I finally made poor Joseph a stocking (seeing that it is his third Christmas this year) and made Juliet’s as well.

“Santa” brought some felt play-food for the kids. This one was, by far, my favorite:

Here are my sister’s placemats ready to be wrapped:

The same sister made these for Catherine (the one missing is a skull and it is in her hair!):

Juliet was happy with all the new teething toys! Very timely!

Dave got me new mittens (with access to my fingers so I can buckle all those kids in!) and matching hats:

My grandmother gave the kids a HUGE puzzle with a map of the US on it. Geography lesson in progress:

One of my favorite gifts the kids received was Seth’s shaving kit. The “shaving cream” looks just like the real thing, but is really soap!

Annnnndddddd (drumroll), Dave got me a new camera!!!! It was a huge suprise (which is hard when the person you’re surprising has unlimited access to your bank account) and it takes AMAZING pictures! I love this one of Joseph because the focus is on his cute little fingers:

He’s holding “Dex” from the new redesigned train set by BRIO. It is so cute! It is supposed to be a network inside of your computer. It even has Viruses and email that you can listen to. The kids really love it and, I must admit, that I like it much better than our Thomas the Tank Engine stuff.

Here is Joseph in his tiger costume, teddy bear backpack (with tail for me to hold), and his dinosaur. He is currently hugging it while watching the stock report with Dave.

Here’s my cutie Seth:

And Bella:

Catherine drew a picture of Juliet on her new paper:

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

I was reading a book to my kids today that my grandmother gave them this year. It is about the true meaning of Christmas (you know, the reason for the season and what-not). It is a really cute book and addresses all of the confusing-ness about the Christmas season. We had the following conversation:

Me: (reading) “Benny the Elf told Oscar that Christmas was all about getting free stuff, that’s why everyone is so happy.”

Me: (to the kids) That’s pretty silly, is that what Christmas is all about?

Catherine: Yes.

Me: But why do we celebrate Christmas?

Catherine: Because that’s how our world was made. Every year we have Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. Christmas comes every Winter.

Me: (trying not to laugh) Okay, that’s true, but we celebrate Christmas because we are remembering the birth of Jesus. We give each other presents so that we can remember that Jesus was a gift to us when he was born on the earth.

Catherine: Oh, yes.

I finished reading the book which was actually quite cute. It hammered in the idea of the baby Jesus a lot. And its not like we’ve never talked about this before. We have a Fisher Price nativity set that they love and we sing Christmas songs about baby Jesus ALL YEAR LONG. Plus church and family night every week and the millions of other times we have talked about the birth of Christ. And hello? It isn’t like this is their first Christmas.

Me: So Seth, why do we celebrate Christmas?

Seth: So that Santa can bring us presents!

Sweet. One of my proudest moments indeed.

I hate going to the store during the Christmas season.

The parking lots are full, my patience is short, and I tend to get grouchy when my normally quiet Super Target is OVERRUN with people. People who usually aren’t there. And I am. I go to buy normal things, like yogurt and baby food. These people are here to buy gifts for people they don’t even like. Get with the times, people! BUY YOUR GIFTS ON THE INTERNET AND STAY OUT OF MY TARGET.

Whew. Sorry about that. I tend to get really touchy when I’m already feeling crappy and I have to make three different stops at three different banks on the way to Target and when we finally get there we are greeted with hundreds of grouchy shoppers. Rude ones. Ones that want to run me and/or my kids over with their obscenely huge SUV’s.

Merry Christmas, everyone.