Ramblings at Midnight

Hope everyone is enjoying the final countdown to Christmas. I'm so excited about seeing Isabella open her presents this year that I feel like the kid waiting for Christmas morning. Of course, Amelia will be cute as well, and I'm excited about it being her first Christmas, but this is the first year that I think Isabella will be so much fun. I asked her yesterday if she wanted a present for Christmas and she said yes, and I said "Just one present?" to which she responded "No, I want twos presents" --- how cute is that, to which I thought, man we could have gotten off really cheap this year just buying her two little presents. :) I actually wrapped a couple presents and put them under the tree just last night. I hadn't done it before because I believe Isabella has my "patience" and "curiousity" where she would have a hard time resisting trying to open or peek at the presents --- trust me, I had my share of sneaking around to find presents when I was a kid. She keeps staring at the presents, touching them, asking about them, in anticipation of opening them. It was fun tonight, she and I wrapped up the gifts she will be giving everyone -- I think I mentioned that I took her to the dollar store and had her shop for her cousins, Papa and Noni, Uncle Mike, Aunt "Mimi" and Daddy. We got them gifts from us, but I wanted her to pick out things for them to give them. I had to ask her before we got in the store what kinds of things each of them liked -- if not she would look at the first thing in front of her or something she would like and say "Daddy would like this doll" Anyway, its kind of cute the things she picked out because of what she knows that they like -- I honestly did not try to change what she picked out so some of the gifts are kind of funny -- like hairbows with lady bugs on them for my sil because she said "Aunt Mimi likes ladybugs. She'd like hairbows" :) I guess Olivia will end up wearing them. The other thing I have learned is that this child cannot keep a secret. She bought her Daddy a pen and told him last night just that. When I told her not to tell Daddy because its a surprise, she got all "pouty" and said "But I got him a pen" (Like, why can't I tell him, its the truth.) We also started playing this game where she hides these little --- I can't think of the proper terminology for those little weeble wobble shaped people (ours are nutcrackers) that open up and have another one inside and then another, etc. Anyway, she hides her eyes and I take each of them and hide it around the room and she comes to find them. Then she wants me to hide my eyes and she will hide them, but when I open my eyes and start looking, she runs over to one and says "Right here!" She's too excited that she shows me, no matter how hard I try to get her to let me find them, she will at least stand right next to them even if she isn't pointing at it. Cute, but you might want to be careful what you tell her. :) The good thing is, she also tells on herself because she can't even keep that a secret. The picture was taken last week while visiting a "gingerbread village" -- my poor girls had to wear their bibs once again, they are going to think they had no other clothes to wear all December, I'm sure this will end up being some kind of joke with them when they are teenagers. :) I had hoped to put them all bundled in Christmas/wintery sweaters, but we are having very warm weather - even for us - this year. Just today it was in the high 60s or low 70s. Definitely not bundling up kind of weather. I haven't even used my winter coat once this season. Not complaining, we don't get white Christmases and last year we had a terrible ice storm and had a few big trees fall way to close to our house, so I'll take a sunny Christmas over that any day. Again, I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays!

My Angel

Thought I would post one picture from this weekend. We had our cantata at church on Sunday where Isabella got to dress up as a little angel. She and her friend Makenna are not quite 3 and Tessa the girl behind Isabella is 4 -- the rest of the girls were 8 and above. I thought the 3 youngest girls did very well. Isabella and Makenna were so cute holding hands walking down the aisle, but then when they got on stage they weren't sure what to do at first (we didn't rehearse any of this) so Isabella immediately started going for the center of the stage and boy was this mama worried. Every Sunday after church - actually any time we are in the church, Isabella goes up on stage and wants to sing with a microphone. Mommy would normally say no, but the others that are in the church say "Isn't she cute" -- so I don't even bother. Anyway, I saw her walking across the stage and I thought "Oh no, she is going to grab that microphone and start singing". :) Actually, she was just confused at where to go so one of the teen girls helped her and she did fine after she saw mommy and I reminded her to do the little praying hands like the older girls. I thought she was absolutely the cutest angel, ever! :) She really enjoyed herself, I'm not sure if she enjoyed dressing up or being on stage more. That night she asked to dress up again "like a... like a... I want to be a.... butterfly." :)

Isabella's Nativity

Ok, so we know that the shepherds came to see baby Jesus, the wise men came, but can anyone tell me where we learn about this guy......
Should I worry about what version of the Bible they are using in children's church, because I'm sure I haven't heard anything about a skiing snowman.

