Christmas

Advent Calendar Experiences

Posted on by Amy

December is upon us. I’m so excited for all the holiday fun I am planning for the girls this year.

For the first time we are going to use an Advent calendar. I have debated using one in the past. I’ve been hesitant because I know often folks place small candies or toys in the calendar’s pockets and I just wasn’t interested in doing that. Small toys aren’t a great idea in my house with such little ones, and I am just not really interested in giving them candy every day in December, knowing that the sweets will be pretty free-flowing this month anyway.

But I have always kind of wanted to have an Advent calendar, because I think the count down is a fun visual way for little ones to anticipate Christmas. Plus it would be a fun addition to our daily calendar time. So this year I looked and looked for one I liked.

Then I found this calendar:

I love that the pockets of this calendar have little “ornaments” in them so that each day the girls can pull one out and velcro it to the tree at the top. Even if I did nothing else with the calendar, that would be a fun count down to do.

But of course, I wanted to do something else.

One thing I love that I’ve seen around is the Advent calendar that uses an experience each day rather than a toy or a treat.

Yeah. We’re doing that.

I haven’t quite come up with 24 things for the pockets yet, but tomorrow we’re having a movie night and watching “Rudolp the Red-Nosed Reindeer” to start. Here are the other activities we have so far:

Shop for gifts for less fortunate kids (our local police and Salvation Army sponsor a program and we’ve signed up to shop for a family)

Make handprint ornaments

Go for a drive to look at Christmas lights (a local park has a wonderful display)

Paint and bake ceramic ornaments

Open our special ornaments and hang them on the tree

Play in the oatmeal sensory bin (the ornament and oatmeal activities will all be during this next week, because our letter of the week is “O for Ornament”)

Open a new movie and watch it during our drive to Grandma and Grandpa’s house (may do this one twice, once for our trip to Kentucky and once for our trip to the Farm)

Have a tea party (my Mom has my tea set from when I was a little girl at her house)

Open and read a new Christmas book (I will probably put this one in there more than once, as I have several new books on order)

Make and decorate Christmas cookies

Have a special birthday lunch for Daddy

Ice Cream Sundaes

Celebrate Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa, Uncle G, Aunt A, and cousins (the calendar will easily fold and make the trip with us to Kentucky next week and to the Farm for the weekend before Christmas)

Go to story time and see Santa

Make hot chocolate

Make Santa craft (classic – glue face parts, beard, hat, etc, and then glue cotton balls on for beard and hat trim)

Have a Christmas Carol dance party

Do Christmas tree craft (felt triangle for tree, then glue buttons on for ornaments)

That puts me at 22 if I do a new movie for each of our big trips and open a new Christmas book three times.

I’m not sure what else I’ll do. Maybe another craft. Maybe more baking. I know I can come up with two more things. I’ll play it by ear to figure out what else to include.

I’m excited to see what they think of this process. I’ll definitely keep you posted as it unfolds.

 


Joy

Posted on by Amy

This time of year always makes me so sentimental. It makes me think of family. Holidays past. Traditions.

I think tradition is really the key to my nostalgia at this time of year. There are certain traditions that my family followed every year during the holidays that I remember so well and feel so happy to replicate with my kids.

I have wonderful memories of lots of family time at Thanksgiving.

This year, for the first time since my kids were born, we got to spend Thanksgiving with extended family. It was great fun.

The girls had lots of fun with their many, many cousins on my husband’s side of the family  (there are so many kids my in-laws put carpet in their garage to make a big space for them to run and play inside).

They were playing some sort of football game. You can see how my girls look up to their older cousins.

Lass had no concept of the game being played. She mostly just wandered through the older kids, who were running and jumping and tackling and yelling all around her, singing and hugging this ball. It’s amazing (and a testament to her cousins’ consideration) that she never once got trampled, or even bumped!

This little one enjoyed hanging out with her Daddy and watching her sisters and cousins.

Thanksgiving dinner was eaten around a table set with my husband’s grandmother’s china and linens. The girls sat at the kid’s table, which is such a memory-laden rite of passage for every childhood in itself, and the adults crammed around the grown up table.

There was much laughter her about the fact that we were so squished around this table we could barely maneuver forks to mouths. Heaven forbid anyone needed to use a knife. It was a great meal in great company. Family.

