Christmas Traditions at Our House

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I surprised the girls, with Frosty in our bathtub a few days before Christmas.

Our Christmas begins around suppertime on Christmas Eve. When the twins were itty bitty, we started the tradition of pizza on Christmas Eve, because ordering a pizza delivered was a way to have a "treat" and keep the kitchen clean for the Christmas Day company. Over the years, it's varied whether we order delivery (when we first moved to PA, we discovered that there were no pizza delivery places that were OPEN on Christmas Eve. . . now, we live far enough out, I don't think there are any pizza places that deliver, ever), made our own pizza, picked it up from a local pizza place that doesn't deliver, or used frozen pizzas. Whatever we do, it's pizza, and that makes it tradition. 

Another Christmas Eve tradition is the Christmas Eve presents. Ever since the twins' first Christmas, we have had a few, select, Christmas Eve presents. They are always the "same", but the girls love it. Each of the girls gets to open Christmas pajamas, or nightgowns (for the last several years, my mom has made nightgowns for the girls).  The other presents for Christmas Eve are to be shared, but there are 3, since there are 3 girls. In theory, they are books, DVDs, or games, to be read/watched/played that evening. Whether we actually use them all that evening, varies. This year, when we did our Christmas Unit Study in November, Little Bit fell in love with the Grinch movie, and was so sad when it had to go back to the library. So that was this year's Christmas Eve DVD. She watched it 3-4 times before bedtime, and 3 or 4 more times on Christmas day LOL.

After supper, and presents, the big girls decided they wanted to paint their nails. Not to be left out, Little Bit asked if she could paint Daddy's toes. She got rags, and put them under his feet, then Lexie helped her, to make sure nothing spilled on the floor. Daddy now has VERY colorful toes :) 

By the time all the nails (Daddy's toes, and big girls' nails) were well-painted, it was almost bedtime, and that meant Monkey Bread time. Monkey Bread is terribly NOT healthy (though some year I'm going to play around with using homemade, whole wheat, dough), but it's yummy AND a way to have a treat for Christmas morning without taking a bunch of time on Christmas morning. The girls all prepare the monkey bread right before bed, then it raises all night (this year I put it IN the oven to raise, to keep the cats away from it) and on Christmas morning we just put it in the oven, and we're ready to go. 

Christmas morning starts with stockings. Since we give the girls gifts for Hanukkah, stockings are the only gifts we give them. 

Once the stockings had been opened, we baked the Monkey Bread, and Lexie and Ashlyn had some of the instant (decaf) coffee from their stockings, while Rodney and I enjoyed our real coffee, hee hee.

Then, after the final clean-up in preparation for the grandparents, the girls decided to exchange the gifts they'd gotten, or made, for each other, and for Rodney and me.

By then it was about time for the grandparents to start getting there.

Little Bit loved her Hello Kitty necklace

With the coming of the grandparents, there was much more present-opening to keep everyone occupied. Little Bit can read her own name, so she busily set to work finding all HER presents, and tearing through them as fast as possible. She also discovered that everyone ELSE was willing to let her "help" open their presents, so she got plenty of present-opening in.

Lexie was thrilled to get a music stand to make violin practice easier!

Little Bit ran right upstairs to try on her shirt from Aunt Darla.

Once the present chaos was contained, we fixed dinner. With our small house, that required cleaning up most of the mess from presents, so we'd have room to set up the table, but that made clean-up that evening much easier than it has been some years LOL. Lexie and Ashlyn worked together to arrange the veggie tray Christmas Tree. Some other Christmas Dinner traditions we have include spiced hot apple cider. I throw it in the Crockpot before everyone gets here, and let it "brew" all day. It's yummy, makes the house smell great, and is no effort at mealtime.  We also keep dessert simple, and just have whatever Christmas cookies we have made, or other people bring.

There's no way of avoiding having things be abit crowded when we have a meal with lots of people in our house, but it was fun just the same. By the time everyone had eaten and we'd cleared things up enough that people could walk through the house again, it was time for the grandparents to start packing up and head home.

Christmas evening is laid back and relaxing. If anyone is hungry for supper, we just pull out leftovers from lunch. I think Little Bit watched the Grinch a few more times. Lexie curled up with a new book for awhile . . . all 3 girls spent time checking out various Christmas gifts. It was calm and laid back and a perfect end to a busy day with family :)

Merry Christmas!

