And Just as Quickly as it Came...

It's gone again! Christmas, that is!
We had a great Christmas this year. Christmas Eve was very laid back (for everyone except me, that is) with Dr. Daddy's father for dinner and an early bedtime for the kids. Dr. Daddy had to head to the hospital at 7:30am on Christmas morning and stay the night so we got up early, opened presents, and the kids and I headed off to Richmond.

The kids decided that this year Santa would be putting their presents under the trees in their rooms. No small feat for "Santa" to sneak into the rooms of two very excited kiddos and slide some presents under their trees. I finally finished wrapping gifts around 1am and headed off to bed. No sooner did my head hit the pillow and it was 5:30am wake up from the little darlings. The kids had too much fun running up and down the steps bringing their loot downstairs.




Happiness all around with the gifts. American Girl Doll, pink Bratz guitar, "girl" Legos and some doll accessories for BabyGirl. Legos, Legos, and did I mention Legos? for BabyBoy. BabyGirl also loved her Tiffany earrings...and I loved reading the sweet card Dr. Daddy wrote for her on the lovely stationery Tiffany so "generously" provided.





Mommy got new jackets for her diamond studs and Dr. Daddy got framed portaits of the kids. He even managed to hang them last night so I could post pictures. (kind of a weird angle since they're hung going up the steps)




The trip to Richmond was uneventful...which is good! We're two for two on the well behaved kids in the car thing. I'm knocking on wood as I write, however, since I know they'll turn on me eventually.

We got to Mimi and Papa's house and got to open even MORE presents! BabyGirl had fun helping everyone open gifts. BabyBoy cracked us all up when he exclaimed "Look Mommy, it's the sweater I've always wanted!", after opening a sweater from Mimi that he had picked out two weeks ago.

We tried unsuccessfully to get a family photo with Wags the dog. I think we got more of his rear end than anything else.







Mimi and Papa got a new calendar that I made from pages created on How Fast They Grow.com. Mommy got a new Marc Jacobs purse (thanks Aaron!)

We had a delicious dinner that evening and Mimi and I watched "The Women". Good, not great movie.

Friday evening was spent at Aunt Bobbie's house with all the cousins. BabyGirl and Sophie had fun pounding on the piano.



BabyGirl and BabyBoy displayed exactly why we DON'T have a Wii and never will...



Can we say Zombies?

And Sophie sported her gay pride pajamas (photo taken expressly for Aaron)



Saturday we headed home to clean up the aftermath. And clean I have! All the decorations are down and I'm getting ready for a super fun supper club this evening. The great thing about our supper club is that I don't have to cook...everyone brings a dish. The not so great thing...my cleaning lady hasn't been here in over two weeks. Aaaahhh!

Merry Christmas!

Last Minute Shopping...

I've got some great Hanna Andersson deals listed on Ebay...if you use the buy it now function by tomorrow morning your items will be shipped priority and will (hopefully!) arrive by Christmas Eve. Happy Shopping!

Sippycup Snippets

Spoken to one of his classmates' parents at lunch last week:

Parent: BabyBoy, I had lunch with your sister today. She is so cute!

BabyBoy: That one...she's got the face of an angel...but she's pure evil inside.

Hmmm...been watching a little too much Star Wars perhaps?

Ye Olde Christmas

This past weekend I schlepped the kids four hours to Williamsburg so we could spend some quality time with Mimi and Papa at a time share. I was a little hesitant to take the kids (ie: tried every imaginable way possible to pawn them off on someone else) but had no luck finding any childcare relief. Soooo...off to Williamsburg we went.
The four hour ride there was completely perfect. I NEVER thought I would be able to say that about my kids in a car but they were truly angels. BabyGirl even SLEPT part of the way. (for all you people out there who have kids that sleep in cars I'm happy for you...really (fingers and toes crossed) but my kids just don't ever seem to be willing to cut me a break)
We got there around 8pm on Friday and the kids (very begrudgingly) went to sleep. Saturday morning BabyGirl woke up at 6am (TOTALLY out of the ordinary for her...girl can SLEEP IN when she wants to) after not having gone to sleep the night before until 11 pm. Hmmm...this can't be good. Seems she was so excited to get up and make the gingerbread houses we had purchased the day before that she just couldn't sleep. Lucky me.
So, we got started. I think our effort paid off pretty well...








