Christmas is here...and gone again. (long and pic heavy)

It's over. All that build up with finding the perfect gifts, searching for that elusive toy, decorating the house, cooking the yummy dinner(s), stressing over cleaning the house and it's all over in a flash. Then it's time to take everything down again and re-clean the house since it now looks like a paper and toy factory exploded in it. Christmas should last more than one day. Jesus deserves a longer birthday anyway. :)

As is tradition in our family, we do Christmas Eve with the in-laws. This year was at my younger BIL's house so it wasn't a long drive at least. We voted earlier this year to draw names for the adults and just buy for the kids. And did they ever! My truck was STUFFED with toys. I think everyone went overboard since they only had to buy for one adult. 

Bella's Christmas dress #1. Got it from Goodwill for $2. :) It's from TCP.

I found my twin!

Kiss the baby

*sleeping* in her new Tinkerbell sofa-bed

Could this child give me a genuine smile instead of a posed one?

We got home late on C. Eve so we put the kids right into their jammies (Bella was already in hers before we left) and into bed. The boys have worn these same pj's for 3 Christmases now. Now that's a bargain! They ended up being so big when I bought them that they've just lasted a while. Sadly I don't think they'll make it to a 4th Christmas so I'll just let them wear them the rest of the year. If they still fit next December then all the better!

Christmas morning we slept in. Yep- slept in! We told the boys they were not to leave their room unless they had to use the bathroom and to wait for us to go get them. And they listened! It was after 8 am and I had to wake poor Bella up so she could get in on the fun. Thanks to the awesome Amazon sales and all my bargain hunting mamas online, the kids had plenty to open without me breaking the bank.

Christmas Morning. It was bright as we had just opened the blinds.

I didn't blog about my Sears fiasco earlier this month but I fell in love with a My First Kenmore kitchen set for Bella. I was able to buy them online only to get an email the same night that the fridge was out of stock. I called cust. svc and they said there wasn't a single fridge left in the entire US. WTH?! Long story short I got on my bargain board forum and the awesome ladies there told me they'd spotted it at Kmart stores. I called my store just 5 min down the road and they had one left. Since it was already closing time for them I had to wait until the next morning and it took them 20 minutes and 2 people to load it up but I finally got that sucker in my truck and home and for $35 LESS than what I was going to buy it at Sears for. It took us 1.5 hrs to put together the stove and at least 2 hrs for the fridge but they are adorable and so worth the effort.

You can't see it that well but there's a pretend ice maker/water in the freezer door. All the knobs click on the stove and the timer really works.

Felt pizza.

You can see some of the felt foods I've made. Egg, bacon, cheese, lettuce (under cheese) and orange slices. Above are the pancakes (one plain, one with butter & syrup), oversized poptart (my 1st food I tried), chicken leg and in the baggie is some pasta- bowtie, noodles, and ravioli. I've already taken the bowtie and noodles away until she's a bit older.

The fridge and stove set I got was a hit! I made a bunch of felt foods to go with it and we found some pink metal pots/pans at Sears and a child size apron and oven mitts at Target's $1 Spot. Along with the wood food she got from her uncle and grandpa she has plenty to play with as do the boys! Santa brought her a Maclaren stroller for her babies. She loves all her new dolls and the stroller. She's already tried to sit in it (her cousin did as well) and thankfully it's held up!

The boys got more Legos, books, movies, games and Glo Doodles. Those things are COOL! Santa got a really good deal on them too. ;) I love playing with it as does Bella. DH bought me my first set of pearls, some Godiva dark chocolates and some Yankee Candles. He knows what I like! He got some new BluRay movies and a computer processor he had asked for.

My dad came over for breakfast and to see the kids. We don't see him that often so it was really nice to have him here. After he left it was time to cook yet again and clean some more. Due to an illness in the family it was a last day decision to hold my family's dinner at my house.  It was so last day in fact that we decided to do an appetizer dinner instead of our normal feast. It was okay but it just wasn't the same. We missed having the big dinner with my grandparents and some other family there. 

Okay so on to the rest of the photos. Ready? 

In the stroller is another fave gift- My Pal Violet by Leapfrog. You can plug it into the PC and customize the songs, child's fave animal and food and add their name! So cute!

Christmas dress #2- also from Goodwill for $2. Too bad the shoes had to cost $40. Ouch!

And finally...me. In all my don't-take-my-picture-I wasn't-ready glory. You can at least see my pearls. :) There's a small star in the middle and a larger pearl hangs off of it.

