Who would have thought after such an awful October that we'd almost be hitting 70 in November?!?!
My office had the October 15th party this weekend and, since we had relied on family so much during our two weeks without daycare, we decided it would be best if Dustin stayed home with the kids. It's always nice to get out with the staff to "let loose" a bit, but given the fact we only really get one night a week together as a family it's kind of hard to give that up for another whole week. By the time I got home on Saturday night all the kids were asleep and Dustin was only half awake.
Dustin had a rough night sleeping with his shoulders (they are a constant battle lately) so I let him sleep in a bit and fed the kids breakfast. When he woke up he felt inspired to put up the Christmas lights outside and take advantage of the gorgeous weather. It seems most of the neighborhood had the same idea as most everyone was out doing the same thing!
Every year he is responsible for the outdoor display. And every year he comments on how he really wants to line the frame of the house with lights. And every year I tell him that if he wants to climb that roof and string lights, more power to him, because there is not a chance in "you know what" that I will get up there and do it.
After going through the box of lights and testing each strand, I took my inventory list and ran to the store to buy some more of the old lights and some new big bulb lights. Then the spectacle began.
We started at 11:00 and Dustin went ahead with the usual stringing of lights on the trees.
And then two of Josh's friends from the neighborhood came by and asked Josh to play, so Dustin lost one of his helpers. And then Lauren found the instructions and thought she could fix all the broken and damaged strings from last year (that's all of them on the ground behind her). Good luck with that, honey.
Ella napped and Lauren and I did our best to help him. Mostly we just laughed and looked busy. After a late lunch, Josh returned and we started on the house. The kids helped with the clips and Ella was happy to stay in her walker and just watch.
And then we started working on the house. Dustin is certainly more daring than I. I couldn't get past the fourth step on the ladder so he gets "mad" props for even getting up on the garage.
But by the time he got on the main part of the house, Lauren was freaking!
"Daddy, come down!" "Daddy, come down now!" "Daddy, don't fall down!" "Mommy...get Daddy down!"
Nonetheless, her persevered and was ready to move to the very top of the house.
I took this picture....
and then he shook his head at me and said, "I'm done."
I said, "Good."
So Lauren helped me hold the ladder one last time and Daddy finally came down from the roof. He turned to me and said, "I'm not as daring as I once was."
My response was, "That's what three kids will do to ya!"
The house still looks great and even last night as we were finishing up, people were hollering out to us telling us how nice it looked.
I'm glad it's over and I'm glad no one fell off the roof. And according to Josh...it can snow now.
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