Santa!

We finally made it to see Santa one week before Christmas.  Rob very patiently went an hour and a half early to wait in line while I got the kids ready and came to the museum seperately.  As it turns out, Santa Land was not busy AT ALL and we were 2nd in line.  Claire was so excited!!  She loved watching Santa come down the chimney (that's the main reason Rob went so early....we couldn't miss that part!)

 

Then she met with the Snow Queen as she waited for her turn.

Just as I predicted, Claire struck a pose while Fielder screamed.  He started crying the second I tried to put him on Santa's lap.  Makes for a funny picture!!  I took Fielder to the side so that Claire could have a minute to talk with Santa and tell him what she'd like to have for Christmas (a Doc McStuffins doctor kit)







After visiting with Santa, I let the kids play in the museum for a while!  Fielder loved running around and playing in the farm area!





2 happy kids ready for Santa to come! 

 

Mommy/Daughter Day

I haven't mentioned anything here about the tragedy in Newton yet because I feel like this is my family "scrapbook" - a place to post about happy times with my family and a little bit of bragging about the kiddos.  I can't help but say that I've been thinking of That Day constantly and aching for those families.....it's made me (and many others I'm sure) want to hug the kids a little tighter and spend some good quality time together.  That's just what Claire and I decided to do on Sunday (16th).  We made our gingerbread house in the morning while Fielder napped.  (She might have eaten more candy than what actually ended up on the house)

Then in the afternoon, we went out on a special Mommy/Daughter date.  Mimi gave us tickets to see The Nutcracker - it's performed at a local high school by a professional dance group.  We had both been looking forward to it for a long time.

Claire saw several of her friends there.  Her favorite part was during intermission when lots of the girls came down to the stage to dance.  It was adorable watching them all twirl around.

 Unfortunately, just a few minutes into the 2nd part of the show there was a fire alarm.  We all had to go outside - including the performers.  We waited and waited and as we were walking around, we found Clara and took a picture with her!  What fun meeting a "celebrity"  :-)

Eventually we were able to go back in for the rest of the show.  (The alarm was having techinical difficulties and went off a couple more times, but we were told to ignore it.)  I was so glad I didn't have to tell Claire that we would have to miss the end of the show.  She really enjoyed it and I loved doing something special with her!

Slumber Par-tay!

Matt and Alison had a Christmas party in Richmond on Thursday night and Claire was beyond excited to have her very first sleepover with Katie.  She was expected to arrive sometime around 6:30 - I missed their voicemail that they'd be there at 6:45 so here was Claire "in position" from 6:15-6:45 waiting for Katie!

As soon as she arrived, I needed to put Fielder to bed.  So what did I do to keep the girls occupied?  I gave them a cookie and put them in a box!  Ha!  Uncle Rob was there to supervise of course.

There wasn't much time for playing.  After Fielder was in bed, the girls had a bubble bath together and then we got ready for bed.  Do these girls look like they are ready to go to sleep?!

I read them some stories and Katie said a goodnight prayer for us:
"Dear God, I love you, no matter what you say. Thank you.  Mumble...mumble....something something(??) The End."
I knew it was going to be party-time when I left the room so I didn't even try to get them to go straight to sleep.  I told them they could play quietly and I would come up to tuck them in later.  I eventually went up and was pleasantly surprised to see that Claire had turned the lights off and gotten herself into bed.  Katie on the other hand had a million and one reasons that she was not ready to go to sleep!!  She needed more water (cup was already half full), she wanted to know if Claire could rhyme, her belly hurt from eating too much dinner, she was hungry, and my all-time favorite:
"I need my time capsule.  I can't sleep without my time capsule."
"Ok Katie, where is it?  Is it in your bag?"
"No, I buried it in my yard."

Eventually they went to sleep and there were only 2 wake-up calls at 2:30a.m. and 4:45am!!  I slept on the floor beside Katie until 6:30 when I figured I should get up.  :-)  Katie definitely missed her mommy and Daddy, but I think Claire and I did a good job at helping her feel comfortable!  It cracked me up though when the first thing I heard her say to Claire in the morning was "That was the best sleepover EVER!"

