I've been promoted....

to an angel. :) Her "son baby Jesus" is always lost and she is perpetually looking for Him. O ya, and she isn't just Mary, she's "Mary princess" and don't tell her otherwise. (Oh, and Mimi, purple baby is now Mary baby) I love that she really remembers the Christmas story and what Christmas is all about.

Today, as I've been packing up our Christmas decorations, she asked why it was all going away. I said, "well, Christmas is over and we have to put it all away until next year". Her response? "NO! Christmas not over, I not ready for it to go away!" A girl after my own heart. It pains my soul to put away all of the decorations. I love Christmas so much and find myself mildy depressed (not really) after my pretty house goes back to normal. And plain. Speaking of which, I need new ideas for my mantel. I am so bored of it. For anyone reading, thoughts, ideas??

Yesterday, Anna-Kate and I went on a little "Mommy/daughter date" to, where else, Target. :) We split a pretzel (with "special" mustard sauce), played with and looked at all the toys, and had a really fun time just being "us girls" as she says. She loves to have one-on-one time with me and loves to play with and look at the new toys at Target. She also always asks to have a big pretzel when we go in--so we killed 3 birds, one stone. My kinda efficiency. :)

So, we sat down to eat and I said that we needed to pray and thank Jesus for the pretzel.

AK: "God is good. God is...Wait. I can't say this. This not bread Mommy".
Me: "It's OK honey, we can pray to God using any words we want. We can even just say, 'thank you Jesus for this yummy pretzel!'"
AK: "Oooooh. Thank you for pretzels Jesus!!"

Such a sweet teaching moment, and of course, I had to laugh too.

Christmas 2008

Wow. It's been a long week--good, but long. :)

Ryan was sick last week. First stomach bug of his life, and it was a doozy. He got sick Sunday, Chris got it on Monday, my mother-in-law got it Tuesday, my father-in-law got it Thursday (yep, that'd be Christmas, sick in a hotel room. Poor guy.)My parents got a mild case on Friday, then my grandparents both got it over the weekend. You might be thinking that I'm irresponsible that so many people got it. Possibly, but I promise I didn't mean to, it was just highly contagious. I mean, Chris and his mom got it from Ryan, but his dad got it from his mom...etc. OK.

We had fun with Chris' parents and seeing his brother, our sister in law and their kids. Anna-Kate especially enjoyed having so much family in town to play with her for the whole week!

Christmas day itself was wonderful (mostly). The kids woke up at normal time and Anna-Kate was WIDE EYED when she looked into the living room and saw her bike and stocking from Santa. (actually, a Barbie big wheels--it has a blinker and a little basket and a horn!). Ryan wasn't feeling amazing, so didn't care so much about his stocking and rocking horse. We had a big yummy breakfast, took pictures of the kids in their matching Christmas jammies, then began opening presents. We are so blessed by family that loves us! We were all given so many nice things. Anna-Kate's favorite's included her dress up clothes and her new doll house. She spends hours in her tu-tu playing with her new dolls in their house. Ryan's favorites are his little people train set and his new laptop. :)

On Saturday my in-laws headed back to St. Louis and we headed down to Macon to do Christmas with our extended family. It was so disappointing that Mana and Papa couldn't be there, but we had a good time seeing everyone anyway. Tonight we got together again with my grandparents who are feeling better.

Quotable from Christmas:

AK: "I Mary, Daddy Joseph, Mommy--you a sheep. Now, where's my son Jesus? Oh, excuse me sheep, I fell on you."
Her favorite thing is pretending to be the Holy family. I used to be Mary, I've been demoted to sheep. Ryan is a lamb usually. Her baby is usually baby Jesus (formerly known as "baby Kate" she keeps trying to rename baby Jesus. we are trying to not encourage that). She sometimes refers to me as sheep. Like, "sheep are you thirsty?"

I don't have pictures from Maon, or from my grandparents house tonight (I'm waiting on pictures from my Mom, and I'll post them later).

Anna-Kate on Ryan's rocking horse Christmas morning. She's trying to show him how to really jump on it:



Ryan opening his first tooth brush from his stocking:



Opening stockings--cute matching jammies: :)



Anna-Kate in her new dress up clothes:



Reading a new book with Mama:



Anna-Kate and Mimi reading a book:



Sweet Ryan trying to eat some dinner:

Christmas traditions and funnies

So this morning we embarked upon an Atlanta Christmas tradition: riding the Pink Pig at Macy's. My mom went as I child, I went as a child, and now, we took our kids. Somehow, it was way lamer this time around...but I digress, Anna-Kate had wide eyes and loved it! I documented our trip to visit the pig (not sure if the new one has a name. Since the 50's her name was Priscilla, but she was retired in 1996 to an Atlanta museum.

We waited over an hour (family with Chris' dad):



We were first to board and got to sit in front (Anna-Kate was loving all of the PINK...and OK, so was I):



Family shot on the pig (the pig you can see in the background was the orignal pig car that I rode in as a kid):



We had a great time, and are excited to be starting our own family Christmas traditions. I'll keep you posted with what else we come up with. :)

(I know you are sitting with baited breath on the edge of your seat)

***

We've been teaching Anna-Kate table manners. Like, to be excused she says, "may I be excused please, thank you for ____" (insert b'fast, lunch or dinner). So tonight she says the first part right but says....
AK: "thank you for lunch"
Me: "what meal did we just eat?"
AK: "uh-huh" (her answer when she doesn't know something)
Me: "we eat breakfast in the morning, lunch before nap and what at nighttime?"
AK: "pancakes!"
Me: "no..."
AK: "CHEERIOS!!"

