Christmas Eve

Chris' parents joined us for Christmas this year. They arrived around noon on Saturday, just in time to cut out cookies and decorate them. Clara did a wonderful job of rolling out the dough. Her great grandfather was a baker, so she's a natural. I used my Aunt T's tea cake recipe that my mom and aunt make every year. They were sooooo good; I could not stop eating them. I made royal icing which hardens up a lot more than butter cream.

We took a house coloring break after baking the cookies. Robert was in charge of the interior.

Clara thoroughly enjoyed decorating the cookies. She went to town with the icing and sprinkles and no crumb was left un-iced. Or door knob. Or light switch.

Or hand.

Or sprinkles jar. Here she is with her creations. I was a bit creeped out by the ones with eyes and ended up leaving them until the very last. I guess I should've eaten them first so they would stop staring at me.

We took a couple of plates of cookies to two of our neighbors and invited one to church and Christmas dinner the next day since he's a single guy with no family nearby. Unfortunately, he had to work, so I hope his plate of cookies brightened his day a bit. After we made our deliveries, the kids got bathed and into their Christmas jammies and watched Polar Express.

There was a last ditch effort to get a sweet picture of the kids in their Christmas jammies in front of the tree which proved pointless, yet again. See, he's mocking me.

Then we read Twas the Night Before Christmas and then got them to bed so Santa could get to work. It may have been a gray, rainy day outside, but inside was a cozy, relaxing Christmas Eve with the people we love. I did miss being in Pecos for all of the Christmas Eve festivities though. They had a white Christmas complete with snowmen and snowball fights. I can't remember the last white Christmas in Pecos, so they had a special holiday indeed.

Clara's Class Party

Clara's last day of school before the Christmas holiday was on Friday the 16th and her class had a little party at the end of the day. I wasn't able to find someone to watch Robert, so I brought him with me having no idea how he would do since it was right in the middle of naptime. I was hesitant because he was a tornado of destruction at her birthday party the week before and that was with a short nap.

Well, I needn't worry because he acted pretty good. He got to sit next to Clara and got all the same treats she did. Oh my goodness, they just kept pumping all of the kids full of sweets. When I got there, they were just finishing M&M cookies. Then they each got a sugar cookie with some icing and sprinkles to decorate themselves. Then came another cookie/icing/sprinkles combo. And then a cupcake. Not to mention two capri suns each and a treat bag with several sweets. Oh well, they were all so excited and I guess a little holiday sugar overload never hurt anyone.

Just as an aside, I feel the need to explain Clara's bangs. She's decided to grow them back out. Sigh. They're not long enough to really hold back with barrettes and no matter what I do with her hair in the morning, by the time I pick her up from school it's usually falling in her face. This is after two months of growth so we've got a long road ahead of us.

No Peeking Mommy!

I have a confession to make. I peek at gifts. Always have. One of my fondest childhood memories is sneaking into the living room early every Christmas morning to peek in my stocking. Linsey and I usually got some of the same things in our stockings, just in different colors. So I would peek in hers and then switch stuff out if I liked the color of hers better. Oh, come on, it wasn't that wrong. The funny thing is I remember Linsey saying on more than one occasion that she liked the color of mine better. Ha!

Seriously, I was bad. I used to unwrap gifts when my mom wasn't home and then re-wrap them. I'd go snooping for gifts before they were wrapped and even found the master list in my mom's purse a couple of times. Ok, so that's pretty bad. I'm better now though. I can handle the anticipation much better.

Clara made a Christmas gift for Chris and I at school. She told me not to look in the bag that was in her backpack. As I was going through her stuff, I found the bag. I was just teasing her and asked her if I could have it then and I got a resounding "NO". A few minutes later I asked her again and she exasperatedly said "You don't see me begging to open presents now, do you?" I looked at her sheepishly and before I could answer, she asked, "Do you? Huh? Do you?"

Alright! I won't ask again. Sheesh. I will say, I'm glad she's not a peeker or a begger. I'm afraid I'm not going to be nearly as nice as my mom was about it.

Christmas-y Things

Blogger likes me tonight, so we're back in business! Here's a few more pictures from December. Chris' grandmother sent the kids this neat advent calendar. It came with a cardboard Christmas tree and each day you got to put an ornament on the tree. Clara loved it.

