Merry Christmas 2009!

I'll post pictures if/when I get them from my dad &/or SIL our camera memory was full & I couldn't find the cord to download the pictures this morning, so other than a couple last night, we didn't get any (bad parents), but anyway . . .

We had a good Christmas this year. Christmas Eve I wasn't feeling good, so didn't get the cleaning and cooking prep work done that I'd planned, but Daddy helped the girls finish making the woven foam placemats they wanted to make, and we took cookies to the neighbors, though only 2 of the 5 were home, so we'll have to deliver the rest after Christmas. The big girls are old enough to have figured out patterns/traditions and so they were telling our neighbor, Judy, that they "always get Christmas pajamas on Christmas eve" so I had to mess with them abit, and told them "I didn't buy any Christmas pajamas this year" the girls weren't sure whether to believe me or not LOL. But when we got home and they got their Christmas eve presents, they were VERY excited to find that instead of pajamas from Mommy & Daddy they'd gotten Christmas NIGHTGOWNS from Mama & Papa. My mom made nightgowns for all 3 girls, SOO cute!!! And the big girls were very excited, I'm not a fan of chemical-treated polyester, so they've never had nightgowns, just the snug-fitting cotton pajamas that don't have to be treated with the flame retardant stuff. As has been her custom, A2 wore hers all day Christmas LOL. She tried to convince me that she should wear it to church Sabbath too, but mean Mommy vetoed that idea LOL.

Their other Christmas Eve presents were a Christmas veggie tale video (that we haven't had time to watch yet, should be a good CALM thing to do on the rainy Sabbath afternoon we're predicted to have this weekend) and the book The Three Gifts of Christmas we read the book, and then we did the Christmas Eve reading from the Advent Bible Study we've been doing. The big girls decided to explain each of the candles to Daddy and generally "teach" Daddy what they've been learning, it took a LONG time, but was great to hear what they had learned/remembered from it all, a very nice way to spend the evening. Before bed we quickly made our monkey bread so it could raise overnight and be ready for breakfast.

Christmas was chaotic as usual. Little Bit napped through the first part of the chaos, which was probably just as well. The big girls actually got tired of presents and wanted to sing Christmas carols, but couldn't get people to participate very well, so that didn't work as well as it could have (if I'd known ahead of time I could have had some Christmas music they could have used, but all my Christmas cds were out in the car, and I was busy with Little Bit and trying to keep trash picked up enough that she didn't eat anything she shouldn't LOL). We opened presents, have a huge meal (mostly brought by everyone else, I even flaked on the casserole I'd planned to make & just pulled a Vegetable lasagna out of the freezer instead), and that pretty much took all day.

Little Bit couldn't have cared less about unwrapping HER presents, but kept trying to get into everything else, silly kid. Once they were unwrapped she liked some of her new toys though.

The big girls got lots of books, some games, art supplies (even GLITTER, which is very exciting because Mommy's not a big fan of glitter, thanks Uncle Dan LOL), some Littlest Pet Shop stuff, and I'm sure things I'm forgetting.

This evening, we tried out one of their new games. It's a cooperative game, all about herbal remedies. One thing I wish is that it told HOW to use the herbs, even if it was just a separate booklet, would be great, I told the girls we'll play it during Little Bit's naps sometimes and look up on the computer how to use some of the remedies so we can learn that too, but still a great way to learn what some common medicinal herbs look like & what they are used for. And the girls seemed to enjoy the game.

Now we need to get back to "normal life" LOL.