AZ packages this year. We are still waiting for a delivery before we can even think about sending it off so I have a bit of a reprieve! Then it is get serious about the Christmas tree. I think that I will have a bit of help tomorrow...we have art tomorrow (I'm only doing a "little" school this week since I am getting ready for "my" party.) and we will be taking care of the five of them for a little while when Nathan and Kathy go for Kathy's ultra sound tomorrow...getting really close to our newest little one who is due the middle of January.