I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I did not brave the stores on Friday, except for Home Depot, which, surprisingly, was not packed with people trying to buy light bulbs and a shower curtain rod.
We did have a little shopping drama though. Isabella wants a new doll for Christmas, but she is not known to be especially careful with her dolls. The poor things have been found outside in the dirt, dunked in swimming pools and gasp, beheaded (accidentally, I am sure). So, I told her that she needed to think of another present. Which she totally refuses to do. Her pouting was impressive, but I was distracted because I had a soda disaster to manage. All because of the Santa in Wal-mart. When I tried to get a picture of Francesca and Catherine with Santa, they got so petrified, they both bolted into a huge display of Fanta orange to escape from the feared bearded one. I am not sure why soda was being displayed next to Santa anyway. Jeez.
On to more excitement. Victoria is totally enamored with the moon. So, she was quite impressed with herself when she bit her cucumber into the shape of the moon. I wish you could all here the excitement in her voice as she yelled, "MOON! Big moon!" over and over. Victoria also wants to brag that she took ten steps by herself today!
The weather has turned cold here, but never fear, we are prepared. Nothing like a one hundred pound ball of fur to snuggle up with.
Othello is always happy to oblige in giving slobbery kisses.
And so is Milo. He is even bigger than Othello, but a total baby. He is scared of the cats.
This weekend also brought a awful, horrible, terrible, no good, very bad event. You can't even imagine the trauma that was inflicted on this poor child.
Did she have to get five shots? No. Was she chased by rabid wolves into a dark cave. No. Was the dreaded vacumn turned on. Nope. Did someone finally tell her that Halloween is over and to take off that pumpkin shirt? Still no.
She had to have her nails trimmed. I'm still not sure how we both survived.
Oh, the injustice of it all!
Luckily, everyone was appeased by some cookies and cream. Except for me, my head is still hurting from the screaming!
We also managed to decorate our Christmas tree this afternoon. Unfortunately, two ornaments are already broken. Does anyone have any fun holiday traditions to share? I am hoping to bake some Christmas cookies, but I would love more ideas.
We make salt ornaments every year. Cheap fun and you can make enough so that one year whe. The kids have their own trees it can be filled of ornaments they made!
ReplyDeleteWe bake our Christmas cookies with hooks in them and then hang them from the tree. This has been tradition for over 30 years. It started out because we couldn't afford to buy ornaments.:)
ReplyDeleteNow, we do it for fun.
Our guys come home for Christmas and LOVE grabbing a cookie from the tree. :)
I also had one that was mortified by nail trimming, but alas like most things he grew out of it. He now comes to me with the clippers and tells me it is time. We enjoy advent chains, caroling with our church in retirement homes, and attending local church christmas programs. We do our Christmas shopping all year long so that we can enjoy the season and focus on the reason!
ReplyDeleteOne of our Christmas traditions is breaking ornaments as well. My kids are all teenagers, and still we carry on this tradition. So another one of my traditions is reminding myself that PEOPLE are more important that THINGS!
ReplyDeleteWe decorate gingerbread houses every year. We have been decorating them since my kids were little. They needed help but loved to put the candy on. So much fun.
ReplyDeleteYou are so evil!!! Poor child, what a terrible , terrible experience!!!
ReplyDeleteJust kidding . I still laughing about it.
How about buying cheap frames and buttons and gluing them to the frames? They look pretty.
ReplyDeleteCatherine,
ReplyDeleteWe make Christmas placemats (using a piece of placemat size paper or posterboard) and then "decorate" with stickers, cut outs from old Christmas cards, coloring or wrapping paper. Once completed we laminate (with clear shelf paper if a laminating machine is not at your fingertips!!) We also make gingerbread houses with graham crackers (using small boxes as the frame) and "gluing" everything together with frosting yum!!! Then of course lots of candy decorations!!! A new idea this year that my son shared is to take round balloons and fill them with water with food coloring...one blue, red, greem....whatever colors you want....Then freeze......Once completely frozen,take off the balloon and you have beautiful colored frozen "globes" to decorate your porch or walkway with.....I'm thinking my kiddos will spend a fair amount of time chopping them up, but it will keep people busy for a while!!! Have loved following your blog...We are in process adopting from Eastern Europe as well!!
http://thefirststepofthestaircase.blogspot.com/
All the best,
Danee
I was also going to suggest making ornaments...let each child make their own and put their name and the date on it. Each year you will add to the collection and it is so much fun to go back each year and see what was made the years before! You can use dough or paper or whatever each individual child comes up with. Or use a different material from year to year! Love the pic of Catherine's precious little toes! AND WAY TO GO VICTORIA!!! That girl is one little smartie pants and growing by leaps and bounds these days!!! (((BIG HUGS)))!!!
ReplyDeleteHi!!!
ReplyDeleteDo you want a international tradition?? :)
I'm from DOminican Republic, one tradition around the country is ginger tea with butter cookies ,We make it for the family every week.
Part of the tradition is to gather with some close friends and family once or twice at week, at a different house every time. Dad make the tea and mom bake the cookies.
Nail trimming and vacuum issues makes me think of sensory processing disorder - my son had huge issues with both plus other things - oh I remember the screams when it came to nail and hair trimming.
ReplyDeleteAs for a doll for Isabella - my doll loving opinion is that loved dolls do get dunked, left outside, possibly beheaded - it's all part of the playing, so maybe just maybe consider another doll for your doll loving girl.
My son loves the moon too. We bought him a "Moon in My room" off Amazon. It hangs on the wall in his bedroom. It has a remote that lets you chooses what moon phase you want and it automatically turns off after a half an hour.
ReplyDelete