december daily: day 25 Christmas Morning

(warning....this post may bore you to tears, but i want to record what was asked of Santa for my girls)

Santa was here! Santa was here!

and he was hunnnnngry. :)

he even took the time to write the girls a little note reminding them that he's always watching. (clicking it will make it bigger)

spidergirl was up before anyone and as usual, she made herself cozy with a morning cartoon and a breakfast snack without bothering the rest of us still in our sleepy slumber.

until the suspense got the best of her and she ripped apart her stocking, played with everything, put it all back in, then came and woke us up talking a mile a minute about all the fun stuff inside. LOL.

the best surprise of the morning was the slew of puppets left by Santa that were met with much excitement! awesome.


within seconds of opening them, they were already putting on a performance. i can't wait to see the imaginative play that comes from these puppets.


emma was given the top three, ashlyn the bottom three.

(melissa and doug puppets from santa can also be found at the melissa and doug website.)

she told Santa she wanted a stuffed squirrel when we visited him in the village. he went above and beyond and got her one that is animated with sounds and all. she adores it.

after purging out all the barbie stuff along with littlest pet shop stuff months ago to separate the girls into their own rooms again, ashlyn decided she was going to leave a note for Santa asking for littest pet shop stuff......again. it's so funny to watch kids fall in and out of love with something only to fall back in love with it again.

santa also brought each girl a new book for all those cooped up inside cold weather days.


ashlyn deemed them the best Christmas gift this year.


oh, the cuteness. gosh, i love her. her brown eyes get me every time.

ashlyn jumped with joy when opening this gift from daddy....it's a Camp Rock blanket. her favorite movie EVER. spidergirl in the background playing with silly putty cracks me up every time i see this picture.

we try to stick with the:
something they want
something they need
something to wear
something to read

way of thinking when purchasing their Christmas gifts. and sometimes we get a few extra things that would be considered more of a want. it's super easy to go overboard but this little poem helps us stay focused and mindful of how much is coming into the house during a very busy birthday/holiday season. emma's birthday is 3 weeks before, ashlyn's is 4 weeks after and doug's is another 2 weeks after that.

pajamas are always a big hit as the something to wear item. here, ashlyn is over the moon excited about a pair of pajamas with characters on them that look like her Littest Pet Shop toy she got from Santa.
doug always likes to go shopping and get the girls something little that's only from him.

that little something was some farmville cash which when redeemed earned her SEVEN times what it was thought to be worth. i think she ran around the house jumping up and down for over an hour when she discovered that little holiday bonus.


and this little missy got herself a zhu-zhu pet. and you can see just how excited she was about that! LOL. who ever said my kids were dramatic?


after opening gifts at our place it's always a rush to get showered, dressed, car loaded and on our way to my dad's for the rest of the day. so the floor pretty much stays littered with all their new loot until the day after christmas when i pick it up and organize it under the tree only for them to rummage through and take everything back out over and over and over and over again. LOL.
next up.....just some cute pictures and a story or two from Christmas at my dad's. then i promise i'm done with this december daily in january stuff. :)

i think i'll put off making the album until summer.........july, maybe? yeah. july. christmas in july. something to look forward to....without the pressure of a deadline. that works for me.

december daily: day 24 Dear Santa.....

ahhhh! Christmas Eve. PART TWO

after coming home from grandma's and unloading the loot, we rushed the girls up the stairs for a bath and to get cuddly in some warm jammies.

then ashlyn got busy writing her letter to Santa.
this is something she's always done since her second Christmas and something that spidergirl gives input on, but has no desire to do herself.

this is actually the first year that spidergirl helped put together the tray of "goodies" for Santa and his hungry reindeer.

every year there is something different on the tray and we have discovered that Santa is like the human garbage disposal----he likes just about everything--especially junk food.

this year, they treated him with leftover pizza, crunchy cheetos, Hawaiian punch, animal crackets, honey pops cereal and celery for the reindeer. in other words, a heart attack on a plate with a side of health. *grin*

i should dig up all the photos of her Santa trays and letters over the years.
and her letter cracked me up!

she always wants a picture with her baby in front of the tree. every year. Santa has brought her a brand new baby every single Christmas except one. we'll have to see if there's a new one this year. she *adores* that babydoll so much and it used to go with her everywhere. but this year we've seen signs of her growing up and *sniff* growing out of her attachment to it. she's really like another family member.

in her other hand she's holding her ornament for this year. i get my kiddos a new ornament for the tree every year. usually it has some significance of something that happened throughout the year so they'll have a visual trigger of stories from their childhood. but, this year i got lazy on the hunt and decided to just get them their initials.

after the munchkins were tucked safe in bed the mister and i headed down to his man cave to wrap our gifts to the kids and gifts for our family exchange the next afternoon.

it's tradition of ours to wait until Christmas Eve to wrap. a tradition i'd like to break.

why? because this year we were up until 4AM! i'm getting to old for this stuff. sheesh.

all is calm and all is bright. good night.

december daily: day 24 Christmas at Little Grandma's

ahhhhhh. Christmas Eve. PART ONE

twenty-ten will forever go down in history as the year that Kristy got punked. hahahaha. we pulled off the best prank EVER. keep reading.....

on the eve of Christmas for as long as i can remember, i've spent the evening at my Grandma Pearce's house. always.

