Almost

We're almost there.  Almost decorated for Christmas.  Almost ready to wrap some presents.  Almost ready to send some Christmas cards.  Almost ready to make a snack for the neighborhood Christmas party Monday night.  Almost done painting the new guest room.  Almost ready to maybe look at Santa this year....  Or maybe not.

Dexter is almost diving for his starts for swim team.  Almost.  Even with jumping in, he still rocked his 25 yard freestyle swim, in like 25.6 seconds.  A full five seconds faster than he swam last time.  I was taping it and had to look away from the camera and check to be sure I was taping the right kid.  He shaved a couple seconds off his back stroke time, as well.  And he swam the 50 yard freestyle, too, for the first time.  He got super tired, but he finished.  Well done, Dex.  We enjoyed watching you swim.

Dex with his Cuda Buddy, Mike, making posters on Friday night.  Dexter's says "Swim Fast Like a Rocket"

I have almost figured out how to use my new smart phone.  At least to call and send text messages.  Anything else, I am useless.  Like last night, when I wanted to video Dexter using my phone.  Ummmmm.  Fortunately John was there.

I am almost sick of the musical Christmas Carousel, and it's only been up and running for about 20 minutes.

Almost every surface of our house is covered with some sort of note to Santa, courtesy of Dexter.  Hope Santa has lots of time at our house - he has lots to read.

Almost the only thing Erin has played with in the last 24 hours is her Flower Power kitty she got at breakfast with Santa yesterday.  She says she got it "because she sat next to Santa."  Which - yeah.  You didn't really sit next to him, kiddo.  But ok.  You did ALMOST look at him.

We almost decorated the Christmas tree without breaking any ornaments.  It might have gone better if Erin had used TWO hands to hold her ornaments, instead of one hand for a cookie and one hand for an ornament.

Dexter is almost tall enough to put his angel at the top of the tree.  Give him another year and I think he will be able to.  Erin was delighted that she made an angel at school, too.  So now we have two angels at the top of the tree, next to our Christmas star.  This has prompted many a discussion with Dexter about angels and why they are part of the Christmas story.  He said he needs lots of books about Jesus, because apparently my limited knowledge is not enough to be helpful.

We almost have room for people to walk in the living room.  Almost.  Just give us one more Christmas train (we've currently got three) and there will be no room for a tree next year.

ALMOST time for Christmas.  Almost.  Now we're off to the park.  In our tee shirts.  Because it's 70 degrees.  Almost feels like Christmas.  Or not.