Twas Three Nights Before Christmas

And all thru the house....everyone was stirring...but hopefully not a mouse!
Well, here we are three days before Christmas, three days into Christmas break, and I'm sure you're asking yourself, "what in the world could the Brundages be doing to keep themselves busy this week?" Well, let me tell you.

I'm making rolo pretzels by the dozen (many dozen). So easy, just line a tray with pretzels, place a rolo on top, melt in a 200 degree oven for 7 minutes, finish up with some festive colored chocolate, and voila! You've got yourself a yummy and addicting treat. (Every time I eat one I tell myself, "Brooke, that's just like eating a rolo. And a package of rolos has eight in them. You wouldn't sit down and eat a package of rolos right now would you? Then why would you eat eight of these pretzels? ) Oh well, I guess logic doesn't work around the holidays.

Now all that's left to do is slap on the labels and get them the HECK OUT OF MY HOUSE! If you live near me, please do be expecting me knocking on your door soon!





Lets see, what else? We've finally gotten most of the decorations up. We only started in October.

Stockings are hung by the mantle with care:


Homemade snowflakes adorn the sliding glass door. (I did tell my husband he was in the shot...I guess that wasn't enough motivation for him to actually move.)


The tree is adorned with these birdcages:


And these birds:

I went through a whole, "should I put the birds in the cages or just let them be free" kind of discussion in my head. In the end, my laziness won out and the birds just got stuck on the tree.

I took some inspiration from my little sister's wedding this year and made mini pennant garland for my tree. Not a great picture, but I really like the overall result.



Some presents have started to appear under the tree, but since they're so OBVIOUSLY clothes, they are pretty much left alone by the children.



On the piano sits my new subway art that I downloaded from the Internet, and my new ruffle trees, also found on the Internet. I hung some ornaments in this birdcage to finish up the rule of three for my piano top display.





Today, the children had fun putting up the nativity scene on the window. I bought the window cling set at Walmart for $7, and the kids had a pretty good time with it.




In fact, it got their nativity scene juices flowing, so they dug into their huge box of playmobil toys to unearth the playmobil nativity set. Then, I think, distraction set it. This is what I saw when I walked by:


Not quite the scene I had imagined.

Then we got out the tin foil to make our rocks for pelting at Samuel the Laminate...our traditional Christmas Eve activity.



And finally, what's Christmas without a visit from all your local superheros?







Yeah I know, I'm stumped too. I have no idea why these characters have made their way into our home this week. I'm not going to complain though...in general, those superheros tend to get along pretty well! And in a home with six kids home from school the week before Christmas, I'm certainly not going to rock the super-hero boat!