Sorry for the interruption but I was out of town for most of the holiday (we left the 26th for Chicago, but thats a whole post on its own!). I did however, want to brag about some of the Christmas Gifts that blessed our house this season though.

Amy’s big gift this year is to have the Master Bath and Bedroom repainted. When we bought the house from her parents, we inherited the DEEP red color of the bath and bed room. Its a dark red (think maroon) that is hard to match colors with. Now we’re going for a lighter, beachier look and are painting them Beachnut (its a lowes color). The master bath is done (Amy found some Votive candle holders at a store in Nashville), next on to the bedroom!

Grace had a very Hannah Montanna Christmas. She got a Hannah Montanna Guitar Game (like Guitar Hero) that plugs in to the tv, a Hannah Costume, and doll. Its pretty cool and she likes pretending to be a rockstar. Maybe someday. I like playing her game (since I haven’t bought Guitar HEro World Tour yet) and she’s getting better at it.

Mose got a Trampoline. One of her favorite things to do is jump. We’d wake on Saturday mornings to the heavy thud of emma jumping up and down in our door way. Now she can do it all she wants and it doesn’t make the house shake. Its pretty cool and Grace and Emma take turns on it. Amy wanted to try it out, but its for people under 80 pounds (and neither of us meet that requirement!

The girls also got some tinkertoys, and some other little odds and ends that they like to play with, but the coolest by far is my Ultimate Wall-E Robot.

We saw the movie in the theaters and we’re big fans (mose loves him). We had seen the Ultimate Wall-e at the Disney Store but we weren’t going to get him because of the price tag. Needless to say, Santa found him on Sale and he was wrapped and under the tree for me on Christmas morning. He has fun dancing, chasing the dogs around and just exploring on his own. If you haven’t seen one yet, I’ll work on some video and see if I can get anything posted. Its pretty cool though and the way he can respond to voice commands or find his own way around the room is fairly smooth.

Was there one gift that you prized more than the others??

I wrote earlier about LED christmas lights and how they were an interesting change from the traditional lights. I’ve done a bit of research since then (which was easier since target has a slew of LED Christmas lights in stock right now) and from what I’ve seen, they most definitely are worth the investment.

On average, the initial cost of the LED mini lights is higher than that of the traditional bulb. Thats the only down side. One of the best upsides is that they more than makeup for it in longevity, durability and brightness as well as the improved cost of keeping them on. Think about your christmas lights. If they’re like mine, then currently they’re in a box in the basement (or attic). They may be coiled, wound or a jumbled mess that will take at least a day to unknot and check. Once you have them straightened out, the fun begins. You have to test each strand. If you’re lucky, none of the filament in the bulb (the wires that make it light up) will be intact and the strand will work. If not you have to check each bulb.

If I had a quarter for every bulb I’ve pulled out and replaced only for it to not be the right one… TOO MANY! No more with the LED mini lights. They stay lit. And since the light is one solid piece the chances of it getting broken, cracked or other wise damaged is nil because LED lights are encased in a nearly indestructible expoxy plastic bulb which can withstand lots of abuse. It really is a beautiful sight. Check in to it. I’m going to slowly begin converting my lights to LED maybe you should too?

Thats right! With little work you can be rollin in the dough at amazon dot com. “Tell me what I have to do, mcangeli!” you say? Well, its simple. Make comments on my posts. Respond to something I’ve or someone on my site has said. The contributor with the most posts for the month of November will win and if you don’t believe me… ask Sabriena. By the way, they need to be quality comments. I get the final say

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In an apparent bid to take some of the heat off of his wife for her failed health care plans the first time a clinton was in office, Bill has stepped up and is placing most of the blame on himself and his administration for the failure. He’s sighting the fact that the money was not (and still isn’t) there for her plan as the main reason her universal health care plan failed instead the real reason that it just plan sucks.

He also placed blame on the GOP controlled congress of the time roadblocking the attempt. While that may be true, it looks like the best government we had was while he was in office as president and the GOP controlled the House and senate.

Also making news(?) is the fact that the Clinton campaign are bad tippers. It comes down to a he said/she said matter where the waitress is claiming she never received a tip and the manager of the restaurant and the campaign manager both claim a tip was left. Either way, no one looks good in this mess.