Christmas is about surprises!

We came home from our Christmas party last night to find that our lovely lab Wilson had eaten ALL the chocolate for the boys stockings.
A whole bag of York Peppermint Patties, and a bag of Hershey Kisses. Wrappers and all.

So In addition to waking my panicked father up with a phone call(to see how much chocolate would kill a chocolate lab, oh the irony), Oliver had to go out and find a 24 hour gas station on Christmas Eve to buy overpriced candy to fill the stockings.

We also may be finding an emergency vet tomorrow when all those wrappers try to find their way through his digestive tract unsuccessfully.

Merry Christmas Boys and Girls.
The kids open their gifts this evening!

And we're off!

We are back on the parenting train tonight. C and JR have returned from dads house! The house is filled with the joyful sounds of Oliver throwing out thinly veiled threats as he wreastles the kids into bed and I can hear the indignation in their little voices in return.
One of the biggest tension points in our house revolves around the kids playing too close to the huge plasma tv. C has aspergers which along with other weird quirks, he "dances", flapping his arms and dancing on his toes. JR is just a nut because hes two and a half. These two things combined cause Oliver a huge amount of stress about his poor tv. Tonight we reached a solution that works for everyone....

A circle of painters tape on the floor around the tv and then, "If I find you inside that tape I will *insert your favorite child friendly threat of bodily harm here*" and the children nodding and staring at us wide eyed.
Now that Im not on constant vigil making sure the children stay away from the tv, I can focus my energy on keeping the children away from the dogs. The dogs have fleas. FLEAS! Thats not even what concerns me. What concerns me is that we put flea junk on them today and Im completely terrified that the children will get it on themselves and then best case scenerio they give me grandchildren in the future with 3 eyes. Worst case scenerio I never get grandchildren because they die from some odd chemical poisoning.
Irrational? Maybe. Do I care? Of course not.
So I spent my evening shriekingasking them kindly to please not touch the dogs or cats.
We also made cake in an effort to turn on the oven and warm up the house...
and because Im addicted to cake. I only had to wipe one egg off the floor after JR "helped" and a quarter of the batter off the walls after C "mixed".
Just when I though relaxation was iminent seeing as the children have drifted off to sleep Oliver asked me to proof read the paper hes writting. He has many convictions and one of them is genetically modified corn. I wont lie. I couldnt care less. Im sure its important. And I do my best to be interested because I know its important to him.
Another beer and I'll be warmly receptive to all of this corn mumbo jumbo.