1.  I go in tomorrow for oral surgery and I am soooo not looking forward to it.  I doubt I’ll be up for blogging so I figured I’d post a 10 on Tuesday today.  Why, oh why, did I schedule this now, right before the holidays when everything is super busy?  Mostly cause I put it off several times because I’m a big woosie when it comes to going to the dentist.

2.  Any guesses who rules the roost at our house?  That T, she can handle those boys….

3.  Taryn asked for a pink violin for Christmas.  It’s a shoe in for the pink violin since we are secretly thankful she didn’t ask for cat.  Ty asked for a new bike and a new bible, I thought that was such a nice thing to ask for.  Teagan is getting a few toys of his own to help fend off his big sister and her constant need to reclaim the hand me downs.  Poor Teagan, he’s the hand me down king.

4.  I finally finished (and even ordered) our Christmas cards.  Granted, I doubt they will beat last years card….I mean, really, why did I even try?  Last year….forget the kids, it was all about the hubster….

5.  Speaking of the Santa suit, I loaned it out to some of our friends and word on the street is that the resulting images are pretty funny.  I must admit, it was kinda fun watching Santa 2007 razz Santa 2008 over Thanksgiving dinner.

6.  Is anyone else doing Elf On A Shelf of Magic Elf this year?  If you are, please post!!  My mom sent one to the kids and our little guy has been a lot of fun and gotten in to quite a few things.  Ty is helping with the mischief and Taryn wakes up every morning in stitches over what that crazy old Bob the Elf has gotten in to now…

He’s also been caught playing the playstation and dug in to the snack basket, raided the fruit snack packs and spread them out all over the counter.  When we found him, he was on the run with his arms stuffed full of fruit snacks LOL!  I must confess though….Bob is a little scary looking.  We’re thinking of switching to Elf Magic and buying at least one more….it’s easier to get in to mischief if they have someone to be in cahoots with!

If anyone else is doing this, please post….we’d love to hear and see what your elves are in to!

7.  I thought I’d share our photo gift tags I made for this year.  I figured if I post this now, someone might still have time to make use of it, so family and friends avert your eyes please.  Ok, so what I did was I took my fave photo and added it to one of the templates I purchased for client holiday cards this year.  But you can easily create your own in photoshop.  I simply resized it to be approximately 4×2.5 inches, but you can go smaller or bigger if you like.  I then added the to and from text area.

I dragged and dropped the flattened image onto a new 8×10 blank document.  I duplicated the dropped image and lined them all up so I could fit 6 per page.  Print as an 8×10 and voile!!!  Inexpensive and custom gift tags!  I usually do these for the kids school parties too with their pics on them and attach to the goodie bags (think halloween, valentines day, etc).  Once you cut them out, if you want them to be more sturdy you can glue them to a slightly larger piece of card stock or even use a hole punch in the corner and then decorate with ribbon.

8.  Have I ever told y’all about Jason and his history with christmas lights?  I honestly cannot remember if I’ve shared this (legendary) story or not.  I do try not to air all my husband’s dirty laundry here on the blog….but sometimes….well….some things are just too good not to share!

The story.  The first year I met Jase, he was totally in to Christmas, he even had a themed Christmas tree, I believe it was red and silver and theme was fire and ice.  He was also big into decorating his front porch (we were next door neighbors living in condos for those that don’t know).  He made this huge wood banner to custom fit his porch and I have to say, it looked really nice.  Well the next year, we were dating.  He had bought his first house and I had moved to another condo.  He was very excited to decorate his first home for the holidays….he bought the single most massive tree I’ve every seen in my life sans Griswold.  I believe the guy attaching his tree to my SUV said something about it being the last redwood under his breath LOL.  Anyway, when it came time to put up Christmas lights on his house, I was the dutiful girlfriend, ready to help.  Jase buys lights, we put them up, he takes them down.  We go back to the store, buy different lights, we put them all up, he takes them down.  We go back to the store again, buy different lights, we put them up.  Exhausted, frustrated, I take a break inside, and when I come back out to help some more, Jason comes down from the ladder, and walks over, picks up his level and starts back up the ladder.  That was it for me, supportive girlfriend no more.  I threw up my arms….”put the level down, or I’m done!”  3 sets of lights, 3 trips to the store, endless hours of hearing him bellyache over the lights on the house = no more patience.  It was time to put the level down and walk away or I was done helping him.  Of course he was floored as to why I didn’t think the level was a good idea.

Yeah, let’s just say that he’s never lived that down.  And putting lights on our house is always an issue.  Always.  We’re talking weeks of bellyaching, indecision, etc.  Last year, being 8 months pregnant, he took mercy on me after an hour of him trying to install lights in high winds and just decorated the trees out front.  This year, I knew I wouldn’t get off that easy so I took matters in to my own hands.  I hit Target and bought all the lights he’d need, then hid the receipt so we couldn’t take them back.  Yeah, I’m evil like that.  But it worked, he got them up, in one day no less and they look great.  Now, that’s not to say that he hasn’t done the tree 3 times (that I know of) or that he hasn’t drawn out the design only to change it God only knows how many times.  And he had to go buy a new ladder.  But this year, I am happy to report there was no level involved in the hanging of lights at the Stradtner house.

9.  Now, that’s not to say that it all went off without a hitch.  Imagine my surprise when I’m minding my own business, standing at our kitchen island, chopping up a tomato for our salads for dinner, when I happen to look to my left, down our long foyer, through the glass storm door…..and see this…..

No kidding.  He decided it was time to remove the steaks supporting our new trees since we’ve been here a year.  Especially since it would be a lot easier to install lights on said tree for the 4th time without the stakes in place.  Oh I love that man.  He makes me laugh.

10.  Step off ladies.  He’s all mine.