Think he is saying: Let me in… it’s COLD out here!!

Silly elf. Closest he could find to snow around here, eh?

Glad Fred found some friends to play games with last night.

Hope they did not leave out Rudolph if he stopped by for a visit.

This year I was not alone with five kids, three of which were in the parade. That made things a bit easier, in some ways.

I did have to check all three of mine out of school early for two doctor’s appointments. Gama stepped up and took Tori to her appointment (THANK YOU, GAMA!) and even went shopping for a turtle neck and parade throws after. Tommy stayed with Pop Pop while TJ and I endured a 95 minute pulmonology appointment. (Yep, you guessed it, complete with two chest xray views and full breathing test.) His lingering cold and increasing need for his rescue inhaler prompted this visit. We have the oral steroids on standby, but decided to hold off a bit longer. The films simply showed some lingering viral gunk, nothing more. Yay. But.. BOO… Doc did have a come to Jesus with me. Every so often he does sit me down and makes sure I get the the point that TJ has persistent severe asthma. We are on all these drugs to manage it, keep him feeling good and to make the best of his lung function.

After the appointments I dropped TJ to the green house, grabbed Tori and we went to pick up the pizzas for Red Shoe. Yeh, ooooooops. When I triumphantly arrived downtown with my 8 pizzas I found out I actually was supposed to get 21 pizzas. Er… insert curse words of choice! It took quite a bit of weaving, dodging and a bit of begging with police (and numerous ‘THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!’) to get out of the area and then back in. But I managed. Go me.

Pop Pop walked the boys to me from the green house…

Tim then came and snagged them so he could get TJ situated on his Boy Scout Float.

Tim and Tommy watched the parade, while I walked with the Red Shoe girls this year. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Thankfully I had some hot chocolate with a little extra something in it. AND hand warmers. YAY.

I did really enjoy walking the route from street point of view.

My favorite scene of the night? Four nuns with Mardi Gras beads all scrambling to catch some peppermints. Yeh, that was awesome.

The boys woke up this morning to find my van out of the garage. Not only that it was pulled up to the door, lights on with music blaring.

What the…?

We wandered outside to discover Fred’s latest antics were a bit wild.

Do you see him?

Seriously, I am not sure Fred even has a driver’s license.

Psssssst Fred? I can’t be bought with sugar, try another bribe next time.

*Yes, I had to wait until the sun came up a tad for my photos.

And since the video I shot SUCKED… enjoy the music video. This features the song that was blaring in the van. Now you can enjoy the full multimedia experience I planned to share.

‘Tis true. Started putting out the Christmas stuff last night since the boxes came down from the attic.

But I am obviously not moving fast enough for Fred since he took matters into his own hands last night and started in on the naked tree with some simple garland. That, or he was rappelling?

YAY! Twenty two more days of Adventures with Fred. Oh, by the way, if you are new to the blog and unfamiliar with Fred the Elf then read this post from last year.