When I see photos like these I can’t help but fast forward thirty or so years and imagine the memories my girls will have of our holidays and traditions. I want them to remember these feelings, whether they remember the specific instances or not.

Comfort.

Coziness.

Closeness.

I want them to remember time with family. That family was always placed at the top of our list of priorities. That they were always, always valued and loved by many.

I want them to have awesome auntie memories like I have.

I am so thankful we got to be with family for one of my favorite holidays this year.

When we got home, we moved right into one of my favorite traditions – decorating the Christmas tree. With Johnny Mathis Christmas music playing in the background of course.

There are few things more evocative of holiday memories and joy for me than decorating the tree. It’s an exercise in holding history and tradition in my hands with each ornament I put on the tree. Almost every ornament has a story. I have ornaments that belonged to my grandmas, that were made by my grandmas and great-grandmas, that were given to me by my Auntie, that were made by my mom and graced the tree in my house when I was a little girl, and so on. Of course I’m now adding the ornaments that belong to my girls. A new tradition in my little family (which I got from my Auntie) is that I give the girls each a special ornament each Christmas, trying to make it representative of something special that they did or experienced in the past year.

The first ornament put on the tree this year by each of my older girls was their “First Christmas” rocking horse. These are engraved with their names and the year.

They then proceeded with the rest of their individual ornaments and then helped me put all the non-breakable ornaments on the lower section of the tree.

 

The finished product:

For some reason the tree is leaning a bit this year. I don’t even care. I love our tree. It might even be a bit weird how much I love our tree. This thing is a big green, sparkly monument to my life, my family, and my history. It, and the process of creating it with my girls, bring me joy.

 

Santa Came to Town

Posted on by Amy
We were at the Farm over the weekend for Christmas with my husband’s family.  The girls got to have tons of fun playing with their cousins.

The grown ups got to have lots of fun visiting.  This is a photo of me with my also-pregnant sister-in-law.  She is due about two weeks after me.  The woman brought O’Doul’s.  Gotta love a fake beer on Christmas Eve.

And then of course, the Christmas festivities began.  We opened gifts with the family, which is kind of crazy since my husband has five siblings.  There were 14 adults and 13 kids opening and slinging wrapping paper all over.

It was fabulous.

One of the biggest gift “hits” was this “Rody” for Miss from my husband’s parents.

Daddy blew it up and away she went.

It caused a bit of friction once Little Sister noticed it.

She was pretty upset at not being able to ride it right away.

But Big Sister is such a sweet girl, she let her sis have a turn,

hovering nearby the entire time, of course.

And, time’s up!

It’s a really cool toy.

Finally, Miss got distracted and Lass got to have a bit of time on it.  Oh, the holiday drama!

After family gifts, the kids all went downstairs to wait for Santa.  In my husband’s family, Santa arrives on Christmas Eve before the kids go to bed.  They have to wait patiently downstairs for him (while the moms put out stockings and all the Santa gifts upstairs).

When he arrives, he makes lots of noise stomping around and “Ho-Ho-Ho-ing.”  The kids scream and run up the stairs, hoping to catch a glimpse of him before he gets into his sleigh and rides off.

We all got to see him as he ran out of the house and back to his sleigh waiting in the grass.  Unfortunately one of the older cousins may have seen him a little too much.  He said to his mom something like, “I wish we got to have the real Santa, not the one with dark hair and eyebrows.”  I guess the wig wasn’t quite straight on my brother-in-law!

When we went back inside, of course the girls had a blast with all their presents.

Miss got the two Care Bears she asked Santa for, and they haven’t left her side since.  Here she is reading one of her new books to Grumpy Bear.

In my last post I wrote about how Miss has been insistent about wearing her “ballerina costume” of leotard, tights, and ballet shoes.  The trip to the Farm was no different.  I told her she had to wear some nice clothes for Christmas dinner and family gifts, and we compromised by putting her nice clothes on over the ballerina costume (if you look at some of the pictures above you can see her little ballet shoes). After getting her Santa gifts, the “real” clothes were off and she was back in ballerina mode.

I finally got her out of the ballerina costume when we went on a treasure hunt on Christmas day.  I told her she needed to wear warm clothes and that her ballerina costume really needed to be washed while we were out.

The weather was chilly but beautiful, and as always the treasure hunt was memorable.

Lass was a bit like the little brother in “A Christmas Story.”  she was so bundled up she could barely move.

Miss found some shells and some acorns for her “treasures.”

She got to check out lots of interesting things, like this deer rub.

She got to examine some mushrooms growing on these trees

And look at these little berries.

Lass fell asleep during our walk in the woods.

Overall, the trip to the farm was a great time for all.  And when we came home, the girls found that Santa had been to our house too while we were gone.  He left some gymnastics mats, a balance beam, and a baby doll high chair (which so far has only been used to feed pizza to Care Bears).

Oh yeah, Santa left bubble wrap too.

I am still trying to get things back in order here after so much holiday traveling. Yesterday I folded six loads of laundry and I still have more to do!  The toys aren’t all put away, but they’ve at least all made it into the house now.  The spare room in the basement still has wrapping paper strewn all over the floor.  But the traveling was absolutely worth it, and we had a magical Christmas.  I hope you did too.

Christmas-ing

Posted on by Amy
Oh, we are a-Christmas-ing at our house this week.  Lots of carols and shopping and wrapping.  We even did a bit of crafting, making ornaments out of bread.  We started by using cookie cutters to cut shapes out of the bread.

Lass mostly just wanted to eat it.

After we got them cut out I used a straw to make holes in them for hanging and we left them to dry out/get stale over night.

Then we painted and glittered them (I mixed some glue into the paint).  Yes, I hate glitter.  But it is a necessary part of holiday crafting with little girls, in my opinion.  So, we braved the glitter.  Lass hasn’t done painting with a brush yet (unless you count her painting/eating endeavor with the pumpkins at Halloween), so I was just going to let her go to town with crayons and a piece of poster board.

But she saw Big Sister with the paint and was not about to settle for boring old crayons.

She did a great job.  She did immediately try to put the brush in her mouth, but refrained when I told her no.  Perhaps that’s why it wasn’t long before she got tired of painting and wanted to get down.

This girl, on the other hand, was all about focus.  She painted and glittered ornaments for her babysitters, her two teachers, and her Daddy, carefully choosing the shape, paint color, glitter color, and  hanging ribbon color for each recipient.

There are only a few left that haven’t yet been given out or put on our tree.  I think they turned out pretty cute, though I’m not sure how well they’ll hold up.  The one Miss gave to her Daddy is already in the trash after Lass tried to eat it and broke off the top of the ornament where the string hole was cut.  They are made from bread, after all…

Today was Miss’s holiday party at her school.  She got to play a game where she tossed a big jingle bell into a bucket to win a present.  This is her shy smile after achieving her objective.

She decorated cookies to set out for Santa.

And she filled a bag with reindeer food (which looked like a mixture of oatmeal, glitter, and maybe some flour, with a few jingle bells and cinnamon sticks thrown in).  We will be taking this to the Farm tomorrow night.

The girls had lots of fun playing with the Christmas tree tonight.  You might have noticed that Lass has a new hairdo by the way.

The barrette just wasn’t always working that well, even when she did keep it in her hair.

So we’re all about the spouting pony look these days.  It works much better and is so stinking cute.  You wouldn’t believe the number of comments this thing gets when we go out in public.

I did a little experimenting with my fun new-ish camera lens to try to achieve a new photography effect I have recently learned about.  It’s called “bokeh” and is basically “the aesthetic quality of the blur,” or something like that.  Look at how the Christmas lights are twinkly and out of focus behind the girls.  That’s what I was going for.

I love Holiday bokeh!

Miss has been in one or the other of her two tights/leotard combinations since we got back from Kentucky for almost every moment of the day.  It is like pulling teeth to get her to put clothes on to go to the store or to school.  She had on that adorable Matilda Jane top at her school party today, and asked to change back into this as soon as we arrived home.  She got back on the ballerina kick when my Auntie got her a magnetic wooden “paper doll” ballerina for Christmas.  The first night we got home from Kentucky she asked to put on her ballerina costume.  I let her put on the shoes and tutu, since it was almost time for bed (thinking these would be easier to get into and out of when it was time for jammies).  She ended up sleeping in those anyway, and has slept in some sort of ballerina get up every night since.  And she dances the part too.  It’s awesome.
Tomorrow will bring lots more Christmas-ing, with tons of shopping, wrapping, caroling and then packing and traveling to the Farm, where the Christmas-ing will continue through the weekend.  So I’d better get some sleep!

