It Ain't Easy Being a Princess. . . .: December 2010

Friday, December 31, 2010

These are a few of her favorite things.

Just a little snippet of her current favorite things, or of things that were in her line of vision at that current second. Please forgive the zooming noises, apparently the mic on my Christmas present camera is really sensitive.

Thursday, December 30, 2010

THIS IS THE GREATEST DAY OF MY LIFE!!!

This is the greatest day of my life!!!!!!!

If I heard that once, I heard it a thousand times!

Christmas this year was amazing. That's the only way to describe it. Just plain great. It wasn't our biggest Christmas. In fact, it was one of our smallest. But truth be told, our kids didn't need a thing. So the gifts they did get were exactly the ones they asked for. No fluff. No real extras. And honestly, it was awesome! The pictures capture the mood better than my words ever could, so here you go!

I am so happy that I have been able to capture this moment year after year. It is such a magical second, that instant they turn the corner and see all the presents piled under the tree.

Seriously, I adore that little girl and her excitement over everything in life! Even stuffed chameleons!

PS3! YES!!

From the look on her face, you'd expect this gift to be something super amazing right?

It was a tiny rabbit family for her doll house. Does life get any better?!

That is a happy pre-teen boy.

More doll house things. You really would have thought we had given her keys to the whole wide world.

My favorite shot of the entire day. Her excitement completely overcame her and she just had to stop and laugh. "This is the greatest day of my life!"

That girl is my whole heart!

At the last moment, Roo decided she really wanted an American Girl doll. And I mean at the very last moment. As in, too late to get it overnighted from FedEx. Not even for Santa.

Not only was it last minute, but of course our little Princess wanted the doll that was going to be discontinued right after Christmas. Super.

Little did we know, a Daddy elf had already ordered this most special of dolls, and it magically appeared under the tree on Christmas morning. Santa and Daddy elves are truly amazing. We are so lucky to have them both.

There was magic of all kinds Christmas morning!

everybody got what they wanted this Christmas. Even Daddy.

Mommy got what was at the top of her wish list!

Even the dogs got their favorite things! Except Beau thought they were both for him and hogged the bones all morning.

Lily wasn't even going to waste her time trying to steal back her bone. She couldn't have if she had wanted to though-Beau didn't put them down all morning.

I think this pretty much sums it up!

(that's me with a sheet of piping hot cookies, Zach with his "video game 3", and Bella & Daddy looking at her drawings on her easel)

Visions of PS3s and Easy Bake Ovens dancing in their heads

Christmas Eve is always one of my favorite times of the whole Christmas season. The kids are always overflowing with excitement, and you just can't help feeling it right along with them! This year was especially great because Bella was big enough to really "get" what was going to happen when she woke up Christmas morning. She literally could not contain herself. Experiencing her excitement was the most wonderfully hilarious thing ever. I hope desperately that she never loses her Christmas spirit. Rob and I joked that she is going to be the Crazy Christmas Sweater Lady when she grows up. You know the one-she has the sweater with jingle bells and music, and the light up earrings that look like Christmas lights for your house. It's gonna be her. And you know what, we are both o.k. with that. . . I think.

Every Christmas Eve, we spend the evening with Rob's family, eating, opening presents, and seeing relatives we only get to see at Christmas. It's always a lot of fun! Then we head home to begin our own family's traditions: opening a present and making cookies for Santa. Like I said, this year Bella is really aware of the things to come and the things that have been in the past. Even more so than we realized. . .

As we were driving home from Rob's family's Christmas, the conversation in our car went something like this,

me: Kids, when we get home I need to to go in Bella's room and play for just a minute.

Bella: Why?. . . . Do you still need to wrap our Christmas jammies?

What?! She wasn't supposed to know. Sure Zach does. But he is 12! She's only 5! How does she even remember what we get every year?!

Rob and I could not contain our laughter! It's true that they do get Christmas jammies as their gift to open each year on Christmas Eve, but we had no idea that she remembered! Obviously, we were wrong! She informed me next, "Well, you give us jammies every year Mommy!"

I love that they know, and even though they know, I love that they are both still so excited and pretend to be surprised for me :)

look at that happiness! It doesn't even matter that they know what's in those presents!

I love that even though he's almost 13, Zach still loves getting his Christmas jammies!

I love that she gets so excited over the littlest things.

this makes my heart so happy!

and of course they have to be silly. They wouldn't be our kids if they weren't!

Sweet baby had to leave a note for Santa

Making Santa's cookies. We were lucky there was any cookie dough left after Daddy got ahold of it!

Then off to bed. Visions of PS3s (or video game 3s as Bella calls it) and Easy Bake Ovens dancing in

their heads!

Nashville's Winter Wonderland

For more added Christmas fun, we decided to surprise the kiddos with a trip to Nashville for a little SNOW and ICE. Although I find it sad (and seriously ridiculous) that we had to travel 3 hours and pay over $150 to play in the snow, the kids had a super great time, so that's all that matters. Never mind the fact that we will be eating noodles for the next two weeks to make up for Christmas and this little excursion :) Their face-splitting smiles and sound of their laughs made it all worth it!