Saturday Night Snow

Thought I would post this picture today - although having 2 posts in one day is extremely rare for me! Saturday night we went downtown to go to a little "Holiday Village" they have set up. They had some live Christmas music, a carousel, and they even had snow!! Of course, it was a snow machine blowing little soap bubbles (kind of takes away from the cuteness of my child trying to eat the snow, doesn't it?) To Isabella, it was snow though and she loved seeing it and having it fall on her. It will probably be the only snow my child is going to see this Christmas (sad, I know) But isn't she just the cutest thing?!?

New Design and Christmas Greed

I've been wanting to change up the blog for Christmas since Thanksgiving, but I never got around to it. Now that we only have 2 weeks left until Christmas I thought I would at least change the colors and pictures for the rest of the holiday season. And I have to tell a little story because as I was putting the quote in there about the meaning of Christmas being in the hearts of children, it made me laugh. Two weeks ago, I was having one of those days where as sweet as Isabella is, she makes me feeling like I am doing something wrong as a mother. She was really in a rare mood, rather cranky, into everything (that's not new) and this was right after we had been sick so I thought that she was probably just needing to get out of the house, we hadn't been out for 3 days. So I took her to the library to get some books, play on the computers, etc. Well, while we were there she threw an awful fit! She's by no means a perfect child, but she is pretty easy going most of the time and I haven't had her throw a big fit in public before. After a quick trip to the bathroom, we checked out our books and went to Target. And of course we had to look in the toy secion. Ok - I know that I mentioned a couple posts ago that I want Isabella to learn about giving, but I have to say that along with that we are also having fun getting her gifts for Christmas and we have mentioned to her that she would be getting presents for Christmas, especially when we are in the toy section and I say "We're not going to buy any toys, maybe you'll get some toys for Christmas....." Anyway, so this day I'm already feeling like I'm doing something wrong for this child to be behaving unlike the angel I thought I was raising her to be. :) As we were shopping, I mentioned Christmas and I asked "Do you know whose birthday is on Christmas?" To which she replied excitedly "BELLA?!" "No, its not Bella's birthday, its Jesus' birthday" My hopes of feeling like a good mommy were shattered when she said "BUT I WANT PRESENTS!" I guess that day the true meaning of Christmas wasn't in Isabella's heart at all. I was definitely hoping for a little bit sweeter response than that. :) I decided not to even waste my breath that day talking to her about Christmas, but we have since talked about how it is Jesus birthday and I asked her if she thought we should give Jesus a present for his birthday. She said yes, and then I asked her what do you think He would like. She said "A comb?" Me: "No, He.." Her: "A shooter?" (she bought Garrett a little disk shooter at the $ store, so I guess she thought Jesus would like one too) I then tried to explain that we didn't have to buy Jesus a gift He just wanted our hearts and for us to love him, "Do you love Jesus?" Her: "Yeah,...(pause) I hungry, I want a waffle" I'm so glad that Jesus loves hearing the responses of little children. :) Right now, she is actually walking around the house with baby Jesus in her hand (from a nativity set a friend bought her yesterday) and she's singing a little song "My baby Jesus, baby Jesus, ....jingle all the way, ......" :) Ok and since I've already asked for suggestions on how to teach your kids about giving, what about the greed? I've always wanted to make sure we teach our children to be thankful for anything they get and right now Isabella actually is really cute when she gets things. I told my mom the other day that I hope Isabella is like this for everyone at Christmas. My Aunt Norma can probably vouch for this because last year at Isabella's birthday party she bought her a cute little outfit with frogs on it and as soon as Isabella pulled it out of the bag she gasped with excitement. Such a girl to do that over clothes. :) And just the other night Kenny bought her a little Cinderella cup for rinsing her mouth after brushing and Isabella keeps saying "Thank You Daddy" anytime she sees it. But those aren't on Christmas, on Christmas I know we have gifts for her, my parents will have gifts for her, my brother/sil will have gifts for her, so how do you teach your kids to not be greedy, how do you at this age, get them to open their presents and not ask for more -- I'm so afraid that in the midst of all the activity she will become overwhelmed with the excitement and overlook the presents as she opens them and just want to open more. Is she too young to understand? Should we not expect too much this Christmas? Hopefully she will be her normal cute, give her a sticker and its the best gift around, self -- but if not when can you really expect them to understand when you talk to them about greed?

