Christmas Notes ' 2007

I don't scrapbook all my pictures - I save that for baby books, special trips and gifts. But, last year the idea came to me, that it would be really fun to have just a Christmas Scrapbook, so that you could really see the growth of the kids from December to December, the toys that were the big hit of the year, the special things we did to celebrate, etc etc. I really want to do this in a scrapbook form, but this year, I won't be getting to that til maybe June?

This next part is just for me. So, until then, I will use this to get my thoughts down, before I forget...

Leading up to Christmas (not in order):

1. Singing Christmas Tree outing
2. Just Moms Shopping Trip
3. Daphne's Preschool Program
4. Daphne's Church Program
5. Decorating the Christmas Tree at Grandma Pam and Grandpa Mike's
6. Making the gingerbread house
7. Daphne making our wrapping paper
8. Moms Group projects
9. Daddy putting up Christmas lights
10. Ruby's room preparations instead of big Christmas decor
11. The year of the AZ trip...

Favorite Gifts:

Mike - Nano
Me - My tea pot and sugar and creamer from Pottery Barn
Daphne - 3 new Barbie movies, rings, glitter glue (thanks to Matt and Becca:), calculator with paper roll
Maisie - baby that cries, her own dress up dress, new jammies

On the calendar:

Dec. 22 - Dinner at our house with Dad
Dec. 23 - Dinner at Jon's with mom and G. Miller
Dec. 24th - Dinner at Mike and Pam's
Dec. 25th - To Creswell for Riddle family Christmas

Hardest thing - Maisie had a streak of bad sleeping in there, which a NON pregnant mom would have handled fairly well, but this very pregnant mom, was extra tired and teary. Luckily, the day after Christmas, she resumed to her usual schedule:).

Best thing - We kept things as simple as possible with our situation, and were very prepared. Then, Mike helped a tremendous amount at the different events. I got to sit and rest a lot. We were a great team!

Side note - first Christmas without Damion and Lesley, Max and Emmy :(

I wasn't as invested in the hupla of Christmas this year, which was actually not a bad thing. We focused on friends, family, and reading lots of great books about Jesus' birth. The girls didn't miss out on anything important. We were preparing for a baby too, just like Mary, so it was fitting that I was working on the nursery and trying to soak up my girls as much as possible during this Christmas season.

Deck the Nursery

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While all of you were decorating your tree and home for the holidays, I chose to go lite on decking our halls and instead focused on a more permanent form of decor - Ruby's nursery! Although I was sad to have to choose between the two, and kicking myself for starting a painting project this late in my pregnancy...like always, the finished product made it all worthwhile. Yahoo - it's done!

Can a nursery get any more "Ruby-like"?

Back from Arizona

The Arizona trip in summary:

• Daphne did terrific on her first airplane ride. (she kept busy with the little make-up tote that Grandpa had given her on the morning of their big departure - he even painted her nails in flight)
• Biggest AZ highlite - swimming in the heated outdoor pool nightly.

• She conquered 18 holes of golf (which took 5 hours), by amusing herself with her prize pony and finding oodles of golf balls with Grandpa.

• She was even a patient traveler when their first flight home got delayed an hour. Then on their connecting flight, they hit 3 geese on take-off and had to land again for the icky cleanup. They sat in the plane for 45 minutes. And we were being old fashioned with no dvd player or anything...

A successful, memorable trip for the three amigos. And I got the nursery done - not due to the fact that Daphne was gone...Maisie kept me plenty busy, BUT entirely due to the fact that Pam kept Maisie overnight Friday and almost all Saturday day!!! I realized that this was the first time ever that I had spent the night in my own home entirely ALONE - it was GLORIOUS.

They're off to Arizona!

I'm just writing in to say that Daphne, Mike and Mike Sr. are off to AZ for four days...

I am taking them into the airport this morning!

Daphne has never flown and is very excited. She has a carry-on with new highliters, a princess spiral notebook, two kinds of life savers, her trusty pink silkie blanket and a photo album that I stuck in for a surprise. I won't be there to see all her reactions to the exciting life in the air - but honestly, that's okay with me. I despise flying - but know it is a very irrational fear, because whenever anyone else flies, I feel very confident that nothing is going to happen to them. We'll see how it goes when I drop her off at the doors this morning though!

This was a trip born only a week ago and the fact that Daphne got invited is a huge BONUS. Me and Maisie are going to lay low and try to finish Ruby's nursery. I am so thrilled to have the house to myself for awhile! Yahoo.

Mike is taking his laptop (our only computer right now) - so I will be away from blog world for four long days. Please pray for these three special people in my life, as they embark on this little adventure.

And this is why the laundry didn't get done honey!!

Today we had a very fun December "moms group" meeting. All week I prepped a presentation of homemade Christmas gifts and decor and today I excitedly showed the girls the creative and yet stolen ideas. (I guess this is where I am supposed to give Martha the credit for her beautiful magazine and her highly trained staff etc etc - NAH!) I brought all the supplies for them to make the jar filled with peppermint items and I was so relieved that we finished them in 30 minutes and truly we would have made the above mentioned very proud. This is for the ladies who couldn't attend and for whomever enjoys this sort of thing! Happy baking/crafting...

Things learned:

1. When the project calls for peppermint sticks (not canes mind you) - don't bother looking at 10 different stores in the area, just cut off the hooks on the cheap candy canes at Walmart. No one will ever know.

2. You really CAN bake the bread in the tin can!

3. Nonpareils is just the fancy term for sprinkles.

See, stay at home moms do learn new things everyday:)