Christmas 2011

This has been a Christmas season unlike any other.  The biggest difference was the lack of family gatherings and no grandparents to share in the festivities.  We were kind of at a loss as to how to properly celebrate.  We did spend Christmas Eve with Josh's cousin (Carrie Hansen) and her family.  We cooked/baked and played games all day.  They were a huge help to us after the game playing as well.  Santa and his two little elves had been slacking bigtime and needed help finishing everything in his workshop (if you get my drift).  They stayed and helped until it was all done.  Bless their hearts.  Thank you Carrie and David!  Santa didn't get to our house until probably 2am.  

We also were able to get together at Shawn and Janet's house on Christmas Day.  Janet made Santa hats for everyone (so cute).  We had a yummy dinner and fun visiting with each other.  Besides these two get-togethers, we didn't do much else with anyone.  We are grateful for the time with our family that we were able to have. Oh - and I forgot to bring the family calendar for Shawn and Janet.  I remembered that I had forgotten it about half way to their house.  By the way, the calendar was much easier to do this year.  This was mainly because Costco did it.  I did spend some time putting it together, but for the most part it was much simpler for me than prior years.  The important thing is....It's Done!

A funny thing happened this year with Santa's treats.  Usually Isabella will help me or Grandma Poyfair make cookies for him on his big night.  This year Isabella thought that Santa might be bored with always eating cookies at everyone's houses.  So, she wanted to make him a peanut butter and honey sandwich to go with the cookies.  And so we did, only we used a gingerbread man cookie cutter to make the sandwich fun.  We also added mini m&m's for eyes, mouth, and buttons.  She was so excited to see the crumbs on his plate the next day. Oh, the magic of Christmas!

We also wrote letters to Santa and sent them in our magical mailbox.  You should have seen her face when she opened it to find that yes the elves had indeed delivered her letter to Santa up in the North Pole!  Oh! And another really cute thing about this year - Isabella and Luke received an emailed video from Santa himself!  Unfortunately, a malicious cookie virus-r-other was attached to it.  It's a good thing we have security on our computer (dad).

The favorite gifts this year were for Isabella: a lalaloopsy silly hair doll, and for Luke: spiderman toys (of all sorts), and a hot wheels crash track.  Elizabeth doesn't care yet, but I'd say her favorite thing was the musical light up radio thingy that Tucker gave her.  If you've forgotten, Tucker is the little boy I babysit.  His mother, Michelle, is Isabella's preschool teacher.  She absolutely went overboard on us for Christmas!  I'm grateful, but I feel guilty excepting so much.  Especially when I didn't provide Tucker with anything near to what she gave my kids. 

The Story of the Silly Hair Lalaloopsy Doll:  

It was a dark and stormy night (well, maybe not so stormy...okay, it wasn't stormy at all, but it was dark).  I had no idea how hot an item this silly hair doll would be.  I remember seeing the commercials about a month ago for the doll.  Isabella had said she wanted it.  I thought it was cute and thought to myself, "I'll have to keep that doll in mind this Christmas."  If only I had been more proactive!!

So, like I said it was a dark night (around 9pm).  All the kids were in bed.  Josh had been shopping earlier that day and had purchased a lalaloopsy doll (not silly hair) from Costco.  As soon as I saw it I knew it wouldn't work.  We had been searching ALL over EVERYWHERE for the silly hair variety with no luck.  I was resigned to have a generic run of the mill lalaloopsy doll.  I had resigned myself to this fact and was finally at peace with it all - or so I thought.  After looking at the newly purchased prize I soon realized that it was completely and positively aweful.  Josh had managed to find the only doll with weird glue smeared all over the doll's face.  I looked at him with a questioning look and he blankly stared back saying, "What?"  What?!?!  The doll looked like it's face was camouflaged with glue!  I decided right then and there that I was going to out and find the doll myself.  I went to Walmart first.  There was only one girl doll and one boy doll left.  I grabbed the girl doll.  The girl doll I grabbed just happened to be one that Isabella had said she preferred when comparing against other dolls that were no longer in stock.  There were a bunch of boxes on the floor and on crates.  I waited around for a while for one of the workers to see if maybe on of the elusive silly hair varieties of the doll might be found within the new shipment....no go...So off to 2 other Walmart's, a Target and a Toys "R" us.......no go.  Everyone was receiveing shipments that night , but were not allowed or were incapable of disclosing what contents might lye within those precious shipment boxes!!!  I would have to wait till the morning and call.  