A Great Big Kentucky Post. Y’all.

Posted on by Amy
Last week we went to Kentucky to spend the week with my parents.  I have virtually no internet access there, so I couldn’t post while we were gone.  Somehow we have been home for three days, and I am just now getting around to posting about our fabulous trip.  I would say with all the holiday craziness I haven’t had the time to post.  However, I am a firm believer that you have time for what you make time for.  So.  Sorry, I haven’t made time for this.  But if it makes up for it, I’m posting right now during naptime instead of taking a shower…
Anyway.  Our trip was really wonderful, though it was unfortunately delayed for a day.  Remember how I posted that we had all managed to escape the stomach bug except for Lass’s very brief encounter with it?  I typed too soon.  Friday night, the night before we were supposed to leave, I was up all night sick and ended up going to the emergency department for fluids around 4am, right about the time Miss woke up crying and asking for “new jammies,” meaning of course that she had thrown up all over the ones she was wearing.  So, needless to say, she and I were under the weather for the day that was supposed to be our travel day, and we didn’t make it to Kentucky until Sunday.  But the visit was so worth the trip. My parents rock.  They are so awesome with my girls and give them so much love and attention it just makes my heart melt to watch them together.  I love that my girls are the center of attention with my parents for a whole week.  And they eat it up.  Miss just glows with happiness when playing with my Mom, and Lass got there too, though it took her a bit longer to warm up.  Little girls can just never have too much love and attention from their grandparents.  I only wish my parents lived close, so my girls could have the experience of spending time with them more often.
Here’s a big, huge photo tour of our week in the south:
We went to story time at the library where my Mom is the children’s librarian.  I was so proud of my girls.  Both of them sat nicely and listened to the story, even though there was a good bit of chaos going on around them.

Then Santa showed up…

Miss got all shy and scrambled for my lap

where she clung to me for dear life

until Santa called her name to come up for her present.

She was so shy!

But my shy girl braved giving the big guy a hug.

Lass was surprisingly calm about the process of seeing Santa too.

Probably because I didn’t even attempt to get her any closer than this.

The story time was great.  We colored and had a snack and crafted a paper chain.

All the kids got in a circle with my mom at the end to sing a song, which was very cute.

Then it was time to go.

We did stop upstairs to check out some books, which Miss had fun reading to her baby doll when we got back to my parents’ house.

The day of the story time was also my husband’s birthday.  This year I let Miss pick out a few presents for him in addition to what I got for him.  A couple of weeks ago I took her to the dollar store (the real one where everything costs $1), gave her a $5 bill and told her she could pick five things that she thought her Daddy would like for his birthday.  She walked around the store clutching the $5 bill in her hand, selecting things at her eye level.  It was so fun to watch her make her choices and then to pack them up when we got them home.  In addition to the five presents, she was also allowed to pick a card and a gift bag for him.

And all on her own, she also picked this hat as a must-have for her Daddy.

So what were the gifts?  A Winnie the Pooh chalkboard set,

a pink jumprope, blue safety scissors, and a pen with a bobbling dog on top, set into a suction cup base (not pictured here, but shown above).

My personal favorite?  Floral foam.

Miss had no idea what it was when she saw it at the store, but she thought it was awesome and knew her Daddy would just love it.  It was great to watch her getting so excited about her Daddy’s presents.

We also got to visit with my brother and his family for an afternoon.  We went to their house to do our Christmas with them.

A good time was had by all, I think.

And a great holiday tradition was passed to the next generation during this visit.  Every year my mom and I watch the movie “Heidi” with Shirley Temple.  Some people watch, “Miracle on 34th Street,” maybe even “A Christmas Story” or some other traditional holiday movie.  Our movie is “Heidi.”  We know the dialog by heart.  This year, my girls watched it for the first time.

Okay, so the above photos are a little misleading.  They really only paid attention to the movie for about the first 10 minutes.  But I didn’t expect much more for the first viewing.  This movie takes time to appreciate.  My husband and brother, even my Dad, still don’t quite appreciate it yet.  The girls will get there.  Of that I am sure.

One other movie experience we had while in Kentucky, that Miss did greatly appreciate (to the point that we watched the movie 3 times in 24 hours), was her first viewing of “Snow White.”  I hadn’t seen the movie in many, many years, so I probably enjoyed watching it with her almost as much as she did.

