Well, another one of Melissa's kids crossed over to preteen-hood. Lincoln turned 10 this month, and goodness, has he grown. Lincoln is usually the one who teaches me how to play iPad games, but I don't think I'm interested in learning to ride his scooter. I can still remember when I was his age spending 4 hours in the emergency room when I tried to ride my cousin's skateboard. I'll stick with my bike.
We've been getting into the holiday spirit (and taking advantage of the warm weather) by putting up the outside Christmas decorations. Charlie and I put up the lights on the back deck; Bruce put out the reindeer in the front. Some of our neighbors hire people to put up lights on their roofs. I figure we're festive enough without needing a ladder.
I took another holiday porch pot class at the Tagawa Garden Center. I brought home some extra greenery, so I could remake the pot I had from last year (that's the photo on the right). The one in the middle is new. Those white sticks (the skinny ones) are supposed to look like branches, but they have twinkling lights running up and down. It looks really good at night.
One day I stopped at the mall, but since I was there before the stores opened, I joined the mall walkers and logged a few steps. There was a HUGE Santa display at one end. Going to see Santa has really changed, since my kids were little. You have to use a strategy along with an app on your phone and a credit card to actually get in to see Santa in a reasonable amount of time. Santa photos also aren't free anymore. Their deluxe package cost $59 and only gave you a 4x6 photo in an autographed frame, but you also got to skip the line and go into the express lane. Luckily Santa wasn't there yet, so I snuck a picture with my phone of me and a reindeer.
The mall had some really bizarre decorations. The photo on the left is supposed to be a reindeer made out of steel cable (it was hanging from the ceiling), but it looked more like an elephant to me. The Dr Pepper football player was my favorite decoration.
The bad thing about buying Christmas presents during the Black Friday sales is that most people are too excited to wait. Bruce wanted a combo leaf vacuum/blower/mulcher for Christmas, which fell under a huge Black Friday discount. But I started worrying that it might not work on Christmas Day and the return window would be closed. So, I let him open it early. As you can see, he was very excited and immediately went outside to test it out. Oh well, at least our yard will be very clean for Christmas.
I also bought myself a little pre-Christmas present. I've been wanting to make egg muffins, but if you make them in a metal pan, it's really hard to get them out. Luckily, the silicon muffin pans fell under the Black Friday sale, so I bought one to test it. The muffins fell right out. You can pretty much put anything into the holes and then pour a beaten egg over the top. I filled these with sausage, peppers, onion, and cheese. They were delicious!