I know I have other updates to do, but for the moment . . . wishing you all a merry Christmas!

Because of the chaos in our housing situation right now, we opted to have Christmas at my parents' house this year. And to further complicate things, in a part of the country that almost NEVER has snow until January or later, it snowed on our way to my parents' house on Christmas Eve. And the forecast was for more snow starting during the night tonight, so we adjusted our plans, and headed home late this afternoon instead of coming home tomorrow as we'd originally planned. . . Still we had a nice time at my parents' house (but it re-emphasized to me why we usually do Christmas here, it's a PAIN to have to pack and unpack and load and unload all the kid-stuff!)

We got to my parents' house yesterday afternoon and the girls helped Mama decorate the Christmas tree, then they got to decorate Christmas cookies!

After supper the girls opened their traditional Christmas Eve presents of nightgowns that Mama made (see pictures further down of the big girls wearing theirs, Little Bit's ended up being a little too big and she's not big on clothes anyway. She's doing better about staying dressed at our house, but since my parents' keep their house quite abit warmer than we keep our house, it's a real challenge to keep ANY clothes on her there LOL) and a game and video. This year, the video was a Leapfrog Christmas video, so Little Bit enjoyed that while the big girls and I played their new Farmer's Market game. Then we headed to bed.

Christmas morning started with stockings . . . we had to improvise, since the girls' stockings are packed in a box somewhere in our mountain of boxes, but mom found some stockings that would work (as long as we didn't worry too much about the names on them LOL).

After stockings, we had breakfast (Mama's more ambitious than me, so she made Hungarian Breakfast Cake instead of the monkey bread I usually make, YUM!!!), and I read the girls the final chapter of Bartholomew's Passage (our Advent book this year. They enjoyed it, though there were some things I didn't like about this one), then we got started on presents.

 Little Bit was having great fun passing out gifts as quickly as possible, and THEN she figured out where to look on the tags to see who the gift was for. She can't read much yet, but she CAN read her name, so from then on, she just looked at the packages until she found one with her name on it, then opened it LOL.

Once everything was opened, she was happy to sit down and play with things.

Later in the day, Rodney's sister and her husband, and my brother all joined us for dinner.

After dinner, we exchanged gifts with those who weren't there earlier. Little Bit was funny, it took her a minute to realize she really did get another gift, since, we'd told her the presents were "all done" when she'd opened the last of hers during the morning presents.

The girls also had to show Aunt Lynette & Uncle Dave their play house. Dave & Lynette were duly impressed, hee hee.

Then, thanks to the coming snow, we had to load everything up and head out.

And that was our Christmas, 2012.

Review and GIVEAWAY: Christmas Lodge

Giveaway is now closed. Congratulations to Laura Lane, our new winner!

I love Thomas Kinkade's artwork, and I love Christmas movies, so it was a no-brainer to say yes when I was given the chance to review Thomas Kinkade's "Christmas Lodge" DVD.

This morning while the girls and Rodney were visiting Grandmom I curled up with a pumpkin spice latte and some leftover apple dutch baby pancake and thoroughly enjoyed this movie!

Of course, I got impatient and STARTED watching the movie before the girls left, so as soon as they got home this evening they begged to finish watching the movie, so now we're watching it again, hee hee.

In a nutshell, this is a movie about a city girl who rediscovers Christmas Lodge, a mountain lodge her family used to visit when she was a little girl. Now it's falling apart, and she decides to help the current owner get the financing and help he needs to renovate it and re-open the lodge. In the process she brings her family closer together and falls in love.

It's a great, feel-good movie that I suspect will be a Christmas favorite in this house full of girls! One consideration, there are quite a few references to grandma being in heaven and "speaking" to her, etc. which goes against our belief, that those who have died are sleeping until Jesus comes to raise them again. But since the belief that the dead in Christ go straight to heaven is the belief of most Christians this isn't surprising and I'll gladly accept this in order to have a wholesome movie where unmarried couples get SEPARATE rooms when they go away for a weekend in the mountains, grace is said before meals, and prayer and God's will are prevalent throughout!

I highly recommend this movie!!!!