By the time we finished it was 11pm and BabyGirl was fading. I was seriously worried that we were in for a LOOONG day. Mimi and I packed them up in the car and headed over to Colonial Williamsburg. We had lunch and waited for Papa to arrive. (his arrival was slightly delayed by the fact that he locked his keys in his car in Richmond)
While we waited we shopped around and the kids LOVED petting the many dogs they met. BabyBoy also loved seeing all the babies. The kid LOVES babies. It's hilarious.





Finally, Papa arrived. Yay!



We set off in search of hot cider and Christmas eye candy. We weren't disappointed!








Despite BabyGirl's exhaustion she persevered in her attempts to get us to take her to the indoor pool after our tour of Old Williamsburg. We picked up some Barbeque from my FAVORITE place, Pierce's, and headed back to the timeshare. We scarfed our dinner, spent an hour and a half at the pool and finished the evening off with bedtime stories read by the "elves" at the resort. Too cute. BabyGirl didn't quite make it through the storytelling. Once we got back to the condo her eyes were closed as soon as her head hit the pillow.
Overall, the perfect end to a perfect weekend!

Shhh...

Don't tell Dr. Daddy but I just got these for BabyGirl's stocking!




She had her ears pierced (after endless nagging) a few weeks ago. She was so brave and didn't even flinch. Quite proud of her accomplishment, she informed me that she would then be rummaging through my earrings to find some she wants to wear. Hah! Maybe these will solve the problem. Too cute! Available at Tiffany & Co. Besides, it's free shipping and who can argue with that?

Stumped?

Every year I try to come up with a cute saying for our Christmas cards. Most recently, I've been using lines from Christmas songs or poems. I think it's a cute tradition and we always have fun trying to match a phrase with the pictures. This year I used two pictures (couldn't decide).

The outside of the card has this pic:



and the inside has this one:



We decided to go with:

"Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas!"

Warm wishes and good cheer this holiday season

The Sippycups

Last year we went with:

"Laughing all the way!"

and the year before that we did:

"While visions of sugarplums danced in their heads" (great if you're using a picture of a sleeping baby or sleeping kids"

I also love:

"Tiny Tots with their eyes all aglow"

"Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree"

"It's Beginning to Look a lit like Christmas"

"Have yourself a merry little Christmas"

"Santa Claus is coming to town"

"May your Christmas be merry and bright"

"You'd better not pout"

"All is calm, all is bright!" (also great for a sleeping baby picture)

"Tis the season to be Jolly"

Whatever you decide on...have fun!

Fit For a Princess

I've FINALLY finished BabyGirl's room and took pictures. It's all decorated for Christmas, so you'll have to use your imagination and assume that the big a** tree isn't there the rest of the year! We also made a little banner that says "Peace On Earth". She was none too happy with this little development, telling me "What's that? I don't like that! I don't like Peace On Earth". I think she was wanting something more along the lines of "Ho, Ho, Ho!". Oh, well.









The details...as many as I can remember!

Bedding: The fabric was purchased from The Fabric Finder (no longer available). The trim is from a local store. The quilt is from Garnet Hill.

Curtains: See above.

Kitchen set: Pottery Barn Kids

Side table: Land of Nod

Rug: Schumacher

Tree: Target

Doll Shelf: Purchased from an unfinished wood store and painted in antique white.

Paint colors: Walls, ceiling...Benjamin Mooore Frosty Pink. Trim 1/2 antique white and 1/2 Navajo white mix (Benjamin Moore)

Bed: Purchased from a seller on Ebay who claimed to make the same bed for Posh Tots, but I can't recommend him because the bed is a disaster!

Lamp: Target

Chandelier: Shades of Light

Let me know if you have any other questions!!!

Santa's Comin'!

