a look back.. Christmas prep part 1

ETA: I had to laugh that at the bottom of this post where there are fun suggestions on other posts that I just know you will love.. is the post (clever-ally titled) "Christmas prep recap"

from last year ..lol

check it out, and see what we did in 2008 !!!

since we were a tad bit busy over the last 28 days, I sort of put the ol' blogging on the back burner... so here is a bit of a recap into some of what we did to celebrate the season... our traditional trip to the Purdue Memorial Union to see the big candy house and the great, BIG Christmas tree. the kids love the house... this was the first year we didn't go with friends, and don't think it made a difference... even though the house is not supposed to be edible... my kids ended up on a sugar high, and laughed and played and had a grand ol' time.

and here is the BIG tree.. they claim it was the biggest one. (but , pretty sure, they say that every year.. lol)

seriously, this was a ginormous tree.. it was standing nicely at a 72 degree angle..lol. it had some serious ropes tying it down...

awe..... I know I looked like a crazy mamarazzi jumping around trying to just get ONE good pic of 2/3 of my kids.. lol
this will do, I guess. Its all about filling their scrapbooks... ha.

and here is one of baby.... he is so easy.. just smiles. ALL the time. if only life could stay so simple.. just sayin'

a view of the tree.



and then we went here for lunch. its not great food. in fact you pretty much want to throw up after eating the pure greasiness and fattening malts.. but.. hey.. its tradition.

the sweet shop, when I was in college.. and they returned it to this 192o's style diner a few years ago. the kids love it.

(and I do admit I love the malts. )

the 4.5 ginormous onion rings were a bit hard to stomach...

the kids love to sit at the counter til' our order was called.

always a gem for the camera.. lol.

so here it was as the sweet shop, later turned into present day Pappy's.

and the weekend before last ( I think.. its all a blur to me at this point) we went out to see the lights.

friends had told us about this for some time, and we finally were able to get out and visit.

they were pretty cool. its just this guy in a subdivision that sets it all up. and it is all set to music.

the kids loved it.

I loved it.

Andrew won't admit that he loved it.

(he did not love the 45 minutes that it took while we waited to watch them.)

and you can view more of it Here.

well, that was a glimpse into a few days of our festivities.. I'll be back to post more later.. trying to get you all caught up (and myself , so that I can BLURB this year) and then we'll move onto Christmas Eve/ Christmas Day!

I hope you all had a fantastic celebration!!

we are on Christmas detox... and trying to climb out from under the toy bomb explosion!