Christmas 2009

We had an amazing Christmas Eve night and Christmas morning at our house, just the four of usthis year. It was a pretty traditional (or at least traditional for us) Eve. We put London to bed a bit earlier than I planned (and if you read the last post, fill free to chuckle at me), so she didn't partake in quite everything, which is really OK because she wouldn't have really cared eitherway. But Dylan REALLY enjoyed every tradition this year.

The night was started off with a new thing for us,we had an ardors dinner, just a bunch of finger foods and dips. We let the kids sit in the living room around our coffee table with tree all lit up. It was so laid back and easy. We love it and Daniel and I plan for this to be a "forever tradition".

Then I read The Night Before Christmas to the kids. I always get a little choked up when I hear or read the first few lines of that story... it really does get me every time! After that, we put London Lou in the bed and continued the night with Dylan.

He and I made cookies for Santa, then laid on our bellies under the tree to write Santa a letter. I had to show him how to write a few of the letters, but he did "Dear Santa", "I 'heart' (with the heart shape) U", and signed his name. He interpreted the rest to me to write out for him. He also drew Santa a picture. I think the picture was of Dylan being Iron Man, or Zelda (I wish I would have written that down!). The text that he had asked me to write said "I want lots of toys. I have been good every year. That will be all." I had to giggle!Part of me wanted to prompt him to say a little more, but then the letter wouldn't have been straight from Dyl, so I let it be!

By then our cookies were ready, so we put them on there special plate and laid them by the chimney. This is when panic set in for me that we had used that last bit of milk already! It was snowing out (and we don't drive well in snow down here in the south!!) and everything was closed early due to Christmas Eve. So, I sent Daniel next door to our SWEET neighbors house to borrow a glass. Our neighbor just chuckled when Daniel asked for glass of milk for Santa and sweetly let us have. Whew. Crises averted. London was going to need a milk sippy first thing in the morning... so Santa saved the milk for her! haha.

With Milk and Cookies laid out, we curled up onto the couch and listened to Daniel tell the Christmas Story. It was nice to share the Birth of Jesus with Dylan and let him know why we, as Christians, celebrate the season. Then, it was bedy by time for him!

Daniel and I stayed up and put together a play kitchen for the two of them from "Santa", fixed up the stockings, and placed the presents under the tree. I was so excited to see the kids faces in the morning, that I was the last to bed and first awake!

Christmas morning was pretty much perfect, complete with it being a WHITE ONE (the first white Christmas I have EVER had!). I couldn't have asked for anything more. I just kept thinking the whole time how happy my heart was, watching my two sweet babies experiencing Christmas joy. The kids loved all of their presents. Dylan ripped into all of his, stopping only for a second to admire what it was that he had gotten. London wasn't too into the unwrapping process. She would get excited to see a baby doll or pony, she just didn't want to open it herself.

We let the kids play for a few hours (and mommy snuck in a nap), had lunch, and then packed up and headed out to Mississippi for 5 days of time with our family. We so enjoyed our trip! I'll come back and tell more about it in the next few days. We are so glad to be home again and have spent the evening just relaxing. The morning will be all about getting things into order again.

Hope everyone had as an amazing holiday as we did!

*On a side note, this post is getting too long... so I will post pictures of Christmas morning tomorrow! :)

Christmas Eve 2009 -Unplanned.

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I am a planner. Its in my blood. I am maybe a little overyly obsesive about planning. But those who know me well, mostly all love me anyways. :)

So, I had all my plans laid out for today, Christmas Eve, weeks ago. Sure, there were a few loose ends that had to be tied up in the past week or so, but for the most part it was all neatly orchestrated in my head. Sometimes though, no matter how well you plan, even if its down to the tiniest detail, things happen... life happens... and your plans get blown away in the wind.

Today was one of those days, that plans just didn't really matter. I had planned to have my brother and his family over, as well as my mom (who has already been staying at our house since having her big surgery) for a nice Christmas Eve dinner tonight. The plan was to serve a good 'ole Cajun Christmas, just like the ones I grew up with my MamMaw making (whom I miss more than I ever thought I would), with some serious Gumbo and Muffalettas. What I did not plan was for my week to be so crazy and busy that I wouldn't be able to find time to go to the store until the last minute. Once I realized it would be, however, I did plan to go to the store when I got off work last night. Only I didn't plan to be so exhausted I could barely keep my eyes open. So, my new plan was wake up first thing this morning with London Paisley and head out to the store. This wasn't too big of a deal, seeing as how it was already in the plans to go into town to take the kids to see the Jolly Old Man.

Sounds easy enough, right? Christmas Eve, wake up super early, run around and gets erronds done, be home by 10(ish), start the gumbo, have relaxful time with the family until lunch, have light lunch, get the family ready and head out to our church's candle light service, be home by 3:30 and finish getting ready for the dinner tonight, and finally have our big Christmas chindig. Yep. Easy enough. As of last night, that was the plan that was completely mapped out (down to what the kids were wearing all through out the day (yes... with three outfit changes each.. I know, I know).