The madness of the past few weeks has ended (kind of) and I'm finally able to sit down and chronicle what we've been up to! The party for Dr. Daddy's partners went really well. I had some great helpers (Thanks Eric, Nat and Aaron!) and it went off without a hitch. On the upside, the house is all decorated and ready for Christmas. On the downside I'm trying to catch up with everything I didn't do last week since I was so busy trying to get the house ready.

One think I did get to do last week was order the kids Personalized Santa Claus Letters from PackageFromSanta.com. I thought these were such a cute idea! They came in the mail yesterday and the kids absolutely LOVED them. They personalize the letters with all your kids' details...ie: hair color, eye color, siblings' names, favorite toys, etc. My kids were totally convinced. They have several different packages to choose from. We did the mid level package. The super deluxe one comes with all sorts of stuff, but was a little more than I wanted to spend.

Here are the kids opening their letters...




They were thrilled!

Sippycups Snippets

Ah, the joys of Christmas. Dr. Daddy was none too thrilled when I announced this year that we would be purchasing real trees for the living room and sun room. I've had it with my fake ones. They're starting to look a little tired and I just miss that tree smell.
Whilst setting up the trees on Sunday we discovered that the living room tree was a bit crooked. The trunk is a little crooked to start with but the tree itself just wasn't quite right. Then, in his infinite wisdom, Dr. Daddy decides to put the stand on top of a plastic rubbermaid tub lid to prevent water from spilling onto and ruining the hardwood floor. Overheard:

me: Um, I'm not sure that's such a good idea. The tree is already kind of crooked and that top isn't big enough. I don't think it will be very stable.

Dr. D: Who here has an engineering degree from MIT? It will be fine.

me: hmmmph. We'll see about that.

So I spent all yesterday morning decorating my fantastical tree. Even managed to turn it ever so slightly so it wouldn't look crooked.

This morning, Dr. Daddy goes downstairs, let's the dog out and I hear a huge crash.
No. It. Cannot. Be. I ran down the stairs to find my beautiful tree on the floor. Along with several of my beloved Waterford glass ornaments AND my Lladro bell ornament. In hundreds of little pieces.

Awesome.

Upon re-entering the house with the dog I had this to say to the Dr...

"Perhaps a little less time spent delivering mice covered pizza to the Wellesley girls and a little more time in weights and measures class would have served you well...Mr. ENGINEER."

What a way to start the morning.

Let's Get This Party Started

The wrapping party, that is. I've got my wrapping/craft room all set up and ready to show off. Here's the deal. I've always wanted a "wrapping room". You see them in magazines and showhomes and they are so amazing. I love to wrap gifts. I love even more the idea of having everything organized and in one place. The problem is...who has the space (or time) to get something like this together?
Since we moved into our house last summer the unfinished part of the basement has been a disaster. Crap everywhere with no end in sight. I finally decided that if I was going to wade through the mess and get organized I'd have to have a pay off in the end. I'm all about the "what's in it for me?". So, I promised myself that after getting the area organized I'd make it into a fun room for ME. I allowed Dr. Daddy to know that once the room was cleaned up he had no claims to it. (it would be just like him to walk in, see the room totally cleaned and organized by MOI and start in on how happy he was to have a clean space for all his "collectibles" (read: old Playboys, record albums, random crap, etc.))
It took an entire day to get the mess cleaned up. I was lucky that there were already shelves and cabinets built and a peg board on the wall. All I needed were some hooks and dowels from Home Depot, some cheap shelves from Michael's and voila! Wrapping room. I put a cork contact paper on top of the cabinet. This allows me to use my hole punch and eyelet setter without worrying about destroying the cabinet. (which is kind of a joke since it's all beat up anyway) I took the shelves from Michael's, drilled holes in the sides, inserted a wooden dowel, and had ready made ribbon holders. My bows and ribbon and tape, etc. are organized in glass jars from Wal-Mart. The whole deal cost about $50. Not bad!
I eventually would love to paint this room the same color as the finished part of the basement and refinish the cabinets but that would be about twenty other projects down the line!
As you can see from the last picture...I've got quite a bit of wrapping to do!