The still photos don’t quite do justice to our enjoyment of the movie.

I’m glad to be home, though I miss my family.  I can’t believe Christmas is already almost here.  Tomorrow is Miss’s school party.  I have way too much gift-wrapping left to do.  This weekend we’ll go to the Farm to “do Christmas” with my husband’s family.   It’s the most wonderful time of the year.

Did I Say I Thought Pink Eye Was Yucky?

Posted on by Amy
Yes, I did.  When Miss first started school I typed this post, which I stupidly titled, “Bring on the Ickies” (why would I ever type such a statement?).  At the time I was grossed out because I thought she had pink eye, which she actually didn’t have, by the way.  I was writing about how I knew she would bring home lots of germs now that she had started school and blah, blah, blah.  Yesterday I got a much better sense of the truly icky.  Picture it.  I wake up at 4 AM to Lass’s crying.  It was a “something’s wrong” kind of cry, so I went in to get her thinking maybe she’d had a bad dream or something, and I’d just rock her for a bit.  Instead I found that Lass had puked all over herself, her bed, her floor, and then me as soon as I picked her up.  Okay.  I got it all cleaned up, put both of us in clean jammies, and began rocking her to try to get her back to sleep.  Naturally, she puked all over both of us again before I managed to run her to the bathroom and get her over the sink.  Again, I get it cleaned up and go back to rocking her.  And that’s not even the really icky part…
Rewind about 8 hours to Wednesday night.  I had received a text message from a babysitter telling me that her roommate had just found out she has scabies.  Oh yes.  I thought pink eye was gross?  No.  No, scabies is gross.  Gross as in make-my-skin-crawl-give-me-the-crazy-heebie-jeebies kind of gross.  Unfortunately this babysitter had been to my house three times in three days, including Wednesday afternoon for a little while while I took Miss to gymnastics.  At first I wasn’t too worried about it, since this babysitter didn’t even know if she actually had it, and I hadn’t seen any signs that my girls did, but still.  I did vacuum every room where this babysitter would have been, rugs and furniture.  And then as I was sitting there at 4-something AM, rocking Lass again after changing both of our clothes for the second time, I couldn’t help but imagine a little bit what yesterday might have had in store for me.  I pictured two puking girls, perhaps being sick myself, and needing to scour and sanitize my house and medicate my girls to get rid of little tiny mites that had burrowed under their skin and gotten into all of our clothing, bedding, furniture, carpets…  Perhaps this was a bit melodramatic, but I was sleepy and my mind was wandering on it’s own.  And really it wasn’t really too far fetched to imagine that could have been my day.
Amazingly, Lass went back to sleep (though I never did – see thoughts running through my head, above) for a little while and when she woke up she had no additional symptoms of a stomach bug.  She kept down everything I gave her to drink and eat and was her cheerful happy self all day long.  Miss never got sick, nor did I.  Score 1 for Mama!
Unfortunately, I did get a text later in the morning that my babysitter does in fact have scabies.  Even more unfortunately, I couldn’t get a doctor’s appointment until 4:30 in the afternoon to find out if my girls or I had it.  So, though I tried not to worry about it, I was kind of freaking out that we were infested.  There were no real signs that any of us had it, but I started imagining that every little red spot on my girls or any itch I felt myself was a little mite trying to find a home.  I started stripping sheets and doing laundry.  And then I did the most appropriate and merciful thing yesterday afternoon.  I let my girls watch a rare bit of afternoon TV and I called my mom to whine.
 TV Glaze

It was quite therapeutic.  My mom did what all good moms do.  She listened.  She sympathized.  She made me laugh.  What more could a girl ask for (other than having said mom living nearby so she could have come over to help with the laundry, which my mom would have happily done, of course…).

And to make a very long story short, the girls napped, we went to the doctor, and we found out that we do not have scabies.  And I learned a lot about scabies that made me feel better all around, like that scabies can’t live long at all in clothing, furniture, etc.  That washing every article of clothing and bedding in our house wasn’t really necessary, though I did it anyway.  That scabies show up fast and move fast and itch like crazy.  In other words, if you have scabies, you know it.  Since we didn’t have it and our poor babysitter had not been around for a while, the likelihood that we would get it was nil.  Score 2 for Mama!

