Being Santa Is Like Being a Spy

Why do the Santa thing when it is so exhausting? When the kids notice the handwriting on the tags, the wrapping paper, that there is a dog hair from OUR DOG in the tape on a package? I'll tell you why. Because I feel like a super spy doing it, making this magic my parents made for me. I shut myself in my room to wrap in secret. I shop in secret. Mr. Kerrie comes up to the bedroom to grab a box of wrapped gifts to cover up and take to the basement. SNEAK to the basement and hide. I guess it's exciting for the adults, too, and we love to see their faces when they are surprised! Merry Christmas!

How to Pose for Photos ... by Mr. and Mrs. Kerrie

These photos were taken in August and I'm finally getting them off DropBox and onto our external hard drive (better not lose that!) because Mr. Kerrie is freaked about our stuff being on DropBox. Duly noted. Anyway, I had him take a picture of me in our newly wood-floored living room and I stood like a normal person, as shown below:

Then I did this POP thing that I learned from our sitter, Jordan. You put one hand on your hip and then POP out the opposite knee. TRY IT! (yeah, I know I look dorky trying this out but I don't really care)

Somehow when I tried the photo shoot with Mr. Kerrie he was not amenable. Poor dude tolerates me; you know that, don't you?

#WordlessWednesday: A LEGO Playground

Would You Live by a Cemetery? Check out my Potential Kerrie Dreamhouse! #househunting

So back here in August I talked about and posted a photo of the house my family had fallen in love with. The problem was that it cost $400,000, a wee bit over our budget. It's still AMAZING, of course, but no house is perfect. For instance, we love our current house but with all the Little Kerries running around we're growing out of it, plus we're on that busy street corner where nobody stops for little kids. The house we fell in love with in August was a little far from Mr. Kerrie's work, in another state, and the pond right out front always freaked me out. I am always going to be freaked out about something, mind you, but drowning is a special freak-out that is dear to my heart.

Yesterday Mr. Kerrie was off work. We FINALLY set out around 3 to go to a Christmas tree farm to cut down our our tree for the first time. I had looked on the internet and found a place and wrote down directions. Welllllll ... the info was out of date and I did something I never do: I didn't do my research. I did not call the place first to make sure we could just go on their property and cut down a tree like the Christmas tree website said I could.

Thankfully the people who lived there were home and, after a wild goose chase to find it, Mr. Kerrie asked and NOPE, they are not doing trees anymore. I felt so HORRIBLE! It was the 16th of December and we still needed a tree and drove half an hour to get there. As we left we saw a NO OUTLET sign, which always turns me on. I mean, the thought of a dead end street and my kids being safe is pretty cool. Alas, there was also a FOR SALE sign pointing down the road. Hmmmm, let's go check it out. After some exploring we came up this stately thing, which instead of calling it South Fork I would call it something goofy like Spoon Fork:

ACROSS FROM A CEMETERY yet at the end of a road! Can't have everything on your home checklist, I suppose. Did I mention I watched too many scary movies as a kid so moving to the country AND being by a cemetery is EXTRA FREAKY?! You can't shoot a ghost, people!

Okay, lemme calm down here before I tell the rest of the story.

Whew. Of course we pull up in the driveway, mesmerized. I mean, look at that beast! Room for kids to run around and LAND, glorious LAND! And trees! So I whip out my handy dandy cell phone and call the realtor.

Well, it's 5 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms on 40 acres of land. Aaaaaaaaaaaand it's another $400,000 beauty we have found ourselves with. Now, if you are living on one of the coasts of American and reading this, you are wanting to smack me because that is cheap in your world. In my world, I live in a house that we paid about 1/4 of that for. That's a lot of moola. Like I said back in August, I'd better keep writing and hope for that bestseller to take off soon. (buy my ebooks; shameless plug)

Of course we came home and I internet stalked the house. I found out one of the owners died in 2009, was a Gemini like me and her name is the same as Aron's grandma, the name we would name our next kid if it ended up being a girl. Interesting turn of events indeed.

I'll keep ya posted. And if you can't get enough of this topic, I write more about it here.

My Son Is Baking 120 Dozen Cinnamon Rolls Today ... and I'm Chillin'

No, not by himself, silly! With his Boy Scout troop! Thanks to the ever-rockin', fire-fightin' Bill Schneider for taking this photo (I like to give a shout-out and don't do it enough).

Mr. Kerrie is off work for THREE WEEKS so you might be seeing me on here quite a bit posting fun holiday happenings. Know why? 'Cuz I found the external hard drive so I can transfer all the pictures to it that are backing up like a dude who ate too many beans and too much cheese. I've knocked out some big proofing jobs and it's time to concentrate on preparing the house for Christmas.

Wow, reading that back it is a big fat wonder I make any money at all to write because I just jump from topic to topic. Sorry about that. Lemme slow down.

My point is that my camera should be empty so I can QUICKLY post new pictures in the coming weeks. I know the grandparents love that!

Mr. Kerrie has been working insane hours (like 16+ hours per day) and it's been Crazy Town here. I'm looking forward to my man being off work so I can have some fun with my kids instead of policing them, to working on my Laid-Back Homeschooling book and getting it out in time for all the people to receive their Kindles at Christmastime. And then there's shopping for stocking stuffers and other last-minute fun. Maybe the growing pile of clean laundry will get put away magically, as well!

And finding the Excel file with all the addresses for Christmas cards since our PC shot craps. It's cool, you know I'll also post the humblebrag Christmas letter on the blog!

Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah (wait, that's over), Happy Holidays, Happy New Year!

Love, Kerrie