And now the fun part, I get to give a free copy of this DVD to one of my readers!!! If you'd like a chance at winning this video, leave a comment for each entry opportunity below, and make sure to include an e-mail address or other way for me to easily contact you:

• Mandatory Entry:  What's your favorite Christmas tradition?

Additional entries (leave a separate comment for each)

• Follow my blog on Google Friend Connect (see side bar)
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And now the "fine print" giveaway open to US addresses only. You must be over 18 to enter. Giveaway closes on November 10 at 8pm Eastern. Winner will be notified and will have 2 days to reply or another winner will be chosen.

"Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one or more of the products or services 

mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Regardless, I 

only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. 

I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: 

"Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising." 

Weekly Wrap-Up - December 27

This past week was, of course, all about Christmas!!

We were busy cleaning, getting presents ready, making cookies, cooking and such.  We did continue with school, to keep up with our review items, and our Jesus Tree devotions.

Rodney was home on Wednesday & Thursday so that gave him and the big girls a chance to make dozens of cookies and other such fun things.

The girls were very proud of themselves for making the alpine casserole for Christmas dinner "all by ourselves" (though Mommy DID chop the onions, they haven't yet found a way to do that without "crying" so they don't like to do it)

We celebrated Christmas, with all the grandparents and such here, on Friday, so did our typical "Christmas Eve" traditions on Thurs evening.

They eagerly opened their new Christmas nightgowns (from Mama & Papa, Mama made them and sent them home with us after our anniversary weekend). Little Bit, despite being a confirmed nudist, was excited to put it on (she likes clothes in theory, she just doesn't like keeping them on LOL). And then was VERY excited when, abit later, she realized that hers was just like big sisters' nightgowns. It was so cute to see her realize it and "tell us" by pulling on her nightgown and then pointing to A1's.  And with the incentive of being "just like sisters" she actually kept hte nightgown on ALL NIGHT (and most of the next day LOL, the big girls also decided to wear their new nightgowns all day Fri. instead of getting dressed).

Then they moved on to their Christmas Eve gifts. Which are always books, games or videos, that we can play, read or watch on Christmas Eve. This year I opted to get a game the big girls would enjoy, and a video, Elmo's Christmas Countdown  that I figured was primarily for Little Bit. My thought was that she could watch the video while the big girls & I played the game, without her "help".  As it turned out, while they liked the game, they also liked the video, so we started it over after we finished the game, so they could see the whole thing LOL. I must admit, if we must watch the world's most annoying red monster, this video was less annoying than most Elmo things. After that we made our annual monkey bread, read their new book, and sent them off to bed.

So that was our "Christmas Eve". Friday morning everyone actually SLEPT IN!! We're in a nice little pocket of time where the big girls are big enough to figure the stockings will still be there, so they don't have to get up at the crack of dawn, and Little Bit's too young to know she needs to wake up at the crack of dawn LOL. Got up, the girls opened their stockings, the monkey bread baked, we did some final cleaning & dinner prep type stuff, then read the Christmas story out of the Bible, and the girls put Baby Jesus in His nice, soft manger. At the beginning of the month we made a paper nativity set (since all my other nativities had the baby attached to the manger), minus the baby, and any time I "caught" the girls being kind without being told, they got to add a piece of "hay" (yarn) to the manger, so Christmas morning they got to put Jesus in the manger.

By then family was starting to arrive, and so the present-opening began. I realized when I looked on my camera just now, that I really didn't take any pictures, will have to get pictures from my Dad and SIL. The big girls were thrilled with their new American Girl dolls (A1 got Ruthie, Kit's friend, and A2 got Elizabeth, Felicity's friend (not that she has Felicity, but she wanted Elizabeth because she has "removable earrings" and Felicity and co were being retired as of this Christmas, so if she was going to get Elizabeth it was going to have to be now). My mom surprised me by giving me Felicity (my favorite), so now the girls are quite sure that I should "play American Girls" with them sometimes, we shall see LOL. They were also thrilled with the AG accessories they got from each other, and from us, as well as the plethora of books, Schleich animals, etc. Another hit was the doll A1 got for A2.  When we were in Goodwill a week or so before Christmas, Little Bit was loving all the dolls, and A1 said she wanted to get her one for Christmas. I have to admit, I was less then thrilled, since I knew she was getting several other dolls for Christmas and felt like another one was really not needed, but also didn't want to discourage generosity, so agreed. The doll she chose was a larger, nicely weighted baby doll. Little Bit loved it, and enjoyed carrying it around. But A2 *also* fell in love with it because of it being a good size to be a "real baby" for her, and being weighted enough to feel more real as well.  At some point (I'm not sure when, A1 decided to give it to A2 instead of Little Bit, which was fine with me, though A2 has had to "share" some, since Little Bit does love the doll as well).  A1 was excited to give A2 the doll and A2 was thrilled to get it, so it was a hit all around and fun to see A1 being excited about the "giving" side of Christmas. The picture on the right shows A2 "wearing" her new doll in my Kozy Karrier.

