Christmas Pictures for the Family

If you are not family you probably won't care about these pictures. But feel free to scroll down anyway!

We just shut down the computer after tracking Santa's sleigh on NORAD and were making hot chocolate and snacks for Santa and the reindeer.

Why she cannot take a normal picture is beyond me. We say we're going to take a picture and she poses. But here is Lily with cookies and carrots for Santa and Rudolph. I hope they share with the other reindeer.


Brian reading The Night Before Christmas to the kids. Side note: this poem was first published in the Troy (NY) Sentinal (right across the river from us) in 1823.

Jamison jumping on the trampoline that Santa gave him.

Which he then got caught in and was stuck.

Opening the stockings.

Jamison trying to stuff a gingerbread man and a plastic candy cane down his throat.

15 minutes after being introduced to his new trampoline he bit it. Out of love.

Lily playing with the castle that Santa brought here. She played with it for four straight hours.

She was reluctant, but we made her open more presents.

Jamison, on the other hand only wanted to rip open more presents. His gifts were mostly cars and airplanes.

Rip, rip, rip.

He found someone else interested in airplanes.

After all the presents were opened and naps were taken, we decided to make Hershey kiss peanut butter cookies. Brian told us to turn around for a picture and Lily kept posing like a model. How does she know to do these things? It cracked me up and Jamie was just confused.

Finally, a somewhat normal picture.

Then, Lily and Brian made Grandma's rolls for dinner.

We're teaching her now so that she knows the recipe so innately she will think it's a part of her. And then she will do the same thing to her children.

And while that was going on Jamison was drinking his sisters juice and Tulip was hoping that he would drop some food.

She didn't even need Brian at this point.

These hands will be working making this bread for the next 80 years. Get used to it, girl.

Notice that she's still in her nightgown. It was 2:30pm and she had no desire to get dressed.

It was a completely relaxing and enjoyable day. It wasn't a rushed, crazy frenzy of gifts being ripped open. That will be next year. I have 364 days to prepare for it.

Princesspalooza Part 2

Shield your eyes if you are easily startled. These pictures are not for the weak at heart. If you do start to feel ill, please blame my mother. She is the one who bought my daughter princess wigs for her birthday. In fact, I will punish her now for the wigs:

Due to the snow storm that was heading for us on Friday we switched from a birthday dinner to a birthday lunch. We also had it at the office so that dad and Brian wouldn't have to come home and then trek back out in the snow. This is what my father's office looked like after the opening of only three gifts.

She is not a neat gift-opener. She's a rip-it-open-try-it-on-where's-the-next-one-gift-opener.

Lily actually has been asking Santa for these wigs and I am dying to know what the Santa in the mall thinks about a four year old asking for wigs.

I'd like to call this one "Little Pretty Woman" instead of the Little Mermaid. I can imagine this being the wig of choice for the cheapest prostitute in Vegas. The wig is actually a neon red/pink color. It's hideous.

I put up a few birthday decorations for when she woke up on Friday morning, so that's what the poster is behind her. She wanted to take pictures standing next to the princesses that she was dressed up as.

She wanted to make sure the Ariel backpack was in this shot. Because it just wouldn't be worth it without the backpack.

Notice that she had to stand on a step stool in order to be next to Belle. We don't mince effort in the Whitt household.

I know there will be a time that I look back at these pictures and wish for the little girl who loved princesses to come back. So I truly do try to appreciate these moments...which is why I couldn't resist having a princess-filled birthday for her.

Princesspalooza

On Saturday we braved the un-plowed streets to have Lily's fourth (what? four years?!?!) birthday party at Tumbling Tykes. I would have to be insane to host an at-home birthday party so close to Christmas so for the past two years we've had her party at Tumbling Tykes. They do a wonderful job here - they play games with the kids, organize the presents, cut and serve and the pizza and cake, and there's no mess for me to clean up! They even have a helper who makes a gift list for when Lily is opening her presents.

Another good reason to have the party there is that it is right next to the airport. So Jamison was occupied the entire time by the airport plows and the flights departing and arriving.

