Lol, 'bug...I am amazed at all the gear we've collected in this house. I hate clutter, but somehow the baby stuff is okay. We even bought a car seat a couple of weeks ago. All right, here we go..today is officially Jude's birthday. Scenes from yesterday's festivities: It took Uncle Phil a little longer than it took Grandma to be okay with flipping Jude upside down. They seem to have the hang of it now, though. I don't think he knew what was expected of him with the bags of noisy paper, but he caught on pretty quick. The car was okay, but food is MUCH better! A Radio Flyer wagon and a teddy bear. What more does a boy need?? Uncle Phil put tears in my eyes by giving Jude his teddy bear from when he was little. How he got that white bear so clean is beyond me! Daddy got the paper started, and Jude more or less did the rest. Important "guy talk". Being an Uncle has been a wonderful thing for my cynical child ;) Nearly naked cake-eating. This day just keeps getting better and better!!! There's gotta be a better way! I just love baby feet! After the inevitable sugar-crash nap. HEY, helium.... RISES!! I don't know, he just makes me laugh! Learning words with Grandpa, who is wearing his IU souvenier Kendall Jackson cap ;) Thus far, no pictures with Grandma in them have surfaced. I'm not giving up hope, as there was QUITE a press gallery in attendance. What a good day! I was the only one who was able to talk Jude into feeding me cake, and I got a couple of kisses, too! Life is incredibly GOOD :D

excel spreadsheets? lists? rooms dedicated to wrapping? Sheesh that's far too organized for me. I thought just getting the ornaments organized by tree was a HUGE undertaking! For wrapping I use the desperately rushed, christmas is in 4 hours, need a bottle of wine approach. I spread out the entire mess of crap with a hole in the middle for me and the wine, and begin digging my way out carefully :p I actually am organized when it comes to the decorations though. I have one attic for trees, one for ornaments that go on the trees that are on the 3rd and 4th floor as well as the decoration, and then I store the decorations and ornaments for the first floor and second floor are kept on the second floor. Less hauling down (and up) stairs that way :) I also label the boxes for the appropriate tree which is helpful when distributing boxes around the house. WHile I can obviously see what's vintage and what's traditional as well as all the other themes of a tree through the plastic boxes, I don't know how many vintage go to each tree unless I put them in separate boxes. THat leaves me just enough ornaments for each tree without taxing my little brain. I wish I could apply that kind of organization to presents LOL I do actually wrap all but the Santa ones in advance (so that's the 23rd verses the 24th btw) and those can go out under the main tree. I have been known to buy the same thing more than once...perhaps that list idea is a good one LOL Gad a room dedicated to wrapping and holiday storage...well I'm a bit nutso over christmas (major santa barf is in EVERY room) so that would have to be a big big big room! But it's a lovely fantasy!

These are clay figures from Lucknow in India that belonged to my late father. They are displayed on a (closed) portable writing desk dating to the War Between the States, circa 1865. Two small oil paintings from Australia are behind the console table, which is wicker woven to look like a fabric skirt. The taller figures are Chinese and the silver is a Sheffield loving cup I had "planted" with a very realistic orchid. This table is in a small stair hall that leads to the library. I love to bring things for my house back from our travels, and luckily, so did my parents!

I made a loaf of bread, did some household chores.....I hate cleaning but it had to be done. Then, I went outside and spent several hours doing hard labor. Digging up old roots and preparing the bed out in front for some flowers. If I can move tomorrow I plan on going to get something to put in and also get some sort of mulch. I still have some stuff to do in the yard.....since we had a nice rain followed by warm, sunshiny days, lots of cosmos seeds and tomato seeds have sprouted, not to mention the crab grass. We were going to have company in December for several days and I was really looking forward to seeing them....they called to tell us they decided to go visit his daughter in Portland, OR. It is Roy's cousin and a really nice guy. We got a call a few minutes ago inviting us to Palm Desert for Thanksgiving. Good friends but she is a lousy cook and I don't like riding in heavy traffic with DH. But we will probably go. They have been friends with DH since they were preteens.....now the guys are almost 78.