it's always a time to just breathe, relax and soak it all in. grandma insists on making the entire meal and dessert table by herself. nothing better than old fashioned cookin'.

it used to be that grandma cooked and the kids cleaned dishes before presents could be opened. that's still the case, but now we make excellent use of the dishwasher. :)

then we all squeeze get cozy in her livingroom......all 12+ of us....while ashlyn insists on play Santa's helper and passing out the presents. while i always insist on getting lots of 'flash in your face' photos. hey, i never claimed to be a photographer. ha.

opening gifts is always a bit of chaos at grandma's because it's always been tradition that as soon as you are handed your gift, you can dig in and open it up. i'm always so focused on watching the girls' reactions that i often miss all the other commotion....and forget to even open mine in the process, LOL.

we started a new tradition this year to be played only by the adults after presents were opened just for kicks and giggles. the first year out of the gate did NOT disappoint. but i'll get to that in a bit.

spidergirl got herself loads of spiderman gadgets and some new kicks----a pair of pink rainboots! that girl and her rainboots.

while ashlyn was over the moon about a pair of pink monkey pajamas and an animal beading kit. that girl and her craft adventures.


betcha' couldn't tell by this picture that spidergirl loves her little grandma something fierce. :)

a quick hug and she's off again to play with her spiderman yo-yo. shockingly enough, she's pretty impressive with it.

but not as impressive as daddy and his bag of tricks. papa has some good ones up his sleeve too.

now that presents are opened, us adults stared our new tradition. our first white elephant auction.

we put all the wrapped gifts in the middle of the floor and passed out numbers and let's just say it went a little something like this (since i can't remember exactly how it went):

my cousin Nannette has number 1.
she opens a packages of multiple sized nesting baskets with red plaid liners.

doug has number 2.
he opens some pine scented oil diffuser that is sure not to get stolen from him.

aunt Brenda has number 3.
she steals the baskets from Nannette.

Nannette then gets to pick another gift. she opens 10 lottery tickets.

her husband Joel has number 4.
he steals the lottery tickets.

Nannette gets a third pick.
i honestly can't remember what she ended up with--something else that was sure not to get stolen.

i have number 5
i steal the lottery tickets.
(note: we brought the lottery tickets as one of our gifts. i totally forgot about the prank we were pulling.)

so then Joel picks another gift.
he gets this snowwoman. LOL.

my step-mom Connie has number 6.
she unwraps a homespun looking "let it snow" country-blue heart shaped sign with a snowman on it. pretty sure that won't get stolen.

my sister Kristy has number 7.
she unwraps the other gift we brought. a handmade marshmallow shooter.
(side note: BEST invention EVER!)


grandma has number 8.
she steals the lottery tickets from me.

i get to pick again.
i end up with a super high-beam flashlight. (LOVE it!)

dad has number 9.
he picks a gift and ends up with anti-monkey butt powder and chicken poop lip junk. LOL. PERFECT gift for him.


uncle Terry has number 10.
he steals the marshmallow shooter.
(no surprise to me at all! he's ornery as all get out!)

so then, kristy has to pick again.
she ends up stealing the lottery tickets from grandma.

which leaves grandma stuck with the last gift.
it ended up being a bag full of various cookbooks----which we all know she doesn't need and will likely never use.

but here comes the good part.

everyone else has started their own little conversations and started packing up their gifts, cleaning up wads of wrapping paper and whatnot, while kristy starts scratching off her lottery tickets.


two tickets in she hollers........woooohoooo, i won $2!

meantime, uncle terry is having fun with the marshmallow shooter and blasting kristy with it. with perfect aim he got her in the nose. SO funny.

then of course, emma wants to get in on the fun.

i'm telling you....BEST invention EVER! until they don't stop when you want them too.

so, again, we brought these tickets. planning the whole time to pull a prank. but, me, being the absolute scatterbrain that i am, completely forgot about the prank.

until...........5 tickets into her scratch offs......

kristy starts freakin' out, practically hyperventilating, definitely shaking and saying over and over..... "oh, my (expletive) G-d, i just won $5,000 (expletive) dollars"

"no, seriously!!!! look at this!"


of course, everyone is like "no way" and "are you sure it's not fake".

when she looks at doug and he can't hold back his laughter any more, she knew it was a prank.

we totally PUNKED her. BEST PRANK EVER!

then they both duked it out in the middle of the floor--kristy pounding on him. so hysterical. i was completely late on the trigger and missed getting a picture of the whole thing other than this one.

funny thing is, this whole prank was ALL my (last minute) idea! she just automatically assumed it was doug since he's the family prankster.

you see, a month or so ago, doug came home from a trip to the dollar store with these tickets:



he used one on his cousin a month ago and i've already mailed the remaining three to someone else to pull her own prank. :) can't wait to hear how it ends up.

anywho. she kept on scratching and in the end she won $52 total from her tickets. so, all in all it was a good prank and quite profitable for her.


the best part was when i asked her to read the back of the $5,000 winner. (click the photo to make it bigger so you can get a little chuckle!)


we ended the night with our usual confirming plans with my dad for Christmas Day dinner and eating dessert.

emma was so excited for Christmas Day. she was certain that Santa was going to bring her a puppy dog pillow pet. so her and Kristy were crossing fingers and toes and making cute little wishes.


to be continued.....