Little Bit loved her dolls and Schleich animals, the obnoxious Elmo puzzle that will be going to live at Mama & Papa's house next time we got there, TWO stuffed Elmos (and yes, we must bring them BOTH with us, everywhere we go), and the felt house that my mom made. It's a fitted "table cloth" to go over our card table (the idea being, it can be folded up and put away when not in use, but that seems to be several months down the road, as much as she's loving it LOL). It's currently in the middle of our (rather small) living room, I'm trying to decide if I should make room for it in the girls' room, or in a corner of the living room. I'm thinking for right now, the living room is the better option. It will allow the big girls to play house in it during Little Bit's naps, and give her more time to play in it since she can't go upstairs to play w/o the big girls up there with her. I THINK with a little rearranging, it will fit into a corner where it won't be TOO in the way, we shall see . . . But she definitely LOVES it!

After presents were open and Little Bit was napped, we fixed, and ate lunch, then visited some more before everyone headed home.

After everyone left, the big girls got dressed (after wearing their new nightgowns all day), and we put together a plate of cookies to take up to our neighbors, and adopted grandparents, the Butlers. I'd told Judy ahead of time which dolls the girls were getting, so she'd made an outfit for each of their new dolls, as well as getting Little Bit a very cool book, and making her a basket bed for the doll we gave her for Christmas.  Then the big girls & I (and the Butlers) headed to the church to go caroling, while Rodney took Little Bit home (he decided watching Little Bit was preferable to being out in the cold, singing LOL. And I was just as glad to not have to keep track of Little Bit during caroling). The girls LOVED caroling, and want to do it every year (I told them that would, obviously,  depend on whether the church does it every year, I don't think they have in the past, so not sure if this was a one time thing because Christmas Eve coincided with Friday night).

It made for a late night after a busy day. Sabbath morning I had to wake all 3 kids (and Rodney) up at 8:30 which meant we didn't make it to church in time for the big girls to do a craft at 9:15, but it was my week to provide the craft, so the girls just did it in church instead (using pipe cleaners and red & white pony beads to make "candy canes").

And that was our week. I hope all the rest of you had a wonderful Christmas as well!

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.

Homeschooling in December

We're mixing things up abit this month on the school-front. I gave the girls the option of taking a break from Polished Cornerstones and doing Christmas-themed Bible studies instead, and they opted for Christmas-themed. So we are using an Advent Family Bible Study that I had in my files. The girls are enjoying marking the verses in their Bibles and learning more about the prophesies and such surrounding Jesus' birth.

We've also decided to take a few weeks off from Prairie Primer and concentrate on reading Christmas stories together instead.

We're also putting a "Christmas" slant to our nature time. So far all we've done is gone on a nature walk around the property where we live (Thursday morning was absolutely BEAUTIFUL weather for it, unseasonably warm and sunny) and collected a variety of evergreen branches and other things to decorate our Advent candles. I think as we move into a new week we'll study evergreen trees and if time allows, other typical "Christmas" plants and such.

We're continuing to use Little Bit's morning naptime for crafts and such, and the girls have already made bead napkin rings that we can use for Christmas dinner, as well as wrapping up some odds and ends of crafts we'd started earlier.

Our Christmas decorating is rather non-traditional with the pink & purple trees (did I mention those yet? That's what happens when A1 and Daddy go Christmas tree shopping, sigh . . . ) but we put one in each of the front living room windows and the girls went through the ornaments and chose select ones and they don't look TOO horrible, and having them up in the window sills puts them out of Little Bit's reach.