Yes, we all see the airplanes. We will stop the party and all come over to look at the Air Canada flight going to Toronto.

Our party planner, Liz, was leading the kids in a lovely version of "Happy Birthday." It scared the begeebers out of the little ones but the four year olds thought it was hysterical.

Notice the princess dresses on Lily's friends. Notice that she is not in princess attire for once in her life. What are the chances that we would have a princess birthday party for her and that would be the one and only day she REFUSES to wear a princess dress? 100%.

Brian and I decided to take two cars to the party just in case Jamie had to go home for a nap. So I left for the party before he and the kids to pick up the cake and to decorate. When I left the house she was decked out in Little Mermaid garb including a red wig. (pictures of that in another blog - I wouldn't want to cause blindness to the few readers I have).

When she arrived at Tumbling Tykes she was wearing the red dress below. The only thing that Brian had to say was "drama" and I completely understood. Apparently she had gone through two costume changes before coming down the stairs entirely naked. At that point Brian just wanted her dressed and any attempts to get her in a princess outfit was abandoned. (why can I flash forward to 12 years from now and hearing her cry out "I have nothing to wear!!!"? I am slightly scared of her teenage years)

Of course, when I had put her Little Mermaid wig on her I had plastered her hair to her head (per her instructions) so that "no yellow" would show under the wig. So when she came to the party her hair looked HORRIBLE. And then my husband walks in like a knight in shining armor with a comb, a red bow, and a bottle of hair spray. Now that is love. Now I can't work miracles so it didn't look perfect but at least it was presentable.

Here is the group doing some crazy dancing some late 90's techno music. It made me want to get out my exercise tape from college and run the track at Harding. If only I still had my walkman...

And then she was more than ready for the pizza and cake. She calls this her "funny face". I'm wondering how funny she'll find it when I show it to her prom date.

"Give me my cake for crying out loud!" I actually have no clue what she was doing here but it looks pretty funny.

This is the princess cake that she saw at the supermarket back in June. And we have visited it every week since. If I had to run in and grab a gallon of milk we had to swing by the bakery to see her cake. So it was quite devastating when we went to order the cake and it wasn't in the display case anymore. She turned on the waterworks and actually got the lady behind the counter to come around and give her a free cookie. Lily was under the impression that the cake in the display case was the only castle cake in the world. Luckily the supermarket baker was smarter than that and could make another.

I love this picture.

I like how her friend Grace is lending a supportive hand.

I will refrain from posting the pictures of all the princess gifts she received. And by "all" I really do mean "all". Every single gift had something to do with a princess. I am contemplating writing a letter to Disney asking them to pay me for all the free advertising we do for them.

Cooperstown

Back in October we took some Texan friends to Cooperstown. It was a week past peak for the leaves but it was still beautiful.

This is a panoramic view of an area called Cherry Valley on the way to Cooperstown.

While we were taking these pictures a random chicken came walking out of the brush. Are there such thing as wild chickens? Because this one looked wild.

It also looked like she had some excess weight. I had never seen a chicken lay an egg before. It was captivating. I kinda felt like I was invading her privacy...but my curiosity got the best of me.

And here is Cooperstown. It's not very big and literally only has one street light.

It definitely has old-time-America charm.

And beautiful architecture that has been invaded by baseball. But luckily this 1930-era movie theater wasn't torn down for a Home Depot.

And we brought the kids. They behaved well despite the fact that the day had nothing to do with them. I just kept feeding them candy corn. Which probably explains why Lily looks like this:

The kids found some gourds around a tree and it kept them occupied for a good 10 minutes. Jamison did try to bite one as I was taking this picture. He always takes advantage of the times that I'm distracted.

After his close encounter with a gourd snack he opted to sit, read, and enjoy people-watching. This lasted for .3 seconds. Which was long enough for me to take the picture.

After we walked around Cooperstown we went to the Farmer's Museum where the kids chased the chickens around.

We had to stop Jamie from crawling under the building in his attempts to capture the chicken.

And then to make the day perfect Jamsion fell asleep the minute we got on the road and Lily was preoccupied by her 472nd viewing of a princess movie. I couldn't have asked for anything better!