White Christmas!

Post Note: I batched all the pics I wanted to post so that they'd be really small and they'd post fast. I guess I overdid it because the pictures look really bad because they are so small. Just so no one thinks that our skin really has a green hue to it and realize that the weird rainbow look on the walls is really just due to the distortion of the picture quality!
Shoot, I didn't feel like I was covered up in the picture when we took it. Not that I was feeling all that snazzy, but I really did want to be in the picture! Growing up, every Christmas morning, we had to get in line and take a picture before we could go see what Santa brought us. As much torture as this tradition was, I inflict it on my kids just the same. Unfortunately, we didn't instill enough fear in Ruby about going downstairs without us. She claimed that she just "peeked", but then she told Alice that she had a Peter Pan movie and that was buried in Alice's stocking. It was clear that she'd been down there taking careful inventory.

Among lots of other reasons we were sad not to travel to Colorado for Christmas this year was the fact that we know we can count on a white Christmas when we are there. Washington surprised us this year! I know not everyone was as lucky, but where my parents live, we had snow! It actually snowed a long time, but didn't accumulate very much. Still, there is something so magical about snow on Christmas!

Ruby and Alice got to open their present from Grandma and Grandpa Pierce. It was an art easel and cool paints, paintbrushes and extra paper rolls. They were pleased and since having used it...they LOVE it! THANKS!

My dad likes to wear this Santa coat on Christmas morning. :)

I don't know if you can tell in this picture, but one of Ruby's gifts was this horrible hair coloring system for kids. She really wanted it, so I picked it up when I saw it at Costco, but it's messy! She loves it and that makes it fun. She wore pink and blue the first time.

I'm not a fancy, brand name girl. No Coach bags for me. I score deals from my friend who owns a purse business and usually get by for years with one or two solid generic purses. I know this brand (can't even remember the name of it) isn't fancy, fancy, but it cost more than twenty bucks, so it is fancy to me. Anyway, I really don't see things often and really, really want them. Well, that's not true. I usually buy them if I really, really want them. Anyway, this purse was at Macy's for months and I was drawn to it so many times that I decided I must really want it. However, I wouldn't spend the money on it. I showed it to my friend Mimi and she said she'd tell Chris about it. She's so great! I didn't think for a second that I was really going to get it, and I noticed the night before Christmas Eve that they were all sold out. Anyway, Mimi bought it for Chris, who paid her and gave it to me and it was in the box and everything. He never even looked at it! Anyway, it is perfectly casual and fun and it will hold a size five diaper and wipes! I love it!Chris got a great book full of family letters. On his side of the family, they send an email aroudn every month with a little letter from all the family in it. He has a small family with only four cousins and one aunt and one uncle and his grandma, so it isn't that big. Anyway, we enjoy reading them every month and I always save them all but never know if I'll ever truly preserve them. Well, his uncle, Billy, printed off the first volume a year or so ago and we treasure it. This year, we got another volume that is almost current! What a great family history! It is really motivating to write the letter when I know that I can record what we are going through and have at least a monthly record to show my kids. THANKS!

Anyone with little girls know that they love to play with makeup...BUT IT IS REALLY HARD to find pretend makeup that is truly PRETEND...no lipgloss and cakey eyeshadow to find all over the floor and all over your child's face. I throw that stuff away faster than it can be forgotten by my girls. I found a little purse of plastic makeup at http://www.ttgo.com/ and I was all over it!

What could be better than this kind of reaction? What was all the excitement about?

A KITTY! We got a cat for the girls for Christmas!

Unfortunately, the rescue wouldn't give us a kitten because of the ages of our kids, and so we got a six month old kitty. Ruby told us she would want a black cat, and so that is what Chris picked out. I am not a cat person, and I've never had one before, but they are so much less work than dogs and it is so much fun to wow the kids, that I went for it. I'm trying to get used to her. Ruby named her Isabella. (SO SORRY to all the beautiful girls out there with that gorgeous name, Ruby likes it too!) We call her "Izzy" for short and mostly just "kitty". My only hope for her name was that it wouldn't be "Princess". Thank goodness that idea didn't enter her mind!

Uncle Jordan, a.k.a. "the best uncle in the world" got all the girls wands for Christmas. He knows them well, as they were a big hit!