Christmas Week 2009

We had a whole week of fun Christmas activities lined up last week! We started off the week by making a gingerbread house for Family Home Evening. I took the easy route this year and bought a pre-assembled kit that came with the candy. While I like the convenience of it, it wasn't nearly as much fun as assembling it ourselves and using all sorts of candy to make a creative house. But for this year, it worked perfectly! Ellie loved decorating and eating the candy along the way. I will upload the finished product when my computer decides to download it!


We had a little glitch in the week of fun when Ellie found a permanent marker that I didn't even know we owned and managed to color all over the wall in the hallway, in the bathroom, a small section of the wall in the master, a small section in her room, her dresser, her bedroom door, my bedroom door, and the bathroom door. May I repeat - with a permanent marker! And all in a matter of 5 minutes. Santa almost didn't come to our house. After trying every remedy I read about online, I gave up and resigned myself to repainting everything. On the plus side, my wall in the hallway is finally the right color and looks good! On the downside, I'm still trying to find the right paint match for the master bedroom. And still trying to figure out a way to cover up the tiny section in her room without buying more paint. Not how I wanted to be spending my Wednesday before Christmas - painting!


Christmas Eve we spent at Rob's parents house with a nice dinner, watching of Luke 2 movie, and opening sibling gifts and gifts from the grandparents. We headed home afterwards to prepare for Santa. Ellie quickly got into her Christmas pajamas (we give out pajamas and ornaments when we decorate the tree at the beginning of the month so she can wear the jammies all month long) and then we left the cookies and milk for Santa and brown sugar for the reindeer and a note to Santa. Ellie quickly went to sleep and I was quite happy since Santa was able to get everything set up and ready at a decent hour.


Ellie woke up in the middle of the night with a nightmare and wanted to go and sleep on the couch and threw quite a tantrum when I wouldn't let her do that (since Santa had already visited). I managed to convince her to come lay in our bed and go to sleep and then she slept in until 8:30. Not too bad! I had to even wake her up at that point since Rob's parents had breakfast at their house at 10 and I wanted to make sure there was enough time for anything.

Santa listened very well and got Ellie the bike and helmet that she asked for! It was hilarious to watch Ellie on Christmas morning since she didn't even notice the bike at first. She noticed her stocking and the stuff next to her stocking and was thrilled with the coloring book and crayons that were left for her. Then she was beyond excited about the bike and immediately tried to ride it. We've had lots of fun trying to help her learn how to ride it (it has training wheels and everything on it) because she can't get the concept of pedaling forward down... she knows how to brake really well! She had a couple books and movies in her stocking. She also got the fun Elefun game from Mom and Dad along with the Glow Doodle. Grandpa White and Grandma Debbie got her a Little People wagon and lego set (which she loves to pile all her toys into and wheel around the house). Chloe got a few little toys for her carseat and Rob and I mostly got books this year... although he did surprise me with a beautiful necklace as well. All in all a great Christmas morning!





And just for fun... don't you just want to eat this little chubby Chloe all up? I can't get enough of my sweet roly poly baby girl!