***

So, Ryan's been sick. Anna-Kate is missing her friends and so asked me to invite a friend over this afternoon. I told her we couldn't because they might get Ryan's germs and get sick.
Me: "you sure dont' want your friends to come over and get sick do you?"
AK: "yes, I do want them to come over and get sick!"

Always thinking of others... :)

***

So a few minutes ago we were all playing in the family room. Chris is always making cool structures out of pillows and blankets for her to play in/hide under. So she said, "my bed is broken, fix it Mama". I didn't know she was referring to the pretend pillow bed. Once that was all sorted out, I tried my best to build a bed of pillows (though more a fort, but whatever). Anna-Kate's heart-warming response? "That's not right Mama". Ahem. I've created a monster, and she's only 2 1/2 years old...I tried again, and she repeated above statement. Then followed it up with, "daddy builds it better."

Fine, I didn't want to build a pillow fort anyway.

First hair cut and other catch-up pictures

Ryan is a champ! On Thursday we got his 9 month pictures taken (too bad he'll be 10 months tomorrow.....) and then (during his nap time) I took him to get his first hair cut. He did great! No tears, sat still and talked to me and watched Little Mermaid. (even when she did the razor!!) Super. Then we went to Wal-Mart and Hobby Lobby (you know, my favorite store in the world, well, that and Target. :)). All of this, and no fussing! I love having a laid back kid!

Sitting in the car awaiting the cut:



The first cut:



The after--what a handsome little man!



I absolutely teared up when I was in there. He looks so much older with his hair cut and all of his little curls gone.

***

The other day Anna-Kate walked up to me holding the camera and said, "Mommy, you take picture of me holding Ryan". Well friends, here it is:



***

Here is a picture of the craft we did at Jesus' birthday party--Joseph, Mary and Jesus all laying in the manger :)



It's the old-school clothes pins cut in 3 lengths and with fabric glued on for clothes. The kids got to put moss in their boxes (manger) and then wrap baby Jesus in swaddling cloth (I put velcro on white fabric so they could swaddle and unswaddle--genious, right? :)

Weekend wrap-up

Well, I guess the weekend isn't technically over, but it's time for a wrap up anyway. :)

Friday we had a birthday party for Jesus. I'll post pics when I get them from my friend Andria--she always gets great pictures, and, I couldn't find my camera until the very end. The ELEVEN 2 and 3 year olds (and their younger siblings and Moms) had a great time doing a craft, eating lunch, playing and singing the birthday song to Jesus. Such a sweet time--though, I was kinda stressed out at once point. :) I'll post more about it when I get pics.

That evening we got Bruster's icecream with the Crabbs and played cards. Depressing. In our 2008 championship the girls, of late, are getting creamed. So sad. $50 "blow money" and an entire Saturday free of kid responsibility is on the line--I know I need that more than Chris. :) (though, I"m sure he would disagree).

This morning was spent monogramming for friends while Ryan napped and Anna-Kate and Chris went Christmas shopping. We grilled burgers and hotdogs with our friends Drew and Ashley (in the 70 degree Christmas weather...)then had a Christmas party with our home group from church tonight. There are so many great people in our church--and we have been blessed to have so many live close to us! What fun we had talking, eating and then ending the evening with carols, praise songs and a time of prayer. Anna-Kate had a ball playing with the other little girls her age and singing "away in the manger"--her current fav.

Tomorrow we have another birthday party for Jesus at church. Should be fun. Then, after the kids' naps, my in-laws will be here. I think after they arrive it will "feel real" that Christmas is really here and the festivities are beginning. :)

Anna-Kate's pocket

Chris: "Anna-Kate, where'd my phone go?"
AK: "It's in my pocket"
Chris: "But you don't have a pocket." (she was wearing a smocked dress)
AK: "Yes I do, in here." Then points at her crouch. Ya, she had stuck the phone in her tights and was squeezing her legs together to keep it from sliding down and out of her "pocket".

She's a resourceful one, that girl. :) Ha!

Santa Claus is coming to town, and, a funny

Here are some pictures from last weekend's visit to Santa. Our neighborhood had a breakfast with Santa. So much fun, and a lot of yummy food! Unfortunately, our girl is petrified of Santa in person. At home she talks about him, told us that she was going to ask him for a baby (that looked like her) and a Nemo fish (lucky for her, my parents just got back from a business trip in Orlando and brought her back a Nemo!). One of my best friends, Allison, was up for the weekend while her husband, Matt, was interviewing at Emory for the residence program (YAY!!).

Here is precious Ryan chillin' in Santa's lap waiting for big sister to get it together:



Here is their together shot with Santa (pitiful):



A family shot with Santa:



Our family (eating, it's what we do best--"we're eaters") with Allison:



***

We've been teaching Anna-Kate about sincere apologies. Not just saying "I'm sorry", but to include the reason she is sorry, and also, when someone apologizes to her to tell them they "are forgiven" (and move on...).

She and I were playing this morning and she accidently poked me in the eye. I said ouch that she had hurt me.

AK: "I sorry Mommy"
I was about to prompt her with "for what?", and to include that it was an accident, but before I could say it, she said...
AK: "But it's OK, I forgive you Mommy".

Tears. I was so tickled.