What I did not plan, I could not have. It snowed. A lot. A whole, whole lot. And messed up ALL of my plans.

My day went more like this (hold onto your seat, its a lot to follow!):

Got up at 6:30 with London this morning, acording to plan.

Had some unplanned, but much loved, girl time with my mom in her bed, snuggling up with London. This is when I found out about the snow.

Panic sets in at about 6:45 when I realize that my brother may not even be able to make it to our shindig tonight, and we can't change our plans to tomorrow, because we already plan to make our trip to Mississippi at about noon.

We go round and round about how we can work it out.

I finally decide at about 7:30 just go get done what has to get done, and leave the grocery shopping for last, that way we can see if the plan works out or not... also known as this strange thing some people do, "playing it by ear"-I for one, am NOT a fan of this method.

Get the whole family dressed and finally get out the door a little before 8.

The next couple hours, take a little longer, but do not involve any snow, and go quite smoothly... almost like they were going according to plan.

Then, wile we are still out, it starts to snow a little. And my brother watches the weather channel to find out that it is going to actually be snowing a lot.

We decide to move the get together up to "12pm to 1pm"- depending on traffic, due the pesky, beautiful snow.

Panic set in because its already 10:30(ish) and I still have quite a bit to get done. And gumbo is out of the question because there is not enough time to cook it. And I don't really have plan b. I don't really do those.

I gather myself and decide we will do some fanastic finger foods. We decide on WingStop. I decide that we need a little something extra, because thats just not enough food, and decide to go to Walmart. Plus, the baby really needs diapers.

11:00am, I have two hours (or one... depending on traffic) to get to Walmart and Wingstop, which should not be a problem because they are ony about 15 min away.

Really LONG (because, really... this is already a long enough story) and EXHAUSTING story short, It takes me much, much, much longer than I had planned to be done with my "quick run out" and I get home about 15 min after my brother's family has arived. And I bring cold wings and fries with me. And some very yummy dips.

Brother has to leave in a bit of a hurry because he has to drive back in the weather, which is only getting worse at this point. So, my nice sit down dinner party (with gifts to follow) tunrs into an "eat quickly and open presents fast" thing.

Once they leave, we hang out for a bit and play in our unplanned for snow and get ready to go to the later candle light service. Once we are all dressed, and walk out the front door, we realize that this crazy storm has blown in a TON of snow in the past half hour, and we can not (or did not) drive in it to church.

So we scrap that plan, and the rest of them too, and just hang out and play in the snow and with our new toys.

*Sigh*

Nothing went as planned. Really, pretty much nothing.

But you know, after the initial craziness of my plans getting blown away in the... snow... Today was one of the best Christmas Eves that I have ever had.

I had planned to have a little time to relax with the family this morning. But instead I had a ton of time to relax with them tonight. My kids got to really play with their things and enjoy them, and each other.

I surely didn't plan the snow, but would have cancelled every plan from now until the New Year to get to see the looks on my kids faces when they walked outside into our Winter Wonderland. They sounds of their giggles were worth more than all the money in the world to me.

I was a bit sad that we didn't get to have much of a Christmas gathering as a whole family, but I am glad my brother and family were able to get home before the weather was too bad.

Lesson learned this Christmas Eve; While going with out a plan is not something that I am usually very comfortable with, it is not always the worst thing in the world. In fact, "going with the flow" can actually turn out to be quite delightful. Very delightful, in fact.

Christmas Crafts

Its Christmas week! I wanted to do a craft each day leading up to Christmas with Dylan starting on Monday. We do crafts pretty often as is, but I just thought it would be fun and festive to make a big deal out of doing "Today's Christmas Craft!". He gets pretty excited to look at the options in my craft corner and pick what he is going to do that day. Yesterday was so stinkin busy for us, that we hardly had time to turn around, much less craft. So today, I told him we would do two crafts to make up for it.

After MUCH debate, he settled on doing this wooden Christmas tree. I though it would be a cute keepsake that I will put out on a table or somewhere every Christmas. I can't think of decoration I would like more than those that my kids make! I decided I would paint a little sign that said "Believe". He really took his time and tried to cover the whole tree green (like most kids, he usually slops the color on there really quickly and has lots of spaces). He dotted a little yellow at the top for the star. I told him that we needed to wait for the tree to dry before he painted any decorations onto it. I offered for him to help me finish my craft, but he decline and went about his way playing make believe. I couldn't get him to be interested in it again after that. So, here is our plane green tree. I may have him decorate it tomorrow. Or I may not. I kind of like it plane, just the way that it is. It very much characteristic of him at this age.


Dylan decided that he really wanted to wait for his Daddy to come home so that he could help us when we made our gingerbread house. I'm glad that we did. Not only was it nice to do something all together, but that thing was SO messy, and I really needed that extra pair of hands! London was already asleep when we started making it. I'm glad because my poor girly would have been so miserable not being able to eat everything and be in everything with her hands. She just thinks she is a big girl, bless her sweet heart! I can't wait until she is old enough to really join us! Dylan had trouble not eating everything on the table as well! haha! He loved the icing.

