Christmas Eve's Eve's Eve

Well, it's the last day of school before Christmas break for the kids. Meri is headed off decked out with a Christmas shirt on loan from Grandma and a Grinch tie on loan from her dad, as well as being loaded down with two gift bags for her teacher. Her teacher had once bemoaned the fact that she never had a pet rock as a kid and all her friends did. So Meri remembered one that she had made in kindergarten. She'd painted it red with black spots like a lady bug and put sticker eyes on it. One of the eyes had come off so we made impromptu eyes this morning with white labels that I cut into circles. It looks adorable! Meri gave her that and one of the scarves that I made. The 6th graders are just going for fun today. No classes all day, just fun stuff.

But the 11th graders!! They're doing the semester tests and Maddy is agonizing over studying for American History, I think it was. She left early to have breakfast & cram with one of her bffs before school this morning. She'll do great!

I finally got the Christmas letters off this morning! Robb and I stayed up late getting them done. He folded and I stuffed and labeled. The post office wasn't open yet this morning, but I saw one of the post ladies out behind the building and asked if she preferred I drop all 140+ envelopes in the box inside all nilly willy, or would she like them right now? All the local town ones were bundled up with a ribbon and she looked pleased that they were done that way. Just need to wrap a couple things and then get my college bff's package off today too! (Hi Kshotz!! With any luck you'll get it by Saturday!)

Taken a few years ago, but always good to share. Coincidentally this was the year Ryan first moved out...

We got all the groceries last night after church and tonight, the family and I clean house! It shouldn't take too long if everyone helps... That's the secret you know... I have a feeling I'll be up late again.

I finished Bridesmaids. If you can weed out all the sex, filthy language & awkward cringing moments, it's funny... Oh and you need to quit thinking of the phrase, "And Ruth Ann took Olivia to see this..."

I saw the movie Love Actually a long time ago and if you took out the awkward sex scenes and language, it was a great movie! I loved it and thought the girls would too. I happened to find a website that does just that! They clean up movies and make them PG rather than R. Sure... some of them are only 10 minutes long then... but I checked to see if they had Love Actually and they did! So I paid $20 and bought a clean version. The girls LOVED it!

I smugly knew they would.

Chopping out the filth made it a bit choppy at the end, but it was still really good. I wish I knew where it was because it's a very Christmassy movie and I'd love to watch it with them this weekend. I've got it Tivo'ing on Friday morning, but the tv version probably isn't as clean. I hate to edit as we watch things. I either say, "Don't you EVER say that!" or "Shut your eyes, I'm fast forwarding!"

And btw, the website that does the cleaning up of movies was shut down the next year after I bought that movie. Apparently the producers and directors of those movies demanded that the movies be seen in their entirety or they lose their integrity. REALLY?! dang.

Anyway... I'll post my 3rd installment of my yearly review tomorrow and then Robb is guest blogging on Monday with our annual Christmas letter!

Have a great Christmas Eve's Eve's Eve!

Addendum: I spoke with my sister and told her what I wrote here about her taking her 14 year old to Bridesmaids. Apparently I had the story somewhat wrong, but still correct. Apparently Olivia had already seen it with her big sister and they loved it and begged Ruth Ann to go to the movie again with them, so she did. As she sat there aghast at the opening scene, she just kept thinking that her daughters had already seen it... She wanted me to retract but then realized that she did in fact take her daughter... so really I didn't lie.