In lieu of fake snow and Santa

I got the call Friday morning, from a dear friend, who knows way more about what's going on around town than I do.  There was to be fake snow in my tiny town on Friday, followed by a parade on Saturday, complete with Mr. Claus himself.

And I declined. Or rather, admitted to myself (and her) I freakin hate stuff like that. I really do.  I know I should embrace my community and participate in holiday events to round out my childrens' social interaction, but the thing is, they are MY kids, so I'm pretty sure they got the "I freakin hate parades" gene from my DNA.  I gave them the option.  "Hey uhm kids....there's a parade, a Christmas one, tomorrow.  You want to scrap all our plans and go?"  The look on their faces told me all I needed to know, but I had to make sure the look really did say "Mom, have you lost your mind?" and not "Mom, we've been waiting our whole lives for you to finally give us permission to share our feelings about the sore lack of parade activity you've foisted upon us, our entire childhood, and going to this parade will save us years and years of therapy sorting out why you didn't love us enough to take us to one, at least once..."

It was good.  We promised them a weekend of friends, demolition and cake and that made up for missing the small town parade going on.  But, we totally made our own snowy fun.  I have proof :)

 

How's that for a Winter Wonderland?? 

 

All I planned to do was remove all the photos from the wall and the nails holding the photos up.  After that was done, I decided to take a little peak in the one place we thought a load bearing beam *might* be....and the kids, naturally gravitating towards destruction (like moth to a flame) immediately started grabbing tools and going crazy.  Well, after I threatened them that if they did this, they WOULD be cleaning up the debris and the shop vac WOULD be going at all times.  It didn't take them long to go from that above.....to....

 

I didn't even panic.  For some reason, every little bit of this crap that comes out of my house, I feel lighter somehow.  I hate these nasty walls so much.  We have much more to do, but I won't let the kids touch the "cotton candy" (no, no one's tried to eat it...) insulation because it's fiberglass and I-T-C-H-Y.  Well, Kyle's allowed to remove it, as long he wears gloves and believe it or not, the children will not touch the stuff, even if it's just hanging there, begging to be torn down.

See that shop vac?  It's one of THE best purchases we've ever made.

 

Because....

Oh my goodness!!!

 

This eventually got cleaned up, but not TOO good because today, we're back at it.  Hopefully by the end of today, this wall will ceast to exist.  Hey, this counts towards homeschooling right?? ;)