That's it. The end. On to the next year. 2010 here we come!

Things that make you go *Hmmm*

Why do Legos have such a huge age range? For instance, one set my boys got was for ages 7-14. That's a big difference. Does that mean it's for really smart 7yr olds or the not so much 14yr olds and everyone in between? You're talking a difference between a 1st grader and possible 9th grader. 

And why put an age range on the box at all? Why not just put ages 7+ on the box? My dear hubby (dh) is 35 and still loves to build with Legos. 

Just a little something for you to ponder later on.

Hi again- December recap

It's little ole me...back from wherever I've been lately. My operating system crashed and it's been so long since I've blogged that when my dear hubby put Windows 7  (which rocks btw) on my PC I forgot to even bring my blog back up as one of my pages. *gasp* I also update everything on Facebook and forget to come here too. Sorry.

Can you believe it's almost Christmas? We put up our tree earlier this month. That was interesting. The boys wanted to help decorate so we handed them the least fragile ones and it seemed they all ended up on 2 sides of the tree, maybe even on just a few branches. I tried not to pay attention to the fact my tree was so bare everywhere else but I couldn't do it. I ended up redoing the whole thing myself after they were done. Thankfully they didn't seem to mind.

 

This is what happens with the wrong camera settings, lack of light and any movement. I kind of like the lights effect though.

My princess....look at how big she's gotten!

Ian had his Christmas party last Friday and dh was on vacation so when I was asked if I could volunteer in the classroom ALL day I jumped at the chance! I left the Bella-boo with dh and spent all morning making reindeer food (oatmeal, glitter, colored sugar) with Ian and his classmates. They also made *gingerbread* houses out of paper bags, decorated cookies, made candy cane beaded ornaments, read Christmas stories, did a book exchange and played some Christmas Bingo. Afterwards we sent them all out of the room (it was raining so we couldn't send them outside) so we could clean up and set up for their Christmas party which all the parents were invited to. The kids have been working on a gift for us all year long which was a fingerprint calendar. Very cute! Logan made one of these for me when he went to Pre-K there. They also gave us some handmade ornaments. Those are the best! The kids sang 3 songs for us they've learned and then sang their blessing song (Johnny Appleseed - 1st verse only and then Amen) before we all ate some lunch. Dh and Bella brought the chicken nuggets I was assigned too (hehe) and I was glad he could be there. 

We also made a trip to the mall to see Santa and Mrs. Claus. Never again 2 weeks before Christmas. I'd rather go the day after Thanksgiving. We waited at least 1hr 20min. The boys were bored and antsy. Bella was tired of sitting in her stroller and when I finally did let her out she was into everything. She pulled *snow* off the displays, tried pulling power cords that weren't hidden, tried pulling ornaments off the trees...We finally make it to the front of the line and I just know this isn't going to go well. She's had no time to warm up to this perfect stranger couple and as I walk over to them with her in my arms she's already grabbing me tighter. I let the boys get settled with Santa and hand Bella to Mrs. Claus and she's now screaming and trying to get away. Yes, I'm a horrible mother and bought that picture. She was tired and hungry to boot. I bought my very much overpriced picture and we took them to Cici's Pizza for dinner. She refused to sit in a highchair so dh held her the entire dinner. She was just out of it I guess since she missed her afternoon nap for this event.

And that's all that's really happened here so far. My Christmas shopping is done I think. I may need to run out and get one more gift card. Almost everything is wrapped. I'll be back with more in just a few days.

Merry Christmas!

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Spoiled

I think she has quite the set up going, don't you? She's rearfacing in her car seat still so she remains as safe as possible and can still see the DVD player without craning her neck. :)

Pilgrims & Indians

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm late on this. I know we're in December now but stick with me.

Just before our week long Thanksgiving vacation Ian's school had their T-Day program. Our class were indians and the other class were pilgrims. They all got up on stage and sang their little hearts out. Very cute. A few were also chosen to say what they were thankful for this year. My little copycat got up there and repeated what the child before him said- he was thankful for a cornucopia (very big word they learned that week). I think they just liked to say the word. :)

I know you'd love to hear my little man sing but that video is too big to post right now. I'll have to get dh to work on that. For now though here's the link to one of the songs that they sang that night for your listening pleasure and some pictures! ETA: The video is now up on my Facebook page if you're a friend!

IF I WERE A CHIPMUNK