As we go into this next week we'll also start getting ready for our first trip with Daddy for his job. It'll be a quick trip, but will give us a chance to try out taking our "school on the road". Since we've already been using spiral notebooks for copywork, etc, I think we'll consolidate each girl's spiral notebooks into a 3-ring binder, along with a "pencil case" that fits into the binder and will hold, not only pencils, but scissors, tape, glue, etc for any crafts we want to do while we're gone. They also already have travel lap desks that have markers, colored pencils, and a white board w/ dry erase markers, so those will go with us as well. So that should complete the girls' "travel school" kits, that we can grab and go as needed. Each trip will mean I'll need to plan ahead & print off, photocopy whatever we'll need for those days, but not having to pull the girls' stuff together will make things much easier, and teach them responsibility at the same time.

Merry Christmas!!!

Last night didn't go exactly as planned, turns out pizza places around here are closed on Christmas Eve, so we ended up fixing a frozen pizza instead. But by the time we figured that all out, it was late enough that we didn't get a chance to watch the video. The girls were ok with that, thrilled with their Christmas Jammies, and we enjoyed playing the new game, and they also played checkers with Daddy. Then they helped me make the monkey bread, and went to bed.

This morning A came to our bed by 6:30, but to her credit, stayed quiet (just VERY wiggly) until I started talking to her. What I found more amusing is that it took them awhile to even remember their stockings. We went downstairs, they were anxious for me to get the monkey bread in the oven . . . and FINALLY they noticed that their stockings were no longer empty, silly kids.

Waiting for Mama & Papa (& my grandparents) to get here was hard, but they did pretty well. I finally let them call Papa to see where they were & they were only about 1/2 hour away, so by the time both girls chatted both Mama's AND Papa's ears off, I could send the girls out to the porch to watch for them LOL.

Christmas was it's normal chaos, though the girls were able to read most of the name tags so I could hand-down the "pass-out-the-gifts" job to them. Both girls were thrilled w/ what they got each other. L was very happy with the potholder loom & cotton loops, she's already made a potholder. A got a "learn to knit" kit. And while she's expressed some frustration that it's not as instantaneous as the weaving loom, she's stuck with it pretty well, and is starting to get it slowly but surely. . . so I think in the long run she'll be very proud of herself. She's been wanting to learn to knit for ages (ever since I started trying to teach myself) and I'd been putting her off based on me still trying to figure it out for myself. She's already itching to get her fingers on my yarn stash LOL. When the girls stayed with Mama & Papa for our anniversary, Lexie really took to the weaving activity in the quiet book mom took to church, which is what gave mom the idea of getting the potholder loom. The family ornament we got this year is a picture frame so we had Papa take some family pictures of the 4 of us. And no, A never got dressed today, she insisted her Christmas pjs were the most "Christmassy" thing she owned & so she had to wear them all day LOL.

I'm so excited, Mom & Dad gave me the pampered chef stoneware muffin pan. I've been alternating between using my cast iron (mickey & heart shaped) muffin pans (that are hard to get out becuase of being odd shapes) & using the teflon ones & putting cupcake papers in it. . . Now I have no excuse to not make muffins more often LOL.

While my parents were here, Dad helped me with a couple small "fix-it" projects. I needed more light in the basement where my candle table is, and had lights from where I had the candle stuff at our old house, but dh hadn't found time to hang the lights, so Dad did that. Also, a few weeks ago the overhead light in the girls' room stopped working. I'll admit I hadn't gotten around to climbing up there (it's over the loft bed) to check the lightbulb, but since Dad put in a new light fixture when he built the loft bed (the old fixture hung too low, kids' would've hit their heads all the time) and put a cfl bulb in it, I was doubtful that it was the bulb anyway. So . . . Dad looked into that, turns out it's the switch that's bad, so I need to let the landlord know, and then we'll see if they get around to fixing it for us before Dad's here again.

Mom & Dad also helped us finally put the rug down in the dining room. I bought a rug (actually 3 small rugs because they were out of the big one I liked/could afford) at Ikea right after we moved in, so that I didn't have to worry about kids (and grown-ups for that matter) spilling food (I really, really, really dislike having the only eating area in the house carpeted) but by the time I had things unpacked enough that there was room to put the rugs down I was pregnant and our dining room table's REALLY heavy so it takes 2 people to lift it. Was much easier w/ all 4 of us so dad & dh could lift & mom & I could be one on each side getting stuff centered. So that's finally done, whew!

