Thanksgiving's Over...Next Holiday, Please!!!

As much as I enjoyed the wonderful Thanksgiving dinner that my mom prepared (and my dad...I was very impressed with your culinary skills, dad!!!), I am already excited about the next holiday...CHRISTMAS!!!

It is my favorite tradition to put up all of the Christmas decorations the evening of Thanksgiving day. I am usually willing to stay up into the wee hours of the morning so that when we all wake up the day after Thanksgiving, the house is ready for Christmas. Luckily, fate stepped in this year and gave me a weekend with no plans last week (this NEVER happens). So, I did all of the decorating then...except for the ornaments on the tree--that is a tradition that I can't forego for the sake of boredom. Well, I mention fate because the day before Thanksgiving, I found this:

This is mold. Behind my dishwasher. On my wood floor. Ugh.

For the past year or two, I have mentioned that the toe kick under our cabinets seemed to have a bit of water damage. I made the mistake of believing my darling husband when he told me it was just normal water damage from washing the floors and emptying the dishwasher. After I made bread for T'giving, I was wiping flour off the floor and decided that I was going to inspect this "normal water damage", so I un-installed our dishwasher and this was the surprise waiting for me underneath of it. Lots and lots of mold. It has had a slow leak for years now. But this was not the end of fun surprises for me...as I went under the sink to turn off the water supply so I could finish disconnecting the dishwasher, I realized that the hose Jason replaced on the faucet sprayer last week was leaking terribly and I had a cabinet full of water. By the time Jason woke up that afternoon, we had no dishwasher and no faucet (I made the executive decision that we needed a new faucet and sealed the deal by un-installing the faucet as well...why not, I already had the tools out...). So, the point is that I have spent my entire weekend cleaning mold, drilling vent-holes under the cabinets, spraying bleach water, and installing a new faucet. I would have been very disappointed to have a single post-Thanksgiving day without my Christmas decorations up, so I was glad it was already done.

Finally tonight, we put the decorations on our trees. I let the girls decorate both trees, but I will "fix" the main tree after they go to bed tonight and they won't be allowed to touch it after that. The pink and purple tree is all theirs and it will stay however they want it until the day after Christmas. Here are some pictures:

You may have noticed that Isabel is missing part of her smile in some of these shots...SHE LOST HER FIRST TOOTH yesterday at Grandpa Whitey and Grandma Moppy's house!!!! Her bottom tooth has been loose for weeks now (in fact, the adult tooth was almost completely grown up behind it), but she refused to let anyone pull on it. Without us knowing what they were up to, Isabel asked her sister to pull it out for her. Without hesitation, Ash reached in with a tissue and yanked it out!!! It was very exciting for both of them! Ash has decided that her calling in life is to be a "tooth doctor".