While I was in the Target a worker told me of 2 other Target's that actually had one silly hair variety left!!  I was so excited, but just in case I bought another doll at Target (which was the right doll (Jewel Sparkles), wrong variety (non-silly hair).  That's right.  We now owned 3 dolls.  The camouflaged Costco doll, the blue-haired Walmart doll and the Jewel Sparkles non-silly hair Target doll.  I almost drove out to the Frisco Target store where one of the silly hair varieties was supposedly located.  It was getting close to midnight at this point, I had a small idea of how to get to Frisco, but finding a particular Target store within Frisco was seemingly bleak and without a cell phone as well, I decided it might be better to wait until morning.  

When I got home I did more research on the internet for once again I was in search of the slippery silly hair doll.  I checked my maps, store locations, hours, and stock available.  I was ready for the next day so I went to bed.  I was so anxious, it took me forever to get to sleep.  I'm sure I must have had at least one freaky weirdo dream about lalaloopsy silly hair dolls and hunting them down.  

The next day I found that the target store which held the silly hair dolls were located very close to Josh's cousin, Carrie.  So, I gave here a call and asked her if she would be willing to pick up one of the dolls for me.  She is totally sweet and said, "yes"!!  I called the Target stores to see if I could put them on hold until she came to pick them up.  Sadly, it was all false and untrue.  They in fact had no silly hair lalaloopsy dolls.  They informed me that the available dolls that were shown to be instock online were most likely stolen because they didn't have any.  I called back Carrie and cancelled the once exciting idea and continued on with my search.  I called every Target/Walmart store within an hours drive of my house....no go.  I resigned myself to failure.  I even got to the point where I no longer cared if Isabella knew what I was doing.  At first, I hid myself in the garage as I made my phone calls.  Toward the end of my search  I let her see/ hear anything I was doing if she was so interested in doing so.

A week or so passed and Josh and I were lucky enough to get the Parma's to babysit our kids so that we could go clothes shopping.  We went to Ross and had a great time blowing all of our money.  It was getting late and we still had to get a few last minute/secret things at Walmart, as well as some baby food.  We walked around the store and as we were passing the toy section you would not believe the beautiful, new, delightful, splendid display of SILLY HAIR LALALOOPSY DOLLS!!!!  They were just sitting there innocently on a shelf.  AAAHHHH!!!  I souldn't believe it.  I was so enthused I didn't know what to do with myself!!!  I 'll tell you what I did with myself.....I bought 2!!  On for Isabella and On for Elizabeth.  Oh, I know Libby doesn't know what's going on this Christmas, but who cares????  I found them!!  That's all that really mattered! 

So, at one point in time we had 5 dolls.  I eventually got around to returning the other 3.  Ahhhh, it was so nice.  I love thinking about that moment.  Thank you Parma's!!!  Without your service I would never have attained this glorious prize and completed my quest!

And so, if you can imagine, our Christmas was quite magical for the kids....and for mommy too.

Isabella's Pre-school Class at Old Settlers Elementary School.  Ethan, Diego, Isabella, Parker, Jake and Maddy.

Elizabeth in her custom-made Santa hat.  Thanks Janet!  They're adorable.

Luke and his Spidey stuff.  GGP: That's the toy you gave them (it talks and hangs from suction cup webs).

The naked Silly Hair Lalaloopsy Doll.  For some reason, every doll acquired at our house finds itself naked shortly thereafter.

We're almost all wearing those magnificent Santa hats.  Luke is saying, "Ho, ho, ho  Merry Christmas!"

Random cute picture....I couldn't resist.

Gingerbread (graham cracker) Houses!

Luke really didn't want to wear that hat.  I think he might have been scared of it.  He'll change his mind, next Christmas....I hope.

Luke helps Libby open her tinkely push-toy present.

Cotton Candy face!

Bella doesn't like the sticky.....ha ha!!

For singing time before Christmas I wrapped up Isabella to look like a Christmas tree.  I hung ornaments on her with a song to sing taped on each one.  The kids loved it....and so did Isabella!

 Isabella's Silly Hair Lalaloopsy Doll

Luke's Spidey Mask

Fun with Elizabeth

Horsey Ride