Ten on Tuesday

1. I've got a lot of blog catching up to do. I'd like to say I'm going to post every day until I catch up. But probably not.

2. The girls put the Nativity scene together for me this year. Once it was complete, Emma promptly hid the baby Jesus. Because apparently that's what you do. (And as I'm typing this, I feel as if I've already shared that.)

(12/2/10)

3. The fitness center held their annual Winter Wonderland earlier this month. (Again, feeling like I'm repeating myself. Which I do often, by the way.) Attempted a picture of the girls and Ryan with our neighbors and friends, Caroline and Jack. Mackenzie was being grumpy and didn't want in it.

(12/5/10)

3.5 But then she did. See her face? Grumpy. And blocking Jack.


4. Then Jack made Ryan smile and it was cute.

5. Please let me show you the football hold. Our kids have always liked this.

6. We did some Christmas shopping with my mom. Six hours the girls walked the mall - and with no meltdowns! I was so impressed we had Auntie Ann's pretzels before leaving.

6.5They rode the train. It drives them all around the mall. They loved it.

(12/9/10)

7. Six hours of shopping meant six hours of bags. Which meant Ryan got held towards the end...

8. And the bags went in the stroller.

9. The nicest man sat in front of us at our church's Christmas concert. He was so kind to the girls, chatting with them, not getting annoyed at their frequent moving and talking. Emma even shared her Twizzler with him. When it was over, he offered to take a picture for us. We're missing Grandpa Sweeney and Ryan was in the nursery.

(12/10/10)

10. But here he is. Snoozing. With the program. Because I'm still taking pictures of him with things on his lap. It's still amusing me.

Ten on Tuesday

1. We have snow. Lots of snow. I took these this morning, and we got plenty more afterwards. Lots of snow means snow days though, which Michael and Emma had on Monday.



2. Emma had her Christmas concert/Happy Birthday Baby Jesus program tonight. It was unbelievably cute. I didn't get any good pictures from where I was sitting, but you can see her in this one.


3. Purple Heart picked up two bags of donated clothes today while I was out snowblowing. I was just cleaning out the laundry room and now have four more bags for them. Wish I would've done this last night.

4. While I haven't started putting together my Dec. Daily yet, I am up-to-date on the journaling and tonight downloaded Ali Edwards' 6x8 overlays. I'm getting there.

5. Ryan is still cute. Starting to grow out of his 0-3 month sleepers.

6. Mackenzie is still a stinker. Oh my is this going to an interesting winter. I'm praying for patience daily. Really. I am.

7. Emma still talks a lot. And questions everything. We'll be lucky if she still believes in Santa next year. She's already wondering why there are so many Santas and if they're the real Santa or not.

8. We cut down our tree Saturday (pictures to come) and afterwards you can go in their barn and get hot chocolate, make s'mores, roast hot dogs. It's the best hot chocolate ever. And the woman who owns the farm was nice enough to share the recipe with me. It makes a lot. I mean a lot of hot chocolate mix, you only need 1/3 cup per serving.



9. Have you checked out Write.Click.Scrapbook. lately? December brings WCS for the Holidays, a month of holiday-related posts, projects, layouts, mini-albums and more. I have two new mini-albums that will be posted later this month.

10. I'm almost done with my Christmas shopping. Thursday I'm going to the mall with my mom (first trip with all three kiddos) and will finish my sister and mom that day. I'll then just need to get my brother-in-law's present, some stocking stuffers and I'll be done. Very excited by this.

And while the third attempt looked promising...

It ended up like the rest. With me holding Emma while she buried her head in my shoulder. But really, it did start off well because it was actually her idea to go see Santa. She wanted to after her friends Julia and Frankie said they wanted to see him. She waited in line with me then when it was her turn, she ran away then sat on the floor.



She did lift her head up just enough to mumble, "and a princess bike" to Santa.


Then her head was back in my shoulder.


Mackenzie on the other hand actually took a candy cane from him and even said "bye" to him before he left.

