Christmas Past

I always have extreme inner turmoil when it comes to Christmas shopping. I always end up spending money on a lot of little things that frankly are crappy. I'm trying to spend money instead on a few really good things. This year I have been thinking a lot about what my parents did for us for Christmas. I have also been lamenting the fact that there doesn't seem to be the "it" gift for a 5 year old. When I was growing up, it seemed like there was always something that you HAD to have. I realized as the girls get older they will want their iPods and other gadgets, but until then, I'm stumped. OK enough rambling, here's what I'm getting at, I wanted to share some of the best gifts my parents got us.

1. The first IT gift I remember getting was a Cabbage Patch Doll. My sister Katie and I asked Santa for one and I didn't think there was any way in Hades we would get one. We woke up on Christmas morning and there was one for each of us. Mine had brown hair like me. I loved it. My mom would periodically make new clothes for the dolls. I think she still has them.

2. Katie really, really wanted a Nintendo when they first came out. Again we asked Santa for one and didn't think he'd deliver. Lo and behold he most certainly did. We were so excited and it was definitely a favorite over the years. We never had that many games, but believe me, I'm a pro at Super Mario Brothers 3.

3. Katie was always older and cooler than I was. She had a pair of Girbaud jeans that I coveted. I would steal them out of her closet after she had left for Junior High. I was only in 5th grade then, so I had a window of time when she wasn't home. The trouble was certainly getting back in the house without her seeing me after school. Anyway, I really, really wanted my own pair. I asked for them in sixth grade and again was so surprised to get a pair. That was the only thing I got for Christmas that year and I couldn't have been more pleased. I loved them. They were a dark wash, so I couldn't easily wear them everyday like I wanted, the color was too noticeable. I had this awesome goldenrod sweater that looked so good with them! I was one stylin' 6th grader!!!

There were a couple of other presents that have grown in status since we received them. One year we got these crazy dolls that were about 3 feet high. They had soft bodies and huge hard heads. Katie and I fought, a lot. She always would whack me with that stupid doll head. It hurt a lot. We often laugh about those crazy dolls.

Every year I want my girls to have as memorable an experience as I had. I don't think we can do that every year, but I do want to teach them to be grateful for what they have and not to lose sight of what Christmas really is. I'll let you know how this year turns out. I've put more thought than usual into it, hopefully we don't go down in flames.

What are some of your more memorable Christmases?

Gigantor the snowman

I'm a little bit late in getting this posted... the batteries were dead in the camera. Roger and the girls went out to build a snowman a little while ago. When Roger builds a snowman, he builds a snowman. I have dubbed this one Gigantor, it's as tall as Roger is. Good grief! Unfortunately someone knocked it over that night and stole his scarf, dumb kids (am I old enough to say that?). All the snow then melted, even the pile of snow that was Gigantor. Hopefully we will have more opportunities to make a snowman, scarf-free though!

My Husband of the year

Hollywood from Hollywood Flakes wrote this hilarious post about The Husband of the Year awards. I remembered that we have defintely had a Husband of the Year moment. This was obviously on our wedding day and it was February and it was raining. Roger was nice and dry though. There's also some choice footage on our wedding video of the same thing, except I was walking about 10 feet behind him while he held the umbrella. In Roger's defense, he claims it wasn't raining at this particular time. Really though, he's not here to regulate (he's on vacation), so I will claim what I want!

Really Roger doesn't usually act like indicated above. When things like this do happen it's just because he wasn't paying attention, not because he was being rude!

Free rice

I was perusing snopes.com yesterday and came across a site that I thought was way cool. It's called freerice.com. Here's what you do: for every vocabulary word that you can correctly identify the definition, they donate 20 grains of rice to people in need. It actually is a legitimate thing. They work through the United Nations and the advertisers on the site pay for the rice. It's pretty addicting too. I like to think that I'm smart and know what words mean and I felt like I did pretty well. For every 3 words you get right you move up a level. There are 50 levels, but they say that hardly anyone goes above 48. My highest level so far is 38. What has been funny about identifying the words, is that I know most of them because of the scriptures. Whoever said that reading scriptures was a waste of time?

Pour Some Sugar on Me

Sugar be Sweet

Does this look familiar to you? It doesn't really to me, I'm too young. However, I do know the goodness of Pour Some Sugar on Me. My sister Sandee, who is about 12 years older than me, loved and I mean LOVED Def Leppard. She had this song and we would crank it up and sing as loud as we could. Who didn't? Our microphone of choice was a curling iron. I heard Pour Some Sugar on Me on the way home from Breakfast with Santa today and it absolutely made my day. Seeing the kids talk to Santa has nothing on Def Leppard! I found a video for the song, view at your own risk.

Winter fun

We finally got some snow and the girls couldn't wait to go play in it. Unfortunately for them, I have become a complete wuss about being out in the cold. I put it off as long as I could yesterday, but finally took them out after Ashby got home from school. They wanted to make a snowman, but I'm not that good at it when you can't roll a ball to make it bigger and bigger. The snow wasn't quite wet enough for that. The girls just settled for snow angels and a few snow balls.

I can't remember the last time I made a paper count down chain. I was so excited to make one when I remembered (about the 3rd of December instead of Nov. 30th, oh well) The girls got a kick out of it and I was impressed at how well they could apply the glue and make the paper into a circle!

Didn't they do a good job?

Ready for snow.

Ashby snow angel.

Avery snow angel.