This was our first attempt at one of these things together as a family. It was so so messy and I think we added too much water to the icing, it was just every where! We had a lot of fun and giggles making it though, and its something we will definitely do next year and every year after. Next year, maybe London Paisley will be old enough to "help" out some! I bet so!

Our house is not perfect, but it does have a lot of charm!

I even set the self timer on my little camera and got a pic of the three of us. Please excuse my no make up face! haha!

Here is a pic of all of our little Christmas Crafts from today. Ahhh. I love this time of the year!

Ready. Set. GO!!!

Is anyone else's head spinning from the business that is Christmas week. I don't think I am going to have one single day between now and the New Year that doesn't have something pretty large planned. I love this time of the year, but the week leading up to Christmas always stresses me out. Not only do I have event and such to partake in this week, I have to GET READY for Christmas. I still have to wrap ALL of my presents. I still have a few small presents to pick up. and I need my carpets cleaned. Oh. And we are in the middle of (try to) redecorating our living room. Oh. And. I'm hosting Christmas Eve at my house and have not bought groceries. Fun Times.

At least I have these beauties to look at while I'm a busy bee:

Hope y'all are having a Happy Monday!

Baby, Its COLD Outside!

This isn't a long post because, well... I'm popped. Just plain 'ole TIRED.

My mom had spinal surgery yesterday. It went well, but was such a looooong day. The surgery took 5 hours!! Yikes! I was lonely and ready to see my mom/kids/hubby. I didn't even get to see her until 9:30 last night (after being at the hospital since 11:30 am!). I got home at midnight and crashed!

Today was a whirlwind. School for Dylan while London and I ran some errands, first time attempting nap without binkie, more errands, dinner with the family at Wendy's (because thats all we had time for), hospital to see my mom, visit with her a my brother, come home, fill out some paper work for very exciting adventure ahead, give baths, send kids to bed (well, London was already asleep from the car ride home), and now about to go cuddle in bed with the hubby and have some meaningful pillow talkimpose upon him with my chatter even though he is falling asleep! Whew.

By the way, its finally feeling like a real Winter down here in the Dallas area! I LOVE it. And I love this little hat. I also love the adorable little girl in the hat. And her brother. And father.

25 Days of Christmas!

I meant to write this post on Dec 1, but better late than never, no?

I have decided that this year I am going to do something each day from December first through December 25 to celebrate Christmas. It doesn't have to be anything big, just something fun and special. Its our way to countdown to Christmas! Dylan is very excited about the hollidays this year. The older he gets, the more fun it is to celebrate as a family. London, well she is just loving our Christmas lights this year. I know she will be much more into the festivities next year.

So to play a little catch up on our countdown, this is what we've done so far:

1st Day of Christmas (Dec 1): We decorated the tree! Started our advent calender. I took some Christmasy photos of the little ones and as a extra special treat, sugar free candy canes!

2nd Day of Christmas: We sang lots of Christmas carols and Dylan got an extra special video from Santa!!! (from this web site...http://portablenorthpole.tv/home).

3rd Day of Christmas: We went to our first Christmas party of the year. Dylan got to watch Charlie Brown Christmas!

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let is SNOW!!

We usually see snow down here in Dallas, Texas about once a year. Maybe. Sometimes, not at all (I'm pretty sure it didn't snow last year?) So yesterday, when to forecaster said that we had a chance of snow, I said "yeh right!" So, imagine my surprise when, 1)London didn't wake up until am!! (that's like sleeping until noon for her!) and then 2)looking out the window at 2 am to see SNOW!! You guys in the north will probably chuckle to see the "snow" that we get so excited about. It was only about an inch and a half, but it was enough to get a little gitty about! I ran to

Dylan's room and woke him up immediately! You should have seen his little eyes when I told him it was snowing! He jumped straight up out of bed and into some clothes. This was his first reaction to the snow:

London took a little while to warm up to the snow. She only wanted to be held by Daniel for the first few minutes. Which was A-OK by him!

The kids were much to intrigued with the snow to stop for a picture, but mean mommy made them anyways. This is as good as it got:

And Little Bit did eventually agree to get down in the snow. She tried to stomp around in it for a bit, but gave up promptly after falling down once. She and I have decided that we are not snow bunnies. Its only nice to look at.

Before London's meltdown about falling in the snow/mommy being sick of being wet and cold, and all of us heading back inside, there was even a snow ball fight!

*Please excuse the fact that her hat does NOT match her coat. Since its normally not even very cold here yet, I still have not bought he hat and mittens! Oh, and Daniel couldn't find his gloves, so he is wearing mine. And also, he is in his pj sweat shirt! lol! What do you want, we were in HURRY to get to that snow! hahaha!*