And, since we did not have scabies, our other babysitter, whom we had scheduled to come over so my hubby and I could get out for dinner, was still happy to come.  So we had a nice dinner out and relaxed away the craziness of the day.  Score 3!!  I am still a little bit shocked when I think about how crummy yesterday could have been and then about how relatively not-so-bad it really was.  I feel like I dodged a major bullet!

And to top it all off, since we don’t have scabies and my testimony for this morning got postponed (thankfully, because I wouldn’t have had a babysitter!), we got to go to a much-looked-forward-to play date with some great friends.  My friend had a Christmas cookie decorating play date at her house this morning, and it was a blast.  Lass mostly just ate a cookie and played in the frosting.

Miss had lots of fun decorating the cookies and eating them.  She had a little bit of a hard time though with the idea that she could only eat one of the cookies she decorated and the rest we had to just decorate and save to take home.

Miss made a special cookie for her Daddy.

A good time was had by all.  Hooray for no scabies!

Tomorrow we go to my parent’s house for a week.  I am so thrilled to spend the week with my Mom and Dad.  But, that likely means there will be very little blogging from this girl until we get back, as my parents live in an internet black hole.  I’ll be back in about a week!

Wednesdays

Posted on by Amy
I love Wednesdays.  I get to spend a little bit of special time with each of my girls on Wednesdays.  Miss goes to school and Lass and I run errands or just hang out and play in the morning.  Then I take Miss to gymnastics in the afternoon.  She loves gymnastics.
Note: All of these gymnastics pictures were taken at least six months ago, probably more like nine months.  Unfortunately, I don’t have any recent photos of her at gymnastics.

Miss has gotten so much braver and stronger since these photos were taken.  She used to be somewhat fearful about doing certain things by herself, like going down the slide, or jumping from a height she perceived to be too high.

In spite of encouragements to try it herself, she used to insist on holding my hand.

Now she jumps from much greater heights by herself.  Occasionally she still comes up to a jump that makes her nervous, but with encouragement she’ll usually even go for those by herself.

She used to need lots of help doing this “strong arms” move down the beams.  Now she not only does it totally by herself, she’s fast!

Today she even insisted on trying to do a headstand by herself.

One thing that still makes her a bit nervous is walking the balance bean if it is raised up off the floor at all.  But she’s even getting better at that.  Today I was so proud of her, because although she was clearly nervous, she did walk the whole length of the beam herself.  She did it shuffling her feet in tiny, tiny steps, but she did it.  And at the end she jumped off and yelled, “I did it!”  It was awesome.

Gymnastics class with Miss is a blast and I am always so entertained and awed by watching her learn new things so quickly.

In addition to enjoying spending time with her in class, I like to savor the car rides to and fro.  Now that it’s dark out when we go, she often comments on the Christmas lights she sees.  Tonight we sang to Christmas music.  Her favorite is “Rudolf the Red-Nosed Deer” followed closely by the Chipmunks Christmas song.  She half-sings, half hums along with that one until the line “Me, I want a hooooola hoooop,” which she nails every time.

And since gymnastics class runs right up to dinner time, often we treat ourselves to some take out dinner.  Lately we’ve been getting an extra special treat of Culver’s on Wednesday nights, complete with frozen custard sundaes for dessert (mine is still waiting for me in the freezer…)  Of course, Culver’s has very little post-dinner clean up, which leaves plenty of time for my favorite part of the day, between dinner and bedtime when we listen to music and play.  Christmas music and wrestling/chasing/tickling with Daddy were on the agenda tonight.

I love Wednesdays.  Frozen custard is calling me.

A Letter to Santa and a Little Elf

Posted on by Amy
A few years ago, my mom and dad gave us an ornament for our Christmas tree.  It’s a hollow tube with one end that comes off.  It says, “Letters to Santa” on the side.  This was the first year Miss was old enough to have an understanding of the idea of writing a letter to Santa to tell him what she’d like for Christmas.  So yesterday we wrote a letter.  Really, I wrote a letter and prodded her for the things she’d like to ask Santa for.  She initially said, “A teddy bear.”  When I asked what kind of teddy bear, she said, “A pink one.”  This was news to me.  Every other time I’ve asked her what she would like from Santa, she has said, “Care Bears,” even going so far as to specify a few specific Care Bears.  I have since purchased said Care Bears.  These will be gifts from Santa.  So, I must admit I kind of prompted her to include Care Bears and a few other things that “Santa” has already gotten her in her list to him. We also added a section to ask for things for Lass.

