Mine mine mine, all mine:

A couple of weekends ago, Drew had a playdate with his friend Dakota. These two get along great, in part because of Dakota's even, calm temperament and in part because we've drilled into Drew the idea that when a girl tells you to do something, you by God better jump to it.

OK, I've drilled that into Drew. Not so much from Charles.

At any rate, it's always fun watching these two play together.

This is their "tea party." Yes, that's what they called it. It was actually a blueberry-donut-and-sippy-cup-milk party, but I think they thought "tea party" sounded more elegant.

You'll notice that Drew ended up with the pink cup and Dakota with the blue. These are two kids who are very secure about themselves, yes, indeedy.

Then Drew told me it was time for them to "go to work", and they set off together on the pink humvee.

Until the battery ran out...

at which point Drew exhibited that chivalry is not dead...

Or maybe it is.

Because, really, nothing says "Christmas" like record-high temperatures in the mid-70s.

Faced with such depressing weather, we decided to go to the Pickens Christmas parade and then go get our Christmas tree.

The town of Pickens is the closest actual civilization to our house in the middle of nowhere. For such a small town, they had a seriously long Christmas parade. I was expecting a couple of pickup trucks and a Santa and maybe some cloggers, and we'd be out of there in half an hour. But the parade was actually closer to an hour long, and yes, there were cloggers and pickup trucks, but there were also marching bands and fire trucks and some pretty floats.

Here's Drew with me and Charles. In the first picture, he's waving at the Homecoming Queen. He's a sucker for pretty girls, especially ones who are throwing candy out of a convertible.

Some dancers...you know, dancing.

It's not Christmas in the country without a pink tractor.

Santa on the fire truck. Notice the firemen wearing short sleeves. Yes, it was that warm.

Here we are back at home, where Drew decorated his playroom Christmas tree first. He was very excited to have his own tree. (even though it's somewhat lopsided)

He took his job of decorating very seriously.

All finished!

Then we moved into the living room to put up and decorate the big tree. My dream was to have a fire in the fireplace while we decorated the tree and drank our eggnog and ate Christmas cookies, but yeah...76 degrees outside...so we stuck with the eggnog and cookies sans fire.

Drew found it most interesting to use the Christmas decorations and ornaments as playthings, so we hung all the glass ornaments at the top and all the non-breakable plastic ones at the bottom.

And finally, Charles climbing a ladder and holding Drew while he attempts to place the star on the top of the tree. Who looks like they're having the most fun here?

When we got it all decorated and stood back to admire our handiwork, Drew commented, "Mama. There are no presents under that tree. It needs presents...Now."

Yes, but we're too busy using the "If you aren't good, Santa won't bring you any gifts" threats to keep Drew in line. Hey, we only have three more weeks before that stops working, so you better bet we're milking it for everything we can.