ITS BEGINNING TO LOOK ALOT LIKE CHRISTMAS...

AT THE COOPER HOUSE... well we have started to decorate and are almost done. It really has been a joint effort this year. Bob did the lights, and I think Zane helped him on that one, but we didnt have to cut a tree this year like when the kids were small. I remember the custodian at my school would always be waiting for me the Monday after Thanksgiving break to ask if I was still married...yeah it was not a fun weekend with all of us, going to pick out a tree. Actually that part was the easiest..we just looked for the largest tree in the lot and cut it down..Bob always had such a fit trying to get our tree in the stand. Our trees looked like pine snowballs, BIG pine snowballs. One year the tree was so big, not only did it NOT fit in the house, we ended cutting 4 feet off the bottom and at least 4 feet off the top. What a riot. yeah our house has tons of screws in the window sills and walls where we had to tie the line to hold up the trees, but would only do that AFTER the first time the tree fell. Did we really think that maybe one year, it would not fall. We were young and naive then.

To save my marriage years ago, LOL, I elected to buy an artificial tree...at least for the living room, and all the other trees in the house were real. Now every tree is artificial and Bob does the lights since he doesn't have to do the stand any more. Today, three trees are completely finished and the large living room tree just needs the ornaments. I wasnt going to put a tree upstairs this year, but then found a small five foot one and will put lights on it and decorate it for the kids when they all come home for Christmas.
We now have a santa tree, angel tree, family tree, snowman tree, European tree and a gift tree. All and all it looks pretty good, but it does take a lot of time and even more to take them all down.

I took all these pictures today with a camera that is broken and I canot see what I am taking a picture of...I just point and shoot and hope that it takes a picture of something I can crop and use..NOT as much fun taking pictures that way, but I have to wait until Christmas to see if anyone buys me a camera, if not, I will get one.

On Saturday, December 6, we held a BREAKFAST WITH SANTA fir kids with autism and their families. It was great and everyone had a good time, especially the kids. The autism team all came out and helped with everything, I just love that team. I need to do something nice for them to let them know how much I appreciate them. I will post pictures on my next blog so you can see how cute my kids are. I am also posting the pictures on http://www.asnci.org/ website so you can go there and take a look. I still need to get the pictures from one of the team members and then I will get them up.

We are all gearing up for the holidays and getting ready for all the good stuff, but the best stuff of course, is having all the kids home altogether at the same time for at least a day. I love Christmas and the feeling of it and the smells and love. I love everyone at this time of the year too, well almost everyone, there are some people who make that hard to do.

My shopping is almost done, just maybe two or three things more and the giftcards for the neices and nephews and I will be complete. What a feeling that is, so now the fun part of wrapping and listening to music and feeling good all over.. that reminds me, I think Zane has my James Taylor Christmas CD...arrrghh

I want to show a few pictures of the house with Christmas decorations too, so enjoy and have a great Christmas...talk to you soon, as soon as I get the Santa pictures from the Autism Breakfast.