My husband took this picture Sunday as we were getting ready for church and I love it for 2 reasons. Of course, I think its a sweet little picture of Amelia all dressed up and curious about the little choo choo train, but I also love it because it shows off Isabella's tree decorating talent. All those ornaments you see were hung by Isabella. Saturday we put up the tree and decorated it. We decided to do artificial again this year -- I don't like artificial trees and we don't have the prettiest artificial tree, but with Amelia crawling and grabbing everything it seemed better for this year. Oh - and the fact that a live tree here would cost us a small fortune was a pretty big deciding factor. I don't know how Isabella remembered, but I told Kenny that it was pretty sad when he mentioned to her about putting a Christmas tree up, she ran back to the attic and said "The tree's up there, Daddy". Isabella had so much fun decorating the tree and it was cute to watch her. She likes to overlap several ornaments on one branch. :) I'll have to take a picture of the little tree she decorated in her room as well -- she must have that "picasso" type of artistic eye. Anyway, our tree actually does look really pretty (mostly if you keep the tree lights on) I'll try to post some Christmas tree/decoration pictures later.

Another Parade... and another

This weekend we went to our 2nd and 3rd parade of the season. More parades than I've gone to my entire life! Isabella was so cute at both of them. At the one on Saturday night, she was expecting them to throw her candy so she would yell "I want candy!" "Throw me candy!".... until we finally told her they weren't going to throw any. Then she just kept waving and yelling other silly things. At one point she was yelling "Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas,..... (and then as if she just remembered) I HAVE A CHRISTMAS TREE AT HOME!" Then on Sunday, she and her little friend Makenna had fun getting the gobs of candy they threw out (Daddy might have enjoyed this a little bit too. :) It was really like Halloween because kids had bags full of candy to take home. Surprisingly Amelia did very well at these parades, last week she was afraid of all the noise, but I guess she's become an old pro now. We really are into all the busyness of the season, and I'm hoping to enjoy as much of it as I can. One of the main reasons I try and get all my Christmas shopping done early is so we can do as much Christmasy stuff as possible. We had the parades, then tonight I want to take Isabella to the library to hear a Christmas story and make a gingerbread cookie, we want to go see a gingerbread village, a lights display, they've got a couple things downtown we want to check out, possibly a carriage ride in a little town not far from here, a progressive dinner with our youth group, church play, and then all the normal fun stuff at home. I love CHRISTMAS!!! Of course, in the midst of all the fun activities, we have other "busyness" as well. I just got done sewing a couple things for someone else, then I made the bib overalls for my girls, then I have a couple other things I would like to make for them, I have a couple more things to make for someone else, I have some Christmas presents to make and then last night at church our choir director's wife asked if I would make angel costumes for the cantata -- 12 of them!!! I'm hoping to find wings to buy and then I will do the no sew or little sewing outfits. Unless anyone out there has any other great ideas for making these cheap and easy. If I can't find wings at the dollar store or somewhere like that, I'm going to make them out of cardboard I guess and spray paint them gold -- cardboard doesn't sound so great to me, but I don't have time to do anything else in 2 weeks. My problem is I'm kind of a perfectionist, so I'm going to want them to at least look kind of cute. And Isabella is one of the angels, so she has to look adorable. :) We also decorated our tree this weekend, but I'll post those pictures later. Hope everyone else is enjoying the season as much as we are!!! Anyone else have Christmas activities they are looking forward to?