12.28.2010

Christmas recap

This was certainly a Christmas we will remember!  We woke up Christmas morning to one excited little girl, one crabby little girl, a ridiculous amount of presents, and a whole lot of water.  There is no feeling like stepping on to soggy carpet at 6:30 in the morning, particularly if that morning happens to be Christmas day.  At 12:30am Christmas morning, Steve and I finally had all of the presents assembled and under the tree, cocked and ready for an excited little girl to come down the stairs and open them up to play.  I noticed before we went to bed that the toilet was clogged, but it was late and I was tired.  I told Steve and we decided to take care of it in the morning.  Neither of us considered the fact that the downstairs toilet runs.  So, it overflowed.  All night long.  Our bathroom, bedroom, closet, and living room were soaked.  Thankfully, it was just creeping up to the presents when we woke up.  In the grand scheme of things, it was one bad thing on a day that was otherwise enchanting, but it still put a bit of a damper on everything else.  We made it work, moved the presents upstairs and finally got to opening them around 11.  We called the insurance company and they sent Servpro out to clean up the water.  I was still disappointed though.   I had built up such a magical day in mind.  Funny how things don't work out that way, huh?  Oh well.  Now we have to clean our closet, so that is a bonus.  And we are getting the carpets professionally cleaned pretty much throughout the downstairs.  One of the walls in the bedroom will be repainted.  I guess that's the bright side of things.  The carpet is dry, but still ripped up downstairs.  Hopefully they will come to fix it by the end of the week.  We had 6 fans and 2 dehumidifiers running for 3 days.  It's amazing how much water there was. 



 But now it is done.  On to the good parts of our family Christmas!

I finally got Christmas cards out a day or 2 before Christmas.  They were the cutest Christmas cards ever!  At least I thought so!  They were all handmade by a toddler.  We could only make so many, so mostly they went to family, but it was fun to make them!


We made 4 batches of cookies.  Wow, it was a lot!  There were gingerbread men, Christmas tree cutouts, peanut butter and chocolate chip, and chocolate snowballs.  We passed some out to our neighbors.  I branched out and tried some new recipes this season, and I gotta say, I am sorry I ever doubted my old favorites.  Tollhouse still has the best chocolate chip cookies, and Betty Crocker by far makes the best sugar cookies.  I'll post those recipes later!  However, I stuck with Martha Stewart's gingerbread, after tweaking her spices just a bit for a little funkier, pumpkin-y gingerbread cookie.   They were delicious!  Here is Kira helping me cutout the shapes: (although I think she was really just eating the dough!  She really is a mini-mama!)
   

We did make it to visit Santa once Kira got better!  We trekked all the way across town to the Bass Pro Shop since they had a free Santa until Christmas day.  I was really worried we wouldn't get to see him and thrilled that we did.  Unfortunately, neither girl was nearly as thrilled as I was:
Santa was giving us the evil eye while we were standing in line.  When we were up next, you could already see the dread on his face.  He made it work though.  And in all fairness, there was a long line of squirmy children!  I love the big "Santa" belt buckle he had on and the stuffed reindeer in the back!  It was definitely the Bass Pro shop!  And the most redneck Santa ever!  Haha.    

I didn't get many good pictures Christmas morning as I was a bit preoccupado.  Hopefully Grandad will be sending his soon.  Steve was in charge of the video camera, and we got a lot of great stuff there.  Thanks to the Lord that he was all over it and we have some good memories to look back on!  The girls, Kira in particular, had a great time ripping the paper off the gifts.  She was so curious to see what was inside!  As soon as she realized there were toys in them, she was all about wanting to open every one.  Funnily enough, she already seems to have that kid mentality of bigger is better.  She demanded to open the biggest presents first.  Ariana could care less, she just wanted to eat the wrapping paper.   In fact, several days and even more cleanups later, I am still digging little pieces of wrapping and zip ties out of her mouth that she is finding somewhere!   


 

 The first thing Kira found were the shoes in her stocking.  She immediately sat down and put them on.  Then she climbed in the wagon grandma gave her!  She refused to take the shoes off for most of the day.  Such a girly girl we have!



    And last but not least, here are the girls playing with their new cars!


 Crazy Grandad out in the 40 degree weather in his shorts!
It was a Christmas of cars.  Kira got her Power Wheels that she loves!  Ariana got a buggy (which Kira also loves!  ha ha)  Aria like being pushed around in it too.  However, on Christmas day, she was less than thrilled about being outside in the cold.  Much like her big sister, she likes to go fast!

Overall, it turned out to be pretty decent Christmas.  Only 362 days until we get to do it again!  I hope everyone had a great holiday!

1 comment:

  1. Hey there! Wanted to let you know that we got our Christmas Card! It was awesome....so cute :) Thanks for the pictures, too. The girls are getting sooooo big.

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