Christmas lights and doggie troubles!

So we got our Christmas lights up on the outside of our house last week-end. Mike put the lights on the top of the house then Jimmy decorated the yard with more lights, deer and a Christmas tree...he is trying to out do one of our neighbors! Actually it is the only neighbor that also puts up Christmas lights! It is interesting living in a diverse city. I think more lights go up for Ramadan(I probably misspelled that) than Christmas! Not quite but we are getting there! We are trying to get in the Christmas spirit around here...I have done lots of my shopping finally...mostly online! It is too hard to get from store to store around here and they don't seem to have much in the stores this year. This week-end is our ward Christmas party. Jimmy is busy making a large winter wonderland decoration x2 for the walls of the gym. I have been helping him with a lot of tedious cutting. I will take a picture of it when it is done and hung at the church. It should be very nice. He did the wonderland picture for the flyer's and poster for the Christmas party so they decided they would like him to make 2 large ones for decorations. He is also finishing up the last 2 weeks of school so he has been busy. Mike has to work part of this sat. then has a 3 week forced break from work for the holidays. Since we don't get paid for vacation we loose out there!

I have also been battling Butters...she has been a real pest lately. Mostly bored I think. She takes the decorations off the bottom of the tree, eats my centerpiece on the coffee table and chews and runs off with everything and anything she can! I spend a good amount of time during the day chasing her down and pulling things out of her mouth. She is very persistant! We had to go and buy a new gate for the doorway into the living room. The old gate I had to climb over and was tired of getting hurt! I don't know why they charge so much for the gates...I guess they figure that people like me are frustrated enough to pay any price to keep at least one area of the house from being destroyed!

Here is a crummy picture of the lights outside...The pine tree in front was blocking a lot of the lights...when you are driving down our street though you get a better view.

Here is picture of our new gate...it opens up so you can just walk through it...much better than the old one that I had to lift my leg over and risk serious injury!

notice my blue striped glove on the floor...another grab and run item from Butters!