lately...

We've been up to a lot lately. For starters I haven't blogged in 4 days. I think C is due for a post AND if I remember correctly he said he had one in his head that just hadn't made it onto paper the screen yet.

Friday evening we did a little Christmas present shopping. But more on that later. If I remember correctly we also watched the first or last part of The Holiday.

Saturday we helped some friends move to their new house. VERY exciting. We then sat through an hour and ten minute talk about a model home we stopped by to look at. We were just curious to see the inside since it's in a neighborhood we're keen on. C kept egging the guy on with questions which did not help my desire to get out of the very angular house. But we did win an energy efficient light bulb for C being close on guessing the square footage. So the hour and ten minutes wasn't a complete waste.

The rest of the day was spent taking a looooooong nap and visiting an injured brother.

After church on Sunday we had our Christmas picture taken then C worked a bit while I helped my parents put up Christmas decorations. C picked me up when he was done and we spent some time driving around looking at lights. I'M SO EXCITED ABOUT CHRISTMAS. We also started Elf Sunday night (which we had to finish last night - notice a trend here?). Elf, by the way, is one of my top two favorite Christmas movies.

I also managed to make a gingerbread house last night while I wait for C to get home from work. Last years gingerbread house was a thing from heaven. I walked into Wal-Mart for something or another and found a gingerbread house kit just waiting on me right next to the front door, not connected to it's actual display. It was a masterpiece and I know no other gingerbread house (of mine) will ever look as good. Wanna see?

As you can imagine, this year I went right back to the same self as Wal-Mart, where I had found last year's gingerbread house misplaced. This year there was no gingerbread house waiting on me and apparently none in the entire store. I finally found one (and a gingerbread tree kit) at JoAnn’s. I splurged and bought both. Since we are no longer living on one salary, I figured our bank account could afford to lose an additional $8. Take a look at this year's creations....

In the process of making the gingerbread house last night I discovered what I had been doing wrong in all the years past (all the years that I had a kit that didn't include a tray to assemble the house on). Turns out the assembler is to wait 1 whole hour after assembling the sides of the house before putting the roof on. Then, once the roof is on the assembler is to wait 2-3 additional hours before she starts decorating. In years past I didn't wait at all. This explains what happened here...

This year I waited 20 minutes in between the sides and the roof and 5 in between the roof and decorating. I think things turned out fine. I'm not sure how assembly can take 4 hours when you have already made all the icing (per the instructions) and have it covered with a moist towel (again, per the instructions) and it's pretty much useless after 30 minutes.

That pretty much sums up what the Elseas have been up to lately. Did you notice anything different about our activities Saturday? Maybe that C didn't work? It was stupendous.