Tomorrow we celebrate Christmas w/ dh's family.

Merry Christmas 2008!

Wishing everyone out in blogland a very merry Christmas 2008. The presents are wrapped, the stocking goodies are ready to be loaded into the stocking once kiddos are in bed, the house is as clean as it's gonna get . . .

And so we begin our Christmas eve celebration. Daddy's bringing pizza home. The girls will open their Christmas eve gifts, which just happen to always be Christmas jammies, and 2 of the following: book, video, or board game. Then we'll enjoy our evening eating pizza, watching the video, playing games, reading stories and just being together. The girls have also asked to help make the monkeybread (that is part of Christmas morning breakfast) tonight, so we'll do that as well, and probably set the table in preparation for dinner tomorrow, although I might save that for tomorrow morning since farther drive-time for the grandparents means longer wait-time for kids before we open presents tomorrow (stockings are as soon as we get up, other presents wait for the grandparents to get here). . .

A couple cute things I forgot to mention last night . . .

My brother made some smart remark to me & I retaliated by throwing tissue paper at him, after the girls gleefully joined in an all out paper fight, L told me that I should be nice. I replied with "but he was mean to me!" to which she replied "Mommy, don't you remember the Golden Rule?" ummm . . . yes dear. . . LOL.

Uncle Dan had entirely too much fun ribbing dh about the recent Ravens/Dolphins football game with the help of the girls' new (or almost new) Raven & Dolphin (the animals, not the football teams) puppets.

The girls generally have abit of drama over who sits next to them, or doesn't sit next to them at big family dinners. I found a LOVELY solution to that drama. I printed out Christmas place cards that I found online, wrote everyone's names on them, and had the girls put them on the table however they wanted before people got here. It worked beautifully, and kept the kids entertained for a few minutes while we were waiting for people to get here. And the girls even managed to put all the married couples together (except my parents, since Mama must ALWAYS sit between the girls, but Papa was on the other side of Ashlyn, so at least close by), which doesn't always happen when everyone just sits where they want because the last few people to the table just kind of fill in the blanks LOL. AND totally on accident, they put all 3 lefties together on one side of the table, again something, people rarely think to do, but makes elbows much less troublesome. Especially since 10 at our table is the max we can fit, even with all the leaves in.K

A Good Time Was Had By All

At least I think so . . . LOL.

Last night was nice, we ate our pizza, the girls were soo excited about their Christmas PJs, it was really cute, you'd have thought we'd given them the moon. Also cute/interesting observation, they (I think it was L, but can't swear to it) asked "how did you buy these without us seeing them? I told them (truthfully) that I'd found them on sale last year & saved them :) We enjoyed playing the new Christmas game, then the neighbor brought gifts for the girls, so they opened them as well. Then off to bed in their new jammies, and we read their new book as one of their bedtime stories.

Christmas morning, A was in our bed by 6:22, though she was good & just crawled into bed w/ us. Of course she wiggled non-stop until I gave up on her OR me getting any more sleep and we got up. Of course, while I was in the bathroom she went running & woke L up, so we went downstairs and opened stockings.

Then we ate breakfast, and the girls got dressed and such and we waited for the grandparents to get here.

And then the chaos began, and lasted the rest of the day LOL. The girls were hyper pretty much all day, alternated between being too busy for presents & wanting to tear through them as fast as they could.

After dinner/lunch (whatever you call a meal at 2pm LOL), the girls talked Papa, and later Mama, into taking them outside to play for awhile.

This evening Aunt Lynette & Uncle Dave stopped by and the girls had great fun torturing Uncle Dave.

And now, they're peacefully sleeping, my nice clean house is trashed once again . . . and I'm exhausted LOL. But no major mishaps, so we'll call it a success :)

If you want to see the rest of the pictures (mine anyway, will have to bug Dad to give me any he took), they're here.

Merry Christmas!!

The pizza's in the oven, when it's done we'll eat supper, then enjoy an evening with the girls, they'll open their Christmas PJs, a Christmas book, and a Christmas game so we can play games & read stories & such this evening, then tomorrow our parents & my grandparents & brother are coming over, and possibly SIL & BIL (dh's sister & her husband) later in the day, though last I heard they aren't.

Here's wishing all of you a very Merry Christmas!!!

