Time to decorate the house!

Nothing puts me in the mood to decorate like staying up all night to go shopping with my sister. And I'm being serious. I had some kind of adrenaline rush going on and I took full advantage of it. So after pretty much finishing all our Christmas shopping, we had the decorations up and happily started off our Christmas season.

Howie was his usually helpful self. He added a few smartie pants comments here and there to keep things lively. And by lively, I mean Nina screaming and crying.

But Nina settled down and was delighted to discover all the Christmas books. Each and every one.

Rex helped unpack any box he could reach. And if he couldn't reach them, he found a way.

Matt made this face every time he got a string of lights to finally start working. He never yelled, "Fine! If you're so smart, you string up the lights!" So I think it was a success.

Ahh, so pretty.

We waited until two days before we left for Reno to put presents under the tree. Just enough time for the kids to order, reorder, shake, stack and all the other things that need to be done to presents.

I stopped by Michael's to get a few things. I wondered why it cost so much, but tried to get out of there before Rex lost it. I came home and realized that Cameron snuck a bunch of Santa hats into the cart. And took off the tags and started wearing them before I could return them. Now everyone has a Santa hat.