Christmas in July

I am on it.

I got the bases of my Christmas cards cut up and scored today. I even purchased my first Christmas gift for someone! I'm hoping to have all my Christmas hoopla complete by Halloween, so I can participate in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). It's good motivation and will hopefully make for a smooth holiday season. It'll be so quiet this year - more than likely no extended family and no House of Toys or House of Trees. Regardless, we will make it a Merry Little Christmas.

I have my "to buy" list written out. The kids and I went to Hobby Lobby where, for the first time, I was thrilled they already had their Christmas stuff out. We got some nice craft kits to make a few gifts and they had all their glassware 50-percent off - I got several jars for things like dried herbs (hey, ladies from my writing group will love it) and dry mixes (for the neighbors).

So, remember my dishwasher detergent? I ran one load of dishes, and they were fine. The next two loads, however, are awful. Ugh, we'll be washing dishes BEFORE putting them in the dishwasher until we use up all this lousy stuff. I shouldn't make a final verdict just yet, but it's not looking good.

The boys and I had a really good day. Don't get me wrong, I still needed to escape to the book store after my husband got home (where I bought a magazine that I thought was about urban homesteading but is mostly about growing weed indoors ... I'm too embarrassed to return it).

We went to the dollar store and bought 15 tubs to sort the Lego blocks into (mainly by color). Aside from Bean's two largest (and, umm, most expensive) sets, all the sets are mixed together. The playroom often looks like Lake Lego - you must wade through them to get to anything else. Their wooden trains have been put away in favor of Legos. I step on Legos all day ... they find their way into nearly every room of the house. By some miracle, I haven't vacuumed any up yet, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time.

I actually did a little bit of research on "Lego block storage" BEFORE deciding on a system. By set would be my first choice, but it's so tedious to find each piece and put it back together like that. By color is an easy ways for the boys to help. It's not flawless, but hopefully it'll be better.

Also, Moose added the following to his vocabulary:

"I need help."
"Trash can."

What a wordsmith.