Putting on a Play

A month or so ago Sam's had LED Christmas lights, so I grabbed a box, thinking one box would be enough (I desperately wanted to switch to LED lights last Christmas but the only place I found white ones (I'm not a fan of colored lights on trees) the price was insane, so I stuck w/ regular lights last year. But was excited to find white LED lights at Sam's when the Christmas stuff started coming out this year). Then we had the whole tree fiasco, and I finally last night, set up our borrowed tree, and I was 1 strand short :( So, today I went to Sam's (needed eggs anyway)to get another box of lights (figured I could use the other 2 strands outside or on the banister or something) and they don't have them anymore :( They have 1001 OTHER LED lighting options, snowflakes, icicles lights, stakes to stick in your yard . . . I'm not sure what all, but NOT plain old tree lights. So I stopped at Walmart, and didn't find ANY LED lights there (they had the colored ones last year, just not plain white). So I gave up and came home. We had put off decorating the tree entirely too long already (& I'm not at all hopeful at finding white LED lights at a price I'm willing to pay anyway, so why put it off). So . . . I went looking for the non-LED lights to use for the final strand. The box that had the lights in it, also had the Veggie Tales Nativity that my aunt & uncle gave the girls for Christmas last year and the girls were thrilled to find it. Last year they didn't really get "role playing" in the sense of using puppets or whatever to act out a story, but now they do, and they know the story enough to (sort of) tell it from memory. So they set up a bunch of other toys as the "audience" and just finished acting out the Christmas story with the Veggie Tales set.

The ongoing Christmas Tree saga . . .

We apparently aren't supposed to actually get our Christmas tree up this year, at least not in my normal "right after Thanksgiving" timeframe. My parents did their part and delivered their tree to dh on Monday, but somehow between dh & I, we haven't managed to actually get the tree here & in the house yet (it was in dh's car Mon night but I didn't think to have him bring it in, then yesterday he got a nail in his tire, so he drove something else home last night until they could get the tire fixed in the car the tree is in, and of course, didn't think to x-fer the tree to the car he drove home, so even when I remembered to ask him about going out to get the tree, it was half an hour away, not here, so that didn't happen . . .)

Which was all fine, because my best guess of what happened to the top 2/3 of our tree is that it got mixed up w/ one of the Beginner SS trees at church, so I mentioned all this to the Beginners leader & she was planning to go to the church today to decorate the Beginners room for Christmas. Since my girls adore playing w/ her kids, and more hands make things go much quicker, I was going to meet her at the church, help her decorate the room, and at the same time, see if I could find my tree. SO . . . when dh said he'd forgotten the tree last night, I figured that worked out well, it gave me an excuse to put it off until after I checked at the church for my tree (because my tree is MUCH easier to set up, if i have all the pieces, than my parents' tree) but now that's not happening . . . .so we shall see . . . but we're still treeless, sigh . . .

In an odd switch, I DO have our Christmas letter written, but was wanting to at least take a stab at getting the girls to sit in front of the tree for a picture to include, we'll see if that happens. I *have* decided that the whole "saving paper" ecological argument is a lovely argument for sending e-mail Christmas letters for those on my list who have e-mail addresses, so that will make the actual sending of the Christmas letters not take nearly as long as when I actually did them all by hand :) And I think the girls will enjoy helping to put stamps & such on the ones that I do mail.

Other Christmas decorating and such is kind of stalled waiting for the tree, since all the decorations are packed together and somehow getting the ornaments out before the tree is up strikes me as an overall recipe for disaster. But if it doesn't happen soon, I might at least have to go digging for our Christmas CDs (just thought of somewhere else that at least a couple might be), I think the girls are old enough to enjoy learning Christmas carols and I love Christmas music anyway :)

This summer I DID manage to find the sticker advent calendars that I got in an after Christmas sale when the girls were 9 mo old so we have those to use this year, and my mom gave the girls an advent calendar from where she works that has a small book that tells part of the Christmas story. The girls are excited about it and can't wait to start in on Sabbath. I had been wanting to pour a set of Advent candles to use this year, but I've been busy pouring candle orders and I think between the sticker calendar and the book calendar we'll just stick w/ that for this year. Next year I want to do the Advent candles, complete with daily readings or a Jesse tree, I have a year to decide which LOL.