A slight improvement

As in sitting next to versus standing in front of Santa, like last weekend. Baby steps. We're taking baby steps. Although I'm positive it wasn't that she wanted to sit by Santa, rather that Santa had a present for her (a coloring book) and she had to sit there to get it. Hey, if it works...

(The very cool Santa and Mrs. Claus at Emma's preschool Christmas brunch this morning.)

Mackenzie on the other hand, had been over by a window while Emma and I talked to Santa. Next thing I know she's on the floor in front of us wailing away. It was the funniest thing. It's not like she had to come over near Santa. She could've stayed on the other side of the room, yet she walked over and proceeded to cry in total fear of the jolly old man. She's so strange.

Breakfast with Santa

This past Saturday was breakfast with Santa. Emma wanted to go because Lisa, Tim, Bree and Ava were going to be there. But she said she did not want to see Santa. When we walked in Santa was standing there greeting everyone. Emma made a wide circle around him and Mackenzie clung to my leg. She warmed up a bit when he let her ring the bells he had, but later when he visited the table she started to cry. And he wasn't even next to her, he was across the table by Emma and Bree!

I've probably mentioned this before, but Emma is really in to drawing and coloring. And she draws very well for her age. She's also gotten very good at staying in the lines when coloring. Hopefully she'll have more artistic abilities than her mother. She always wants me to draw things and I'm limited to a whale, a house and a tree. Oh, and those "v" birds.


Mackenzie was really concentrating.


After breakfast it was time to visit Santa and of course neither girl wanted to go. But I told them we had to so we could give Santa their Christmas lists. I filled out a list for each girl that included what they'd like for Christmas and how they'd been good this year.

Mackenzie told me she wanted (in this order): Dora, Diego, baseball, football, Minnie Mouse. She wasn't telling Santa though, Mommy handed him the list.


Emma said she wanted a princess bike, princess Barbie, markers and tic tac toe. Emma also wasn't telling Santa, in fact she wouldn't even look at him. He was a very nice and understanding Santa though.


After that, the girls worked on their crafts and I took some pictures for a mom who forgot her camera and her mom's camera's battery had died. Her children, on the other hand, smiled quite nicely for me!

We had fun. I love that our city does this. And Saturday, we're doing it again. Michael's baseball team is having a Breakfast with Santa fundraiser. Pretty sure I'll have pictures very similar to the ones above!

Whispering Pines

We went and cut our tree down Sunday afternoon. We normally go the first weekend in December, but there's too much going on this coming weekend, (Go Chagrin! The football team is playing for the state championship!) so we decided to go early. It was nice though. Great weather - last year it was snowing and freezing. And we went with a new tree this year, the white spruce instead of a scotch pine. Just in case you were wondering.

There's a tractor hay ride out to the area of the farm that has the type of tree you want. On Saturday there are Amish horse-drawn hay rides which is what we had last year.

(I swear she was looking when I took this.)

Mackenzie really liked the hay ride. She's laughing. Honest.






We tried to get a picture of me with both girls. But only Mackenzie was interested.


Until Mackenzie's turn was over. Then Emma wanted a picture...on my back.


But Mac had to be in on it, too, of course.


My first attempt at getting a Christmas card picture. Didn't work.




While Michael was busy cutting down the tree, the girls were picking little leaves off the ground.


And rocks. Mackenzie was really into the rocks she found.



Second attempt. Not any better. Especially with that long piece of hair right down the middle of Emma's face.

(As soon as we started to move, Mackenzie started to cry and had to sit on my lap. Apparently hay rides are only fun on Mommy's lap. And she's still got the rock.)

After you get your tree, they have a fire and refreshments in the barn. They serve the BEST hot chocolate ever. Plus free s'mores and hot dogs to roast. Oh, and Amish baked goods for sale. We bought a big cinnamon roll - it was the size of a paper plate - and oh my gosh it was so good. We should've bought five.