Then we rolled up the letter, put it in the tube, and hung it back on the tree.  I told Miss Santa would come to get it while she slept.

This morning we got up and went to see if Santa had taken the letter.

He did, of course. Miss thought this was quite fun.  I also used this exercise in sending a letter to Santa to introduce the “Elf on the Shelf” concept to our house.  I had gone back and forth with myself about whether we were going to have an Elf this year.  Once I learned about it, it seemed like a cute concept.  Folks seem to have lots of fun with their elves.  Miss’s school has an elf they have named “Jingle.”  By the time I finally decided to go ahead and get an elf, I missed the “late November” time period when these elves are supposed to arrive.  Oh well. Miss doesn’t yet understand what “late November” means anyway.  So, I decided to coordinate the arrival of the Elf with the disappearance of the letter to Santa.  As in “Santa came last night and took your letter and, wow look!, he left an elf for us.”  Cool, eh?  The book and box for the elf (we got “Christopher Pop-In-Kins” instead of the other Elf on the Shelf that lots of other folks get) were left under the Christmas tree where the ornament was hanging.  We read the book together this morning.  Then I pointed out to Miss that the box was empty, so the elf must be hiding!  She found him pretty quickly (see the little elf below on the mantle in front of the white-framed photo of the girls).  She was a little excited to find the elf and tell him “Hello,” though I’m not entirely sure she understands the whole thing.  It’s okay. If nothing else it will be fun to hide the Elf each night and let her find him each morning.

And speaking of Elves…  This little elf’s sweet personality has just been blossoming!  She is such a funny and feisty and loving little girl!  Her big thing lately is giving kisses.  A LOT of kisses.  She’ll just walk up and kiss me wherever she can reach me.  On my knee if I’m standing.  On my big belly if I’m sitting.  On my arm if I’m changing her diaper.

She gives kisses just as much to her daddy and sister.  She gives kisses to the dog.  It makes me melt to see the girls giving each other hugs and kisses.  Big sister seems to enjoy the lovins and there is a lot of hugging and kissing between those two these days.

Talk about holiday spirit!