We watched all of our Christmas movies and even a few new ones that were available on Netflix. On this particular night, we watched Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and had hot cocoa before we started the movie. Hot cocoa is just better when it's served in a snowman, wouldn't you agree?

I tried getting a picture of both kids in their Christmas pajamas and of course got only a picture of Clara. In this picture, you'll notice the gift in the background that stayed half-wrapped until right before Christmas. Also, Clara's antlers used to have many Christmas lights hanging off of them. That is until Robert got ahold of them and ate most of the lights off.

Here's the little angel now. I guess I did get one picture of him that night.

This is just a small sampling of what we've been up to these last couple of weeks. I'm really quite bad at creating fun things for the kids to do around holidays. I get really frustrated when I try to do things with them and they're uncooperative or Robert is getting into stuff or five minutes in they're tired of whatever it is we're doing. Not to mention that stuff requires forethought, you know, figuring out what to do and then buying the stuff and carving out a chunk of time and all. As much fun as that stuff is, I'm not the creative type and it really stresses me out, so I've decided to forego most of the creative stuff. I don't know if I'd be better at it if I didn't just get through planning two birthdays or what, but whatever the reason, I can't seem to get my act together at Christmas time.

We took the kids to Starbucks on Sunday night for hot cocoa and Christmas treats. Chris took a big swig of my hot chocolate on accident and made a pretty big mess when he tried to spit it out in Robert's cup; it ended up all over the table and floor. He started downing the water but still felt yucky afterwards. We drove around for a few minutes to look at lights but Clara got bored pretty quickly and wanted to head home. On Monday Clara got to make birdseed ornaments for the trees. (That's sunflower butter for those that are concerned about her touching peanut butter.) I already had everything on hand and we waited til Robert's naptime to make them. Easy peasy.

And today I let her wrap the last few gifts to put under the tree and watch a Christmas cartoon while Robert napped.

I've got several other pictures to post, so I'll try to come back and edit this post if blogger will stop being so ornery.

Christmas Program

Our church Christmas program was Sunday night. The kindergarten and 1st grade acted out the Christmas story and Clara was an angel. I didn't realize she was going to be THE angel that told the shepherds that Jesus had been born. I just thought she was one of the many angels. The kids didn't have any lines, just hand movements as someone read the story (in case you were wondering why on earth I didn't help her practice). She did great and looked so sweet up there on stage. Almost angelic actually :)

And here she is in her acting debut announcing the good news to the shepherds and their sheep. I love this picture because a certain shepherd, who shall remain nameless, has got a finger up the nose. Hahahaha.

Afterwards they sang Away in a Manger.

After the program, there were a few crafts, Santa, and soup for everyone to enjoy. The line for Santa was reallllly long, so we stayed in line for a few minutes before giving up because Robert isn't the most patient two year old on the planet. Also, we don't eat food at church because of Chris' allergies so we went ahead and left early and grabbed a bite before heading home.

Pump it Up

I caved this year and had Clara's birthday party at Pump it Up, an inflatable party place. I wanted to do a big party for her this year and invite all of her classmates so we couldn't very well host that many people at our house. We made sure and had the just-because-you-get-a-big-party-this-year-does-not-mean-you-get-one-every-year talk just to be clear. She wanted a Princess Leia party but I think that's more of a home party theme where you can do all kinds of cool stuff, so I asked if she would like a Hello Kitty party instead and she got super excited. She got a Hello Kitty t-shirt and socks for her birthday to wear to her party. I present to you the cake.

And the mess that was created in the icing making process. I think that's my least favorite part of making cakes. That and the icing clean up. It's totally worth it in the end though. I think.


Clara's party was on Friday night. She ended up having about 10 friends and about as many siblings attend. Robert headed straight for the big slide. That booger was able to climb up by himself with no problem and slide down without hesitation over and over and over. And over.


Of course, he wasn't the only one that enjoyed the slide.

Celebrating 6!

I really enjoy coming up with lots of little surprises on Clara's birthday to make her feel special all day. I had to get creative this year since she was at school all day. She got to wear her birthday headband to school and got up a little early to go get donuts with Daddy. I also put a special treat in her lunchbox and a birthday card that made an announcement naming her the most beautiful birthday princess in all the land (or something to that effect).

