A New Year's Eve Reminder

Drive carefully! You never know who might be out on the roads:

Sleep in Heavenly Peace

See this perfect sleeping angel with the rosy cheeks doing her Christmas dreaming? This picture should be the equivalent of getting a group shot of Big Foot, the Lockness Monster and Santa Claus. Because sleep is not something that happens in this house. Sure you've seen pictures of Maddie sleeping before. That's because whenever it does happen we're so shocked we tale a picture so that we will actually believe that it happened later on when our sleep addled brains are doubtful.

Here's an example: last night Maddie woke up FIVE times between 12 and 3:30z the last time she decided it was pointless to go back to bed so she just stayed up by propping her eyelids open with toothpicks until 5:30. And then she decided to go for broke and form a naptime resistance movement too.

I've decided to write Santa. Here's my letter:

Dear Santa,

I know you just got back to the North Pole, but there's something you need to know. Don't bother coming here next year. Maddie will be awake and watching for you since she's decided never to sleep again. Your secret would be out, so best to stay away and visit all the children who do sleep. If anything changes I'll keep you abreast of the situation.

Thanks,

Alexandra

Christmas 2010 - Part I

I really didn't take that many pictures with my camera -- I think Rob took a lot more. (Perhaps not the 2000 pictures we took last year, but more.) So here my small little recall of an amazing Christmas:


Come on, Maddie! I know where the presents are.


Jackpot!!


"Ok, here's the plan. You distract them, I'll open the presents under the tree."


The best part of our day: 'GG' finally got to come home for Christmas.


Maddie got lots of attention and love, especially from Aunt Dode (please notice Maddie is sleeveless because she shrugged off her shrug.)


After the table has been cleared, Maddie plays with the centerpiece.


It was a busy day! This little one fell asleep on the ride home and settled in for a long winter's nap.

Wonder and Joy

May you have joy in your heart and wonder in your mind. Merry Christmas!

Family Tree

Ok, here's the big family tradition (also known as the tradition that I force the family to continue and know that someday our grandkids will love): every year we hang ornaments with each of our names on them on the family tree. The ornaments are a little craft-- as in I made them with a bunch of glitter, glue and paint-- but they're just something fun.

Here's the one I made for my aunt this year to replace the one that got broken last year (oops!). My aunt is a quilted, so her's shows patched red work:


And here's the truth, because I know there are readers who will call me on this, I stole this idea from Days of Our Lives. And I have no shame about it!

Mommy's Little Helper

Maddie and I made Peanut Butter Kiss cookies today. Look how much she helped Mommy:




Then she disappeared with the bowl of unwrapped kisses, lined them all up on the coffee table and started eating them one at a time. The fun stopped there.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Really it's been pretty Christmasy around here for a while but this is the first chance I've gotten to share it with you. We don't really have any kind of decorating scheme, but we put out whatever we have. There's a reindeer perched in a chair, some votive candles by our sink, a nutcracker here and some snowglobes there. Our biggest problem is baby proofing. And cat proofing. So all decorations must be limited to unreachable/unclimbable surfaces. Of which there are not many.

I also like to add a little craftiness, particularly this year where decoration making also serves as entertainment. And I like bright bold colors which add a little fun.


A baby-proofed Christmas tree...


A few ornaments to play with...


Maddie helped with the lights. She loved them!


A homemade sign for our front door.


And snowflakes for all of our doors (which totally scare me in the middle of the night for some reason, like "What is on this door??" scared, not "they're coming to get me" scared.)

DUI

Of frankincense, apparently.

I have bad news, folks. The wise men hit a tree and took out some sheep. Christmas celebrations are now questionable.

Uncomfortable and Less Joyous

Poor Maddie is very uncomfortable right now because she has a runny nose. She's napping right now and snoring like, well like her Grandpa Fuzzy.

And that brings me to the less joyous part. Rob's Dad Fuzzy kind of looked like Santa - a very round belly, white beard and even a twinkle in his eye. He used to wear a red sweatsuit to Walmart and little kids would come up to him and exclaim, "Santa!" To which Fuzzy would reply, "Shut up, you little bastard." And this compares to our experience with Santa this year.

We took Maddie to see Santa at the Boulevard Mall last weekend. After waiting in line only about 20 minutes, we got to Santa who neither smiled nor spoke. No "Ho, ho, ho!"; no "Merry Christmas;" not even a "hi." he didn't reach out a hand to take Maddie or even look at her. (Now that I think of it, could he have been a mannequin?) and we had to pay $20 for this priveleged -- which came with the souvenir of 2 picture prints and a Shutterfly gift certificate.

Gone are the days of sitting on Santas lap and telling him you've been a good little girl or boy. I felt bad for the family behind us who had three kids, all talking about what they were going to ask Santa for. He probably didn't even ask.

Rob and I decided perhaps we just didn't do our due diligence work. But we've been thinking our options are kind of limited to mall Santas, after all the days of department stores are gone around here. But then ... Hope like the promise of the Christmas Star...

Someone told us that Kelly's Country Store has an awesome Santa. And of course they have chocolate. So hooray, despair not! While there is goodness (and chocolate) in this world, there will be Christmas cheer!!

Comfort and Joy

Our Christmas decorating is usually pretty simple around here, but this year I decided to make one little change that just popped into my head and I love it. We've traditionally just thrown some lights and decorations on our tree and topped it with our angel, but the past few year's I've been feeling like it's just a bit boring. I was planning on going out to buy a garland and then I realized I had the perfect materials to make one right here. I used the tons of leftover ribbons from our wedding, tying them together in varying lengths and viola: the perfect, bright and cheerful and meaningful garland has been born.

(Pictured above are Maddie and I about to hang our great grandma's mercury glass ornament.)

Gorgeousness

Maddie has inherited her Mama's hair. See?


It's what we call "sticky uppy hair." For many weeks I have been attempting to add a little barrette to her do in order to keep her bangs out of her eyes and of course, because it's cute. The attempts did not go well. She would instantly remove the barrette, just knowing that something was in her hair that God did not put there.

It doesn't help that I did things like this:


But I wore her down. Sometimes I put the barrette in while she slept, hoping that she wouldn't notice when she woke up.


But now she will wear a barrette for whole hours at a time. And look how gorgeous she is!: