The festive season

We've had a busy month so far, and it began with our annual tree trimming party. Although this year it was a much smaller affair, mostly due to my enlarging waistline and general lack of energy for entertaining large groups of people.

The decorating was fun, with excellent food provided by Curtis (catered not cooked:). The kids had fun decorating the tree, but had even more fun getting decorated. Mom brought her face painting kit...she's a walking theme park now. The girls all got princess faces, and Nathan got was the Christmas devil.

He chased the girls around for a bit, prompting Ava to say in a somewhat tremulous voice, "Nathan is scaring me."

The adult girls all got their faces done as well, but the boys mysteriously snuck downstairs to play pool and foosball before they could have a turn.

The next day, we exchanged Christmas gifts with Nathan, Dave, and Tracy as we aren't doing any travelling at Christmas (that baby thing again). Nathan like Battleship, and Faith loved her new Polly Pocket car. George was very happy with his liquid gift of Scotch.


That night, Faith got to ride the float with Sparks in the Santa Claus Parade. This was the highlight of her Sparks career so far...although darn cold! We froze watching the parade, but she was nice and toasty under a blanket and all bundled up.