It's Beginning to Feel a Lot Like Christmas...

Christmas is getting close!  Can you feel the excitement??  Get within a ten foot radius of my family and you will!

Last night we began wrapping presents.  Maleah had been begging and I mean begging to start wrapping presents.  I finally gave in.  I thought I wanted to wrap alone, in a quiet house, without helpers, while some Christmas carols played in the background.  I had been putting off the wrapping because I wasn't getting any quiet time to do it in.  I also thought that I wanted my wrapped gifts to look like professionally wrapped gifts that came from Oprah and were all wrapped in coordinating paper.  It turned out that we wrapped in my slightly chaotic kitchen, with two helpers, while Dora played on the television.  It also turned out that my gifts looked less like they were from Oprah and more like they were wrapped with love by someone very very eager to do her best taping and best handwriting on very small tags.  I actually liked this look better than the whole Oprah look anyway.  And if you receive a gift from us this year and it's not the most neatly wrapped gift, please know that it was wrapped with the most love and excitement that you can ever imagine.  I hadn't realized that letting the girls help with the wrapping would help teach them the lesson of giving.  Maleah is so truly excited about giving gifts this year.  Maybe not as excited as she is about receiving them, but close.  And that, my friends, is progress.  It's good for Carissa too.  She may be a little too young to "get it" but she understands way more than I give her credit for.  Maleah's excitement is contagious, so if Maleah is excited about giving someone a very special gift, Carissa is too.

So now we have a few gifts under our tree.  Carissa is doing a magnificent job of leaving them alone.  I am so proud of her.  Maybe she overheard me telling someone that I didn't trust her and didn't feel like I could put any presents under the tree until Christmas Eve.  She probably heard me and was wishing I would put some out early just so she could prove me wrong.  That would be my girl.  I am like that myself.  I should have worried more about her older sister than her.  The first present was only under our tree for about 20 minutes before Maleah stepped on it and completely smashed one side of the box.  "Don't worry Mom!  Don't panic!  I popped it back into place!", she hollered at me.  I laughed and told her not to stand so close to the tree.  She just can't help it I guess.  That tree is like a magnet to both of my kids. 

Jason has had a horrible cold and now poor little Rissa has it too.  It is so sad when she is sick.  She just has the saddest face in the world.  She doesn't like me to wipe her nose, but if I ask her to do it, she will.  She does a really good job of it too for a one and a half year old.  She hasn't been sleeping good so therefore neither have I.  I sure wish there was something I could give her to make her feel better.  It's not fair when babies are sick!!  I sure hope we are all well for Christmas.

Maleah is still having trouble with the boy at school who calls her slow.  This week he told her that her name and her necklace was ugly.  She was so insulted.  She couldn't believe he would say that to her.  I told her to ignore him and don't talk to him.  I also told her that "your name is ugly" translates to "I love you and I think you're great" in boynese.  It's a hard language to learn.  Mannish is a little easier, but not much.

On Sunday we trekked through blizzard conditions and slick roads to celebrate Christmas with the Weavers.  It was our first family Christmas celebration of the season.  I kind of liked having it a couple of weeks early.  It makes the season a little less hectic when things are nicely spaced out on my calendar (and everyone else's too, I'm sure).  We had a great meal complete with Grandma Sherrel's rolls.  Carissa could not help herself and grabbed one of them off of the buffet table long before the prayer was said or anyone else lined up.  I sat her down and let her eat it.  I'm sure no one wanted to hear her scream if I took it away.  She is just a baby and too little to understand waiting on the blessing ("the BLESSSINGGG!!!"). 

After the meal we spent some time celebrating Jesus' birthday, complete with song singing, a skit, and a birthday cake with candles.  Grandma Sherrel sang a very pretty song and asked Maleah and Carissa on stage with her while she sang it.  I told Jason that I sure hoped Carissa didn't spot the baby Jesus in the manger.  This baby Jesus was a very cute little baby doll that was a prop for the song "Mary, Did You Know?".  I knew if Carissa spotted it, that baby Jesus would be toted around and not left to rest in his manger.  So after Grandma sat Carissa on her lap to sing to her a song about a baby's first Christmas, Carissa hollers out "BABY!  BABY!".  She hops right off of Grandma's lap and grabs up Baby Jesus quicker than you can say Buddy the Elf.  This got several chuckles out of the crowd.  Luckily, "Mary, Did You Know?" was already over.  She didn't put baby Jesus back into his manger until it was time to go see Santa.  Here's a picture of Grandma, Maleah, Carissa, and baby Jesus. 

Santa made his usual appearance at the Weaver Family Christmas.  He brought Maleah a writing pad and pen that has magic ink in it that appears in different colors on the pages.  He also brought her some books and a puzzle.  She didn't hesitate and hopped right up on his lap to get her gifts.  Carissa, on the other hand, was scared out of her mind.  She clung to me.  She gave Santa dirty looks.  So he handed me a couple of gifts for her and she sat down and began tearing at the paper.  She was thrilled to discover that he had given her a brand new baby doll, a Dora book, and a tea set.  It was the baby doll that really got her attention though.  While her Dad was desperately trying to free the newborn plastic doll from her many cables, ties, and other theft-proof, parent-hating contraptions that kept her tied down so tightly, Carissa had turned around and was now almost lovingly admiring Santa from afar.  She didn't want to get any closer to him but I'm pretty sure she shot him a genuine smile of thanks. 

I think she is starting to look more like me.  What do you think?

The younger kids with baby Jesus

Maleah and Santa

Carissa after getting her new baby doll from Santa.

Mr. and Mrs. Claus and their son Seth

Okay, you guys know that my blog posts get really long at Christmastime.  Sorry.  But here are some cute pictures that I took of the girls playing in the snow.  They had a great time and spent about 20 minutes outside.  It took us about 40 minutes to get ready to go outside and play.  And it took me at least 15 minutes to get everyone undressed afterwards and to hang up all the wet clothes to dry.  It was quite the workout, let me tell ya...

Yum, snow!

Have a great week everybody!