This one goes out to my Grandma Krohn, who gave me Rappin’ Santa something like 20 years ago. She loved little battery operated toys like this, and now Finn asks for us to clap hard to make Santa dance.

In other news, Finn and I hit the stores on Saturday to finish up some Christmas shopping, pick up building supplies, and stock up on groceries for the coming week. She’s been really, really good dealing with shopping and long lines, especially when Daddy carries some raisins to snack on. We got a new subpanel for the side porch, a new in-wall heater for the bathroom, and some other small stuff from the Lowe’s. Mr. Scout put the back door in on Friday, which makes the entire room look much bigger and brighter, and he went around and sealed off all the cracks with insulation. He’ll be back Tuesday to start replacing the siding on the outside walls, which will further improve our heat retention.

While Finn napped, I got the Scout into the garage and did a little work to our free snowblower, which brother Rob dropped off in the middle of the summer; some carb cleaning, reassembly, and a new spark plug later, I poured some gas in the tank, primed it, and it fired right up! It came to us missing linkage from the handlebar to the drive sprocket, so I bent a coathanger and made a replacement. Now it sits on plywood in the garage, waiting for the next blizzard. Thanks Rob!

Free Snowblower!

Sunday I watched Finn for Mama again, but before she went down, I pulled the old wall heater out of the bathroom in a cloud of dust and replaced it with a smaller unit. I had to get creative with my drywall replacement methods, so Liquid Nails came in handy. Tonight I’ll put the first coat of mud over the cracks and start smoothing out the opening.