December Keeps One Busy

You may not have noticed but I have been gone a bit the last two months. Here is a little of what I have been doing in December...

We started out the month with Chase & Isabella joining several kids on the stage at our church dinner. They sang Bella's favorite Christmas song of "Jingle Bells." 

Yes, I was a total stage mom by holding onto Isabella's shirt the whole time. I don't trust her for a minute. She could take off to who knows where if I let go.

We had some fun times shopping while enjoying everything we could about the season.

Chase was also Joseph in the kids musical at our church. I was thrilled that the only thing he did out of the ordinary was that he bowed to the crowd a little too much when everyone clapped for the manger scene gang. I think he was the only who did bow.

Jeremy has a birthday in December and he was a happy guy with his piece of birthday cheesecake.

Ummmm, no, that is not his sippy cup.

I braved taking these two to see Santa by myself. They were so excited. Well, Chase was which was a HUGE improvement from his feelings on Santa last year. He was a bit scared of him last year but this year, he decided that he was a good guy. 

One October night when I was having dinner with just the kids and the conversation was lagging a bit, I had an idea. I asked Chase what he was going to do when he saw Santa this year. I told him that Bella would be afraid of Santa if he acted like he was. Chase did not want his sister to be afraid of Santa so he decided that he would not be. We also worked on what he was going to say to Santa which he did perfectly about a month and a half later when he finally saw him.

He said to the big guy, "Hi Santa. My name is Chase and I would like a blue Paper Jams Pro Guitar that I can download all my favorite Aquabat songs on."

That speech was met with a blank look from Santa like, "What did he just say?"

It was a little long but Chase had a little more to say...

"This is my little sister Isabella and she wants a 'Let's Rock Elmo' for Christmas."

Santa looked relieved, "Oh, Elmo! Do you like Elmo, Isabella?

Blank wide eyed stare from Bella. Chase said, "Yes, she does and I like the band 'The Aquabats.'"

Thanks Chase. No one knew that.

Our tree was a little bare this year. I left off most of our ornaments that normally go on the bottom due to little almost two year old hands who likes anything that favors a ball. I did not even put any presents under it until a few days before Christmas.

I am happy to report that only one ornament was touched and only one gift had to be rewrapped.

Bella did way better than I thought she would. Hopefully, next year, I can put all the ornaments back on.

I am relieved that she did so well because I was having visions of what I saw years ago on "Jon & Kate Plus 8" of when Kate put a huge baby gate around their tree and gifts. Of course, if I had EIGHT little Isabellas running around, I would probably have a gate around more than my tree.

The Lord knew I could only handle one baby at a time.

This is what the kids woke up to on Christmas morning. Everyone had their own little pile/area.

He got what he asked for!

Isabella did too but she was more in love with these two pillows from Yo Gabba Gabba.

Chase helped me unwrap a few of my gifts. Jeremy said that this gift was for him too because he can't wait to have a meal from it. I also got the Pioneer Woman cookbook so I would be inspired to use my new pot.

A few years ago, my brother-in-law (Uncle Wendell) started a tradition of giving my 91 year old grandmother gag gifts by giving her a home pregnancy kit.

Here is Big Mama with one of her many funny gifts from Wendell. It is a picture of her with two guys from the show Swamp People. It looked like she was in the back of the boat with them on a gator hunt. 

Don't worry. Big Mama got lots of good gifts too. Plus, she gets Wendell back now with crazy gifts to him too. I laughed til I cried on a few of the gifts.

We also had a great Christmas time with Jeremy's family. Isabella is trying on her first pair of heels.

Isabella loves her cousin, Avonlea. I can't wait to see them together next year.

I am sad that I missed getting pictures of the three times that we sang "Happy Birthday" to Jesus and blew out the candle on His Birthday cake. We made sure the kids understood what this special season is really all about. 

I had so many favorite moments of this month but one that I was not expecting was Chase's fashion choices. Usually, he wears on three or four mostly blue shirts and dark pants. He is not fun to dress at all anymore except at Christmas.

He got all into the spirit of things with lots of red and green in all his clothes.
My eyes were blessed by the change. I still have hope that he might expand his wardrobe a little in January.

Whew! Did I lose anyone out there with this month long post?

I hope each of you had a great time celebrating Jesus' birth!

Now, really looking forward to a fresh new year.