The girls came downstairs to find Elfie in another silly predicament.  He tried to decorate the kitchen with lights and got all hung up in the ceiling fan!

2 cute cousins with bed-head!!





 

 

Elfie's Antics

We've had so much fun searching for Elfie each morning and seeing all his crazy hiding places & tricks!

One morning, he had stolen my camera and taken pictures of himself.  This is what we found on our computer when we turned it on:


Another morning, we found Elfie with instructions on planting some magic seeds!  She planted them in sugar, sprinkled with magic snow, and waited......later in the day we started to see the magic working...the sugar turned green!!  And by the next morning, m&m candy canes had grown!!


Elfie is not quite so extravagant every morning.  Some days we just find him hiding in silly places - or checking  himself out in the mirror.

But then the other day, Claire had a hard time with one of her "rules" that Santa had specifically asked her to work on.  Elfie left a note saying he was sad that his magic did not work and that she would need to really try hard to follow the rules so that his magic would work again.

Luckily we found Elfie again the next morning! 

More Christmas Fun

So much to do this time of year and the calendar is filling up fast!  Claire wanted to be sure we got her letter in the mail in time for Santa to receive it.  She wrote it all by herself and was very proud of it.  In case you have trouble reading it (because the picture is so small of course) it says:
Dear Santa,
Say Hi.  How are you today?  I want a Doc McStuffins Doctor kit.  Bye

She's been talking about a new doctor kit non-stop....I hope Santa comes through!

Last night while Daddy was at a basketball game, we met up with Aunt Mere and Kate at the Stony Point Christmas tree.  When I first got there, it had a few white lights on it and there was a song playing.  I thought to myself "gee, is this it?  I can't believe we drove all the way over here for this...."  And then the music started and the lights were dancing - the look on Claire's face was so worth it!  She loved it and Fielder seemed to enjoy it too.  Then we went to Panera for a treat and by the time we finished it was time for the light show again.  Thanks Mere for a fun Christmas activity!

O Christmas Tree!

We found Elfie on Sunday morning hanging from our light in the playroom.  We noticed he was holding an ornament and took that as a hint that he wanted us to put up the Christmas tree!  We certainly didn't want to disappoint the little guy (that reports to the Big Guy) so up went our tree!  After reading Alison's hilarious story about getting a real tree, I'm happy to say we still have our trusty old fake tree!  Within an hour with Fielder strapped to my back, we had it out of the attic, set up and decorated.  Ok, I'll admit....it would be really cool one year to go chop down a real one!
Here are my helpers:


This is how we rigged up the furniture to keep Fielder out of the tree.  It works for him, but it definitely doesn't keep Claire out.  She's been rearranging and playing with the ornaments ever since.

We've also been playing a lot of "find the pickle."  I think the tradition is supposed to be that it's hidden and whoever finds it (the first time) wins a special prize.  Claire just likes to play so we do this over and over and over, but no prizes!

Even though it's such a hassle to keep Fielder from destroying stuff, I love having all the Christmas decorations up!  Nothing better than hanging out with my family and the lights from the tree sparkling in the room  :-)

Elfie's back!

Elfie made his grand appearance on December 1!  He brought Claire and Fielder a note and some snow donuts straight from the North Pole.  (notice he is enjoying a donut himself)  When Claire saw that he had also set the table for her with a Christmas place mat, plate, and cup she said "Wow, I guess Elfie really is magic!"
Looks like Elfie might be stepping up his game from last year...

December 1st was also the Parade downtown.  We squeezed in an hour of parading between Fielder's nap and lunchtime.  It was fun, but I think next year we'll plan a little better, get there early and set up camp.  Claire loved Rudolph and Frosty the best.

The parade is the most random mix of floats, bands, groups, and balloons.  The strangest is the Star Wars people that are totally dressed up and look exactly like from the movies.  I was cracking up because at one point Claire was covering her eyes and scared to death while Fielder was high-fiving Darth Vader.  I wish I had a picture of that!!