The list has been delivered!

I have a feeling that I will post a lot of pictures like this before Christmas actually arrives!

Beckham likes to attack the tree, and Maddox likes to police his every move!

 They fight, they cry, they make up!

Tis the season!

***
The Elf is still a hot topic too.
Maddox apparently surveyed his class, since he now has statistical references proving he is only one of 3 in his class who have no elf.

Geeze.

***
We made our annual trip to Bass Pro Shop to see Santa Clause last night! 

Not without a story, though.

I somehow left my keys in my ignition with the switched turned over, after picking Maddox up from school.
It wasn't started, but I still had a panic attack that we were all already suffocating under the fumes and about to die.
Once that drama faded, I realized that my car was dead.  To the bone.

I have never 'jumped off a car' before, and I'll be quite honest...
I will finagle help to myself in situations like that, rather than learning.
Not what I will encourage my own daughter to do one day-- but let's be honest, are you going to trust a tire that I screw on to your car, to twist down 35 at 70mph??
I can barely unscrew the pickle jar, for Pete's sake.

I'd rather not try and be a mechanic.  And I like to get absolutely senile when something goes wrong with my car... (like the time I had a blowout but I called Lance in hysterics and he thought I was in a 5 car roll over... and just to nail in my insanity, I went and charged 4 new tires on my credit card after that ordeal, because I was so scared it was going to happen again.) 

But back to my story of yesterday:: Lance was at work, and my always-saving-the-day neighbor wasn't home either.
I thought I had a glimpse of hope, when I spotted another neighbor's truck at home-- but he too was MIA.

So, I tried to figure it out myself.

First of all, I must have whipped it into the garage at about 80, because there was about an inch between me and the huge trash can... so we are going to blame that on the fact that it took me a good 5 minutes to get the hood popped.
I found the little charger gadget, I repeated "red to positive" about 10 times to pump myself up...
but right before I hooked up the clampers, my car started ticking like it was connected to a bomb and about to explode.
Remember that I already had thought I had filled my garage with a nice, invisible cloud of carbon monoxide, so I was like a soldier on Bomb Patrol, evacuating the premises before the thing went ka-boom.
Kids on each hip, cussing like a sailor.

Finally Buster (the neighbor who always fixes my disasters) called me back and told me that there would be no explosion... and talked me through the process.
Lance's gadget:: dead.

So now Buster sent me on a mission to get his battery charger at his house and coincidentally, my aunts pulled up at the same time.
I tossed my kids to them, and headed for this large piece of equipment down the street.
As I am toting it back, I see both of my children are in the street!  The busy street that people fly down with no regard every day.
Hello heart attack!  ...Now I am running down the street... with a mini-fridge... and yelling.

You got a visual?

Sweat... grease... frustrated... I really wanted to cancel Santa... and start kicking things.
But I didn't.

I called mom for a vent-fest...
And we carried on to Grapevine and had a good time.

***
We have seen this particular Santa the last 3 years, so I had to pull out old pics and see the changes!
Here goes...

And 2012.

No change!
He really doesn't age!

I got some of the cliche shots that we take every year...

I was a little afraid that Maddox was going to ask for the "robot, who's back opens and little army men come out, and slide down a rope to defeat the pirate ship" that he has consistently talked about.
I was worried because, well, that's not a real toy.

SOooo quick-thinking-Lance, said (right before he walked up to Santa) "what are you going to ask for? Legos, a trampoline, army men?"
And guess what was fresh on his mind?
Not the robot!


***
We had dinner at El Fenix, and then called it a night.

***
Today we went to play with our friend Candace and her little girl, Audrey, at their churches play center.
We had lunch at Rosa's.
And both of the boys acted great, despite both of their snotty noses.

Today was also my sweet Nana's birthday, so we called her for a shout out too!

***
One final and unrelated thing about today, that I feel like I should mention....
I downloaded an app on the Ipad of baby signs.
I think I have told you that Beckham has developed his own system of signing, and I have wondered if it would be helpful to show him the real signs so he can communicate a little better.
Free app = give it a try.

I went through them a few times tonight with him and though he smiled, he didn't do any of them back, or seem all that interested.
Well, I was scarfing down my bag of Snackwells, caramel cinnamon popcorn and about every 5th one I would feed myself, I would share one with Beckham too.
I am stingy.

Then, all of the sudden, I saw him do the actual "more" sign!
He got the rest of the bag!

It could be another fluke (that we will put into the bag of one-timers:: "mine", "bat", "Pop" and "boobie") but I was highly impressed!