It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Over this week we have been decorating for Christmas and it has been such fun to do as a family. 

James was so helpful and excited about decorating the house with the tree, lights, nativities, advent calender and much more! Every morning when we wake up James runs downstairs and plugs in all the lights to the tree and garland on the stairs. 

And if you ask me, Brian looks pretty darn sexy in those reindeer ears! 

Lounging in my early Christmas present (my new robe) and enjoying the decorating and family-time. 

 Our advent calender is like a matching game and James is so good at it -- I didn't even know he knew how to match pictures yet!

A friend gave us treats and put it on this plate of melted peppermints and James has been hacking away at it for a few days (of course in his Santa hat or reindeer ears)!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful time with their families and enjoying the holiday season of year!

Our Favorite Store

 I actually have three favorite stores all tied for first - Desert Industries (don't judge!), Costco, and lastly (but not leastly), Target. I've even trained James to like all three by bribes at each of them! At DI he gets to play with toys and at Costco and Target we sometimes get lunch and get to look at things he likes. He is just like his mommy in that he loves an outing and loves even more an outing with food.

Diet Coke for me.

Lunch (bribe) for James.

James also loves the Christmas displays at Target (He also loves it at Home Depot and Costco. Costco has two huge nativities displayed and once we get through the doors he starts screaming, "Jesus! Jesus!" because he wants to go look at the baby Jesus and Christmas trees. He's so religious!)

I'm really excited for Christmas this year because James seems to love all the decorations and music. I'm especially glad that he understands that it's about baby Jesus (such that he even calls Santa, Jesus) and he doesn't even know about the toys and gifts part of it!

The Pig Farm

We live right next to the famous Las Vegas pig farm. So close you can see it from our house and sometimes smell it! It is surrounded by bamboo to keep the smell inside so you can't see the pigs from the street.The farm is featured on an episode of Dirty Jobs on Discovery and the pigs were so darn cute and dirty! Since we've lived here I've been dying to go and take James to see the animals. People right next to it hate it (I personally like it, but most don't), but for those not living next to it, it is a win-win in Vegas. The farm is big into recycling. They have signs around the property that say "waste not, want not". Many of the big casinos give their leftover food to the farm and it is turned into a "stew" for the piggies. So the farm gets recycled food at nearly no cost and the big casinos get tax write-offs and great publicity for going green.

In line with their recycling mentality, this past week they made the farm open to the public so people could dispose of their rotting pumpkins for the pigs to eat. So we took advantage of this since I'd always wanted to go see it. We went with a friend of mine and her little boy to let them feed the pigs. As we entered the property and started walking around I realized quickly that it was every two -year-old's and personal injury attorney's dream come true. Rusty, dangerous farm equipment, saws, machines with keys in them, just to name a few of things just lying around for kids to get into. It was not like an organized tour of the farm - more of a free-for-all and fend for yourself kind of experience. But the pigs were easy to spot and I just had to keep James away from everything else!

And not only did these little boys get to feed the pigs, but they also witnessed the slaughtering of one of these precious pigs! It was like right out of a horror movie, or maybe just Charlotte's Web. So while we were watching the pigs there was a Polynesian couple that were picking out a pig for a luau. I didn't realize that they were picking one to kill right then and there! One of the workers starting following the tagged pig and was slowly herding it over to a ditch. And right in front of our sweet 2-year-olds he took his gun and shot it! He didn't bother to throw out, "Oh by the way, you might want to look away while I slaughter this pig" or something like that. So after he shot this pig (only maiming it) he took out a huge butchers' knife and slit the pigs throat! There was blood everywhere! I could not believe my eyes, that this was actually happening and that my son was watching it without a blink! I was not prepared for this real farm life experience. I thought we were just feeding the pigs! (Granted so they could be fat for when they are killed, but for a time when I am not there!) Then he carted the dead pig away on a forklift with the dead, limp body just hanging there. At this point the shock of what I had witnessed had worn off enough for me to have sense to distract James from seeing the dead pig carted off. I am not a vegetarian or a major animal activist. I do enjoy eating meat, pigs included, but I prefer to see my pigs at Costco and already butchered and wrapped in plastic!

And in case you don't think that a two-year-old is easily impressionable, here is James with his version of a gun and pointing it at the pigs and saying "Go! Go! Go!" trying to shoot them too! Despite the execution part way through, we did have a really fun time at the pig farm. It is amazing/scary that all of this is just across the street from us!