Christmas Morning 2012

The rolls are rising, the ham is cooling, and the sweet potatoes are baking away. Christmas dinner is nearly ready, and it's been yet another pleasant and quiet holiday here, other than the too-frequent squabbles over whose toy is whose and whether or not their sister is allowed to touch it. Plus, I think we had some sugar crashes and highs making the moments worse.

Mother Nature decided to participate as well, and gave us a severe thunderstorm warning for Christmas morning and decided to include a tornado warning as well. Thoughtful. ;-)

Waking Megan up this morning proved to be difficult, though Cadence was pushing to go out into the living room quickly. James let Cadence go see what the big deal was while I coaxed Megan out of bed. It was a mixture of the promise of candy and Cadence running back to show Megan her new Twilight Sparkle plush doll that finally lured her out into the open. The first thing she noticed as she dug through her stocking? The mini chocolates. She had one unwrapped and in her mouth and was reaching for her second before we even realized it.

It took a little more convincing to get them to stick the stocking goodies away, but the promise of presents did the trick. Since the tree was in the too-small dining room, we sent them to grab one each and bring it back to see who it belonged to. The majority of the presents were their's, but when one had mine or James's name on it, it was a little difficult to get them to relinquish ownership. Once they saw what it was (waffle iron, new pans, etc.) they lost interest and went off to find another one.

The girls enjoyed their new collection of toys: Two new Disney princess dolls, a pop-up tent, a toy laptop (with learning games!), necklaces, "Don't Spill the Beans", the Shrek DVDs, and the final piece... the dollhouse. Once the smaller presents were out of the way, we received protests to my claims of "all done! no more presents!" Guess the girls weren't going to be fooled, since their was an oversized gift-wrapped lump right next to the tree. Combining donations from grandparents, the girls got a gift I knew they'd go crazy over (middle one is a video of them opening i

And we've been playing with our new things all morning. Ignoring the cinnamon rolls, eating mini candy bars, coloring in new coloring books, crawling through the tunnel to the pop-up tent, etc. The girls are happy, and spoiled.

James got a half a dozen new gifts, most of which he picked out himself. A few new knives, a new belt and belt buckles, and a war club. I also picked out most of my presents and got a brand new camera (opened early to start taking lots of pictures!), a new set of skillets, a waffle maker and griddle (my kitchen is now almost fully stocked, time to start replacing the appliances that are wearing out/too small), and we put in an order for a brand new ring sling to use when Connor gets here.

Also, the girls got new Christmas dresses (as well as new Christmas pajamas, as featured in the above photos). They wore them this past Sunday, so that was considered Christmas Sunday. I got a few pictures of them in the new dresses, but Cadence refused to sit still and her one posed picture is of her laughing her head off. She's such a turd:

I suppose that's all for now. Christmas dinner needs more of my attention (almost done!) and then on to the quiet evening with the family, enjoying the last day of James's 4-day weekend (we got him to ourselves next Tuesday too!) and some apple pie to top off the evening.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night! :-)

Getting Uncomfortable

I think Karma has decided to get some payback. I've often mentioned how small I remain during previous pregnancies. While it wasn't quite bragging, I probably mentioned it one too many times and took a little too much pleasure in my luck. Whatever the reason, Connor is stretching me to the max. Here is 26 weeks pregnant (and 3 days) this time around (with my new pink camera taking awesome pictures that don't need editing, Merry Early Christmas to me!):

For reference, I had to include pictures from previous pregnancies, the furthest along I had for each. With Megan at 34 weeks and Cadence at 35 weeks:

And to think I have 3 more months to go. Ouch!

Cadence & Santa

We finally got the Santa pictures from the Ward party (granted, it took me almost a week to email the person that had them, so partly my fault). It was a 20 minute wait to see the guy and when we finally got to the front of the line, Megan refused to go to him, but Cadence was game. He had her giggling and grinning and talking the entire time (a real talent when it comes to Cadence and her moods!). When I finally got to see them, they made me grin, because I remembered how giggly and shy and sweet she was talking to him about Christmas. I hope, next year, we'll get both girls, but this year, we have some great pictures of Cadence enjoying her visit with Santa Claus.

The Ward party itself was enjoyable. We sat at the table with a new family in the ward. The adults teach in nursery (where Megan is) and I teach their daughter, so we had some common ground to chat about. I got thumbs up when I made a face when Twilight was mentioned, lol. Cadence ate three plates of salad. Megan picked at everything and kept asking for chocolate spread on the table as part of the centerpieces.

The girls are looking forward to Christmas. I'm terrible at remembering to do the advent calendar every night, but the girls know when all the "squares" are gone, the next day is Christmas and they're content with that countdown. We already had to strip the tree of ornaments once because the girls wouldn't stop touching them, and they're about to lose them again. We're also not sure how long the presents are going to last in their reach. *sigh* Next year, with Connor likely mobile, we might have to put a gate up around the tree to keep it all safe!