Then I came up to the classroom at the end of the day and brought cookies for her class. She got to stand on her chair while everyone sang the school's rendition of "Happy Birthday" to her. The kids were nuts! They were chasing Robert around, but Robert was scared of a herd of 10 kindergarteners closing in on him. Robert was getting into everything, climbing under the teacher's desk and pulling stuff off of shelves and then I looked around and there were crumbs everywhere! I felt so bad and started trying to clean off the tables. I was glad to finally get out of there.

If you can't tell, Clara loves her teacher.

That night, we let her choose dinner and sure enough she wanted Chinese. We reminded her that there were rolls and muffins she could catch at Potatoe Patch and then threw in the promise of a birthday dessert afterwards, and that was enough to reel her in.

I guess she decided that six year olds cut their own food, so I had to get a picture of the determination on her face as she cut her chicken. Oh, she got to choose any drink she wanted too, which she isn't usually allowed to do, and she chose sweet tea like her Mama.

We snuck in her birthday gifts from family and she got to open them after dinner and then finished the evening off with a bowl of ice cream.

I saved one gift for her and left it on her bed. So after she showered, she got to open her gift from Grandpa and Grandma. It was Kit's nightgown and a matching nightgown for her. She was in heaven! It was the perfect end to a perfectly lovely birthday for my special little girl.

Another Old Fashioned Christmas

The evening of the Buddy Walk, we went to Old Fashioned Christmas and this time we invited one of Chris' co-workers and his wife and daughter to go with us. We wanted to invite someone with a child close to Robert's age so they would understand if we needed to leave early due to his unpredictability :)

They all got to sit in Santa's lap and we got a picture, so I think I'm calling it good this year and not going to attempt the mall Santa. This year is all about low stress. Clara asked Santa for a yo-yo, so Santa's getting out cheap this year!

I have to brag on Daddy for a minute. Clara really wanted her face painted at the Buddy Walk but Chris said the line was insane and he couldn't even find the end of it, so before we left for the park he painted a snowflake on her cheek. Isn't he the sweetest Daddy ever? He did a pretty good job too; I should've gotten a close up of it.

And here's Chris, Courtney and Lizzy, who is a few months younger than Robert. Ok, so the Fritos and Dr. Pepper aren't very old-fashioned, but the homemade cobbler and other treats made up for the dinner. The only picture of me is a little blurry and my teeth are purple from the cobbler so you'll just have to trust me that I was there.

It started sprinkling a few times, but the rain held off and it ended up being the perfect temperature (unless you prefer it to be cold when you're doing Christmas related activities). Because of the drought, they didn't light luminaries down the trail to the homestead and we had to bring flashlights instead. We did end up leaving just a few minutes early to beat the crowds back, but all in all, Robert did very well. So maybe he did eat a few too many cheetos and suckers to keep him sitting in his stroller, but what are you gonna do? It's the holidays.

No Peeking Robert!

I thought I'd put a couple of gifts under the tree last week to see what Robert would do. He wasn't too interested in his birthday gifts and never touched anything last Christmas so I thought there was a chance he would leave them alone. Yeah, not so much.

Buddy Walk

Chris and Clara went to the Buddy Walk last Saturday morning while I stayed home with Robert. It's a benefit walk for the Down Syndrome Association of Houston and we walk for our buddy Justin. I say "we" but this is the third Buddy Walk I've missed. Two years ago I was sure I was going to be giving birth at any given moment and then last year we had planned on going but I woke up so dizzy that I couldn't even walk. Chris had to help me downstairs so there was no way I could walk or even take care of Robert by myself that day while Chris and Clara went. And now this year I was recovering from surgery but even if I hadn't been, I would have been in Ft. Davis for the funeral. Next year's the year. I can feel it.

Here are all of the kids on our team, Justin's Jaywalkers. I guess it's a good thing we weren't there or Danielle would have been wrangling 2 two year olds for the picture. Ha!

Chris likes to just stroll at a snail's pace at these walks so he ended up walking with one of the men in our life group who had major back surgery less than a year ago and who had to take it really easy during the walk. He was the perfect walking partner for Chris and Chris really enjoyed his company. There was all kinds of fun stuff for the kids after the walk and Clara got to play a little while and meet some cool characters before coming home. The walk took place around Minute Maid Park, so here's Clara on a big baseball at the park.