Christmas

What a fun Christmas!

On Christmas Eve, I enjoyed watching Karen and Kylie track Santa's progress on Google Earth via NoradSanta.org.


The anticipation of Christmas Day wiped Kylie out. On Christmas Eve afternoon, I asked Kylie to play quietly in her room. A short time later, I noticed it was too quiet. I opened her door to find her sleeping soundly on the floor. She hardly ever conks out like that! Of course I had to take a picture of her.


On Christmas morning, we got up at 6:30am to open presents. We had presents from the family on our living room table and presents from Santa under the tree. I'm not sure this distinction meant much to Kylie. She loved all her new things. We heard the most squeals from her when she saw her hula hoop...


her Groovy Girls prince and princess,


her first pillow pet,


and her Rapunzel doll.


If you scroll up to one of the earlier pictures, you might see three pink suitcase-looking storage boxes sitting under the tree. We got those to store Kylie's wind-up toys, Barbie clothes and other things. I made some suggestions on what she could store in them but I also told her they were her boxes to do with as she wanted. When I was cleaning up last night I opened one up. Can you quess what I found lovingly stored away?

Some of you long-time readers much guess correctly....empty toilet paper rolls.

Sigh.

Happy holidays from Karen, Wendy and Kylie

Winter camp

I'm sitting here hoping and praying that the presents for Kylie I ordered from Amazon make it to my house today or tomorrow. Someone please remind me next year to get my act together and order presents a tad earlier.



Kylie's been at winter camp held at her school this week. She's come home every day with several completed holiday crafts. She's had fun playing lots of games. The other day she was telling us about a game where the kids sit together in a circle and one puts on a blindfold. Another child tiptoes behind them and starts the game by saying, "Knock Knock". Who's there? "I'm a little elf coming out for Christmas. Guess who?" and then the blindfolded child guesses who is behind them. Kylie loved this game; we had to reenact it several times at home. Her camp lasts until 3:30 and it has worn her out. Last night she actually fell asleep while brushing her teeth before bed.



She has loved her camp experience. When I pick her up, she is so excited to share all about her day. Her fast little run-on sentences prompted me to shoot a few videos of her.









I hope all of you are doing great this holiday season (and not sweating over post office and ups service like I am). Cheers!

Santa's message

Big thanks to Ali Edwards who introduced me to the free, customized Santa messages on the Portable North Pole.

Watching her video from Santa was one of Kylie's highlights for the week. She has seen it six times and still loves it.

Here's a picture of her waving to the Santa on the screen.


Here are some other pictures I took of her at the park on Thursday. We've loved the warm temperatures and have gone to the park every afternoon this week.


She and I were having an interesting conversation while I snapped the below pictures. I was explaining why she had to wear shoes everywhere at the park except the sand lots. She was debating the merits of wearing shoes.


Kylie can get quite serious and intent.


And just like that, she decided she was done with talking. She thew herself onto the sand and giggled and how the grass tickled her neck.


Ah, childhood.

Christmas Crafts

Today was holiday craft day at Kylie's school and I got to participate. I volunteered to bring 30 white bags with handles decorated with the children's names. And I volunteered to help out with the crafts.

Kylie got to decorate a gingerbread man cookie,


and a gingerbread girl tree ornament,


a reindeer candy cane,


and "reindeer food" made out of oats and sugar.




The children were so sweet and so well behaved but I still felt like the top of my head had blown off by the time we were done. It was a lot for this stay-at-home Mom to handle. But seeing the Kylie's smile and the way she was proud to introduce me to her friends made it all worthwhile.

Kylie dancing to Madagascar

I watch this video once a day because it always makes me smile and laugh. Enjoy and have a great weekend!

{this moment} 20 miles!

{this moment} - a Friday ritual. Some photos capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Today, for the first time ever, I ran 20.25 miles. I did it in 3:12:45. And I could even smile for the camera once it was done.



This moment posts are inspired by SouleMama's Friday posts.

Noodles and pages

My Dad got Kylie some Magic Noodles and Kylie had so much fun with them. They were very easy to use. She just tapped a side of the noodle onto a wet paper towel and then she pressed the noodles together.


She made a pyramid...


and a horse (head on the left and tail on the right).


Here are some scrapbook pages from May 2010 that I completed while on the cruise.

Skipping, scavenger hunts and more

Kylie is so proud of her new skill of skipping. Her little brain and body have put all the skipping motions together and now she skips everywhere.

Kylie got to have several scavenger hunts with her cousins while in TN. She insisted we have one yesterday. Kylie, Karen and I each wrote onto a piece of paper at least five things we wanted to find in our backyard. After we found everything, we each checked one another's lists. It was sweet and fun and reminded me yet again of how much Kylie likes to collect little bits of nature.


Two other little things that I've noticed:

Someone taught her the word "disgusting" and she has used it twice in sentences about food she hasn't wanted to eat.

Kylie is calling me both "Mommy" and "Mom". I have to confess that I'm not thrilled with "Mom". I honestly didn't think that "Mommy" would get shortened to "Mom" until Kylie was 9 years old or so. I didn't realize how much I had riding on "Mommy" until she stopped using it. Oh well, I'm trying to roll with it.

Cruising

Karen and I just returned from a Carnival cruise to Nassau and Half Moon Cay. For five glorious days we reveled in some private time. We slept late, had some spa treatments, got in lots of reading,relaxed and enjoyed one another. Can I just say how wonderful it was to not make anyone's breakfast, lunch or dinner for five days? Wow! I had so much free time! I made some scrapbook pages that I'll share with you in a bit.





Kylie stayed with her Nana and had all sorts of fun with her cousins, including a day at Dollywood.




We are trying to get our land legs back and get caught up in all our usual home stuff. I hope you are all enjoying the start of December.

Postcards from TN part three- Thanksgiving

Have a happy and blessed Thanksgiving.

Postcards from TN part two

We spent Wednesday 11/23 with my Dad and his partner Margarita. We had lunch together and then went to the East TN Discovery Center Museum.



Some of the highlights were a space shuttle module with a black light. Kylie had fun working the controls and blasting into space.


There were whisper dishes set up on either side of the museum.






The museum had a very nice kids play area. There were only a few other people there so we were able to visit together quietly which was lovely.




We stayed for the 30-minute planetarium show. Kylie loved seeing the stars but then she got really sleepy. She took a nap in the car on the way home. And played with her cousins for the rest of the evening.