Deck the Halls

Lately things have been tense in the Lake household. No reason in particular, just one of those weeks between Brandon and I-if you are married, you know what I mean. Tonight we decided (ok, I decided) that it would be a good idea to work as a family outside to decorate the house with some festive lights. Rewind a second to understand the ramifications we are dealing with. This will be the 8th Christmas since Brandon and I have been married, and although we have discussed putting lights up on our house in previous years, it has never gotten done, hence the "family" oriented event.

Luckily, this plan did not backfire on me-entirely. Brandon and I took the kids to OSH after I got home from work and the kids loved looking at the inflatable decorations and lights. $100 later we made it home with icicles, extension cord and decor. As Brandon climbed the roof, Hannah begged to join him and it was my task to keep the toddlers from climbing too high on the ladder. The squealed with delight to see their daddy "on the house." Hannah "helped" stretch out and untangle the lights, brother bear happily jumped over the lights, breaking only two which I replaced. The kids got bored easily and with the doors to the car left unlocked, decided to go play in the car while mommy and daddy were distracted. Cute at first, sure, until Zechy got his fingers caught in the door-by himself or Hannah I am not sure. I paniced a bit thinking on was broken, Brandon therefore had to climb down from the roof and examine and conclude that he was just fine. We then locked the kids out of the car andresumed to the lights. The 3 boxes of icicles we bought for along the trim, ran short and only covered half of the house. Brandon climbed down and returned to OSH for more as I fed the kids and put them in the tub to warm them up. After the tub and Jammas, they got to watch their favorite Sprout show-ZABOOMAFOO snuggled under the fur blankee with Hot choclate in their sippys, while I finished lights with daddy in the dark outside. When finished we plugged in the extension cord for the grand finale-Nothing.....no light.

I swear I did my job, I checked the lights...most of them...before handing them up. THEY WORKED (that is the ones I checked!) But put together on the housetop, nothing. What a let down! I will say, Brandon was a good sport about it. He climbed down and agreed to figure it out in the morning. Not quite the grand finale I was hoping for, but good family bonding none the less. A tradition I hope we instill in future Christmas seasons, with lessons we newbies learned the hard way! Hopefully tomorrow we will have our halls decked and ready to share!