The Holiday Spirit

Posted on by Amy
I’m really getting into the holiday spirit now.  That means I’m listening to Christmas music, enjoying the lights and decor, and starting to get a lot of my shopping done, which means looking for good bargains.  Of course, if you think about bargains this time of year, everyone thinks about Black Friday.  Now, I love finding a bargain.  I mean, I really love finding a bargain.  But I do not love going shopping when the stores are crowded, let alone when they are jam packed with crazy people fighting over the last “Tickle Me Elmo” or whatever the latest must-have item is for Christmas.  Yes, I know “Tickle Me Elmo” was the big thing in about 1996.  No, I do not have the slightest idea what hot toys are selling out in stores this year.  I don’t watch much TV and I don’t shop on Black Friday, so I’m clueless about this stuff.  And you did read that right.  As much as I love a good deal, I do not go shopping on Black Friday.  Ever.  I especially don’t go shopping at midnight on Thanksgiving.   What?! The idea of the crowds and insanity makes me feel a little ill.  I don’t even like going grocery shopping on a weekend or after 4 pm.  Grocery shopping at 9 am on a Tuesday when the stores are nearly deserted is one of the secret perks of being a stay-at-home mom.  But I digress.  Back to the bargain shopping…
I am happy to report that I managed to get three fabulous deals in the past week in spite of my Black Friday boycott.  Deal #1 was before Thanksgiving at Kohl’s.  You may remember that I wrote about my distress over being unable to find a decent maternity blazer to wear to testify in court (you can read about it here if you’re so inclined).  I essentially was not able to find one and settled for a black cardigan.  I have worn that cardigan to court twice, and felt like a frump both times.  Then I got subpoenaed again.  I finally decided that I need to just buy a non-maternity black blazer in my regular size that I can wear unbuttoned for now and then continue to wear when I’m not pregnant anymore.  That way I don’t feel bad about spending money on a maternity item I’ll rarely wear, and I’ll add a staple to my wardrobe that I should really already have.  I mean, how can I not have a black blazer?  I checked Kohl’s last week when Lass and I were running errands after dropping Miss off at school.  I found a blazer there.  And even though it was before Thanksgiving, it was on sale.  I got a great blazer for about $35!!  Okay, so this wasn’t a holiday gift find, but saving money still gets me in the spirit.
Deal #2 was for this beautiful necklace.  This was a Black Friday online sale in this awesome Etsy shop.  I am kind of addicted to these necklaces, and I got a super deal on this one.  Plus, I don’t have to pay shipping because the mama who makes them lives nearby and her son goes to preschool with Miss.  Score!  Oh yeah, I guess this wasn’t a holiday gift find either, but really the sale was too good to pass up.
Deal #3 and the best one yet was a find for Miss.  I got her a pair of Land’s End snow boots that were regularly priced at about $50.  They are on sale for $25 right now. Plus I got a special “Cyber Monday” additional discount code and free shipping.  I paid about $18 for them!!  Woohoo!
Another thing that has really gotten me into the spirit of the season is buying gifts for some local children for Christmas.  Last year we packed shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child through Samaritan’s Purse.  That is a great cause, but this year I wanted to give to a more local cause.  I looked online for some local charities and found out our police station has a program where they match you up with a child, give you the age, gender, sizes, needs, and wishes of him or her.  I requested two children and we got a three-year-old and a seven-year-old, both girls.  It was so fun to shop for them with my girls!  I think Miss is starting to understand the concept of giving to someone less fortunate than us, and she had fun picking out the toys, books, clothes, and other miscellaneous items for these little girls.  She kept asking what the little girls’ names were that we were shopping for (which of course I didn’t know).  We got school outfits, jammies, underwear, snow pants and boots, books, a baby doll and stroller, a shopping cart and toy food, and a case of art supplies, along with a few other things. Today we packed them up and took them to the police station to drop them off.  Miss even carried one of the big bags full of gifts all by herself.  She was so proud and kept declining my offers to help her.  She even got a “Junior Officer” badge sticker from the officer at the station.  It was such a fun experience.
And finally, to wrap up this post, here are a few photos of my girls getting into the spirit watching football with their Daddy.  This photo was taken on Saturday at the beginning of the Michigan vs. Ohio State game.  And yes, my hubby was rooting for Michigan on that day. 

I love this time of year!

Oh Christmas Tree

Posted on by Amy
It’s tradition in our family to put up our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving if at all possible.  Yesterday, we got it done.  The girls took great naps, which allowed me to get the tree up and put all my breakable ornaments on the top half.  I left the bottom bare so the girls could help me with the non-breakable ornaments after waking from their naps.  They were really excited when they saw the tree!

They dug in to the box of ornaments and random other decorations like it was a treasure chest.  Notice that old box.  It’s probably at least as old as I am.  It’s what we kept many of these same ornaments in when I was a kid.  I just kept them in the same box when I inherited them from my mom.

Miss found and loved these little elves.  There are two of them that sit back to back in a boot.  Again, these guys are almost as old (if not as old) as I am.  They were one of my favorites when I was little too.  One of them has a problems with his head falling off from time to time, but I love them and could never part with them.

These ornaments were made by my mom back in the 70s I think.  Styrofoam balls (and a few other shapes) with beads and sequins pinned into them.  Miss loved this bell, which she called a “Christmas tree.”  It makes me happy that my girls are putting some of my childhood memories on our tree each year.

Lass mostly just dug through the box and checked everything out.

But Miss was very into helping me by handing me all the ornaments, telling me where to put them, and even putting a few on herself.

It was so fun to decorate our tree with my girls.  I love holiday traditions like these.  We listened to Johnny Mathis Christmas music.  The girls shook their booties to “Jingle Bell Rock” and bobbed and swayed beautifully to the less bop-worthy songs, like “Give Me Your Love For Christmas” and “White Christmas.”  Our tree is full of the perfect balance of old and new.  The garland and many of the ornaments, as noted above, are the same ones that we put on our tree when I was a little girl.  We have some ornaments made by my great-grandmother.  Plenty of the ornaments are ones I have collected over the years, both vintage and new.  And of course, each of the girls has her own little collection of her own ornaments that will grow each year.

I love our tree.  Some might think it too cluttered.  Some might prefer a more coordinated look.  I think this tree is perfect.  It speaks of family and history and love and, of course, tradition.  To me, that seems the whole purpose of a Christmas tree.  Most of all, I love the process of putting it together as a family.