Merry Christmas!

Visions of sugarplums...or just plain sugar

Nana & Papa returned from Florida this week for Christmas. The girls modeled their Christmas dresses for them and even posed for pictures...but not together. Figures! Nana & Papa also brought over gingerbread houses and loads of candy to decorate them. The girls were in heaven! Julia spent more time than I expected decorating and made it about halfway through before realizing that she could actually eat the candy!

Most of the candy in the house is going to get pitched. Wednesday morning started with the girls "getting their own breakfast" while I was showering. "Breakfast" consisted of donuts, candy canes and Advent calendar chocolates. As Holly would say....Niiice!

Snow Day...err Ice Day

It has been a crazy few days. The weekend was jam packed and Pete was traveling the first part of this week. Yesterday, we woke up a message on the machine from the school that there was no school. The call came in at 4:50 AM...how glad am I that the ringer on the upstairs phone was off? In any case, due to an impending ice storm, there was no school. There also was no ice storm. Around noon, I dragged the kids out to the craft store, as I could no longer take the house arrest. The roads were fine. There were tons of kids in the craft store. Ashley had a playdate in the afternoon for a few hours and I got Julia down for a nap. Ahh, some alone time...to wrap presents and fold laundry. You are jealous, I know!

Jesus went to the zoo

A funny Julia story:

A while ago, we were reading in bed and she had chosen to peruse one of our children's bibles. She asked me who was on the front of the bible and then proceded to flip through the stories and tell a stories about Jesus from the pictures. My favorite was when she got to Noah & the ark and said "one day Jesus went to the zoo and saw all the animals." Almost but not quite, honey! Not a bad try though for a 2 year old! Man, I love that little girl.

Nativity Set

My kids have gotten tons of playtime out of this exceptionally durable nativity set. I highly recommend it! Get it at Fisher-Price.com

Happy Holidays

{image via 123rf.com}

I came across this list on a few blogs I read...consider yourself tagged.

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Both, I always wait to wrap and then get bored with it and resort to the bags.

2. Real tree or artificial? Fake, but I long for real tree. My husband is against it and frankly he's right, it does seem like a waste. As a kid we had real for many years.

3. When do you put up the tree? Usually the day after Thanksgiving, but this year it was the Sunday before Thanksgiving Day.

4. When do you take the tree down? New Year's Day

5. Do you like eggnog? I recently tried it again and it wasn't bad. There was something comforting in the vanilla.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? Hmmm, there isn't anything that stands out as something that I really wanted and received. Sad, huh?

7. Do you have a Nativity scene? Yes, the Little People one.

8. Hardest person to buy for? My parents...they don't need anything and recently downsized to an apartment.

9. Easiest person to buy for? My kids.

10. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Hmm. Nothing sticks out in particular, but I must have gotten somthing really bad at least once.

11. Mail or e-mail Christmas cards? Mail...do people really send e-mail Christmas cards?

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? Elf and A Christmas Story

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? October.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Most likely!

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Cookies

16 Clear lights or colored on the tree? Clear everywhere, but the kid's little tree.

17. Favorite Christmas song? Santa Baby because my kids love it as much as I do and The Prayer by Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli.

18 Travel at Christmas or stay home? Travel but only 45 minutes away for Christmas Eve.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen and Rudolph.

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Star.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Both, since we see different sides of the family each day.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? Rude people. I get it, it's the holidays and you are stressed out, but come on!

23. Favorite Christmas tradition? When I was a kid, every year we would go to Grandma's to decorate her tree and have pizza.

24. Up early or sleeping in? Always up early...even when it's not Christmas!

25. Who hands out the gifts? Whoever is the closest.

26. Does Santa wrap your gifts? Yes, but it's getting harder to pull it off as the kids are getting older. If the whole roll isn't used, I have to remember to get rid of the evidence!

27. Do you tell the Christmas story? Yes, over the course of the month.

28. Do you leave cookies for Santa? Yes.

I heart Target

So, I went to Target twice today. Sad, but true. Both times were after all the Doorbusters had taken over the stores like the Kool-Aid man. The first trip was for the Hannah Montana 3 pack Barbies & a totally cute set of baby twins for the girls. The second trip allowed me to discover some cute little clutch purses in the Dollar section. Sure, some kid probably made them overseas for pennies, but they will sure be cute for any holiday parties we attend. Of course, there are no pictures to post of them so get your butt over there to check them out!

Weekend Update

It has been a busy, but fun weekend. Friday started with school conferences. My big girl is doing well in school. Her teacher even highlighted what a great listener she is...hmmm, at least that is happening somewhere!

Taking Julia to the movies in her carseat has reopened the world of the movie theater to us. We tried The Bee Movie last weekend and that went great so Friday night, we took the kids to see Fred Claus. It was funny, but not as funny as one of my all time favorites, Elf.

Saturday was a trip to a local pizza place with Daisy scouts and then off to hang out with my brother-in-law and his family. We hit a local hole in the wall Mexican place for dinner without the kids. Good times. After dinner we did a little shopping and I picked up some of the Mint M&M's Hayley was raving about. They are yummy. All I could think of was Hayley lying on her floor next to her couch laughing at herself.

After church today we decided to drag out all the Christmas stuff and get cracking on decorating. I was a little reticent but am glad that the tree is up and lit and decorated. So what if Thanksgiving is still this week, right?

It's been a jam packed weekend but 'tis the season!

Another day...another accompanied visit to the bathroom

Why do kids insist on cramming themselves into the bathroom with you? Why do mine insist on doing in our 2'x2' powder room? Baby J has no interest in potty training but she is all up in our business when I have to go. The other day she was in there while I was getting a tampon out and was giving me 20 questions about it. I tried to get out of her questions by asking her when she was going to be done with diapers. Nice, huh? Let's hope she wasn't trying to equate both things as the same!

Blogging block

Why can't I think of anything to blog about? How do all of you come up with so much? Maybe it's the pressure. Maybe it's my husband checking out my blog and saying that it doesn't have much on it, unlike Holly's. Maybe it's because my digital camera is totally dead and I am not getting my new one until Christmas. I am starting to suck at this, people!

I am in love...

I know there are a lot of Walmart haters out there, but I love our new Super Walmart. My wallet shouldn't be as excited as I am about it being open though! Both times I have visited so far, I have spent $100 when I have gone in for something that is $5. That's their trick though isn't it? Sign me up!

Still figuring out how to post

The girls at Nana & Papa's

Yes, I am dressed as Cinderella for the Halloween party we hosted this year. The girls in my preschool class loved, loved, loved it too.

Bubba and his best girlfriend!

I wish I could say I made these, but I would be lying! Cute, huh?

PS-Holly let me know how to set up my blog so no weirdo's can get to it. I checked the "do not publish in their lists" and set it to invite only. Is that enough?

Okay, okay

I have finally given into the blogging pressure. Don't have high expectations...I am much better at reading them than publishing them.