From Our Family to Yours

"The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree:  the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other.''  ~Burton Hillis

It's all Christopher's fault

Without a doubt it's official- every time Christopher comes to visit this poor blog is abandoned. The blog that brought us together just gets swooshed to the side. Clearly, we're just too busy doing lots of other exciting things together.

Saturday was our first Christmas celebration with Erika, Debbie, and Christopher and according to the reports, it was a successful first.

I'm not sure what was making Grandma laugh so hard, but she certainly was enjoying herself.

Here we have a group of adoring fans listening to Christopher tell his version of how we got engaged. Our versions of the story are very similar, especially the part where I said yes. 

{Notice the paparazzi.}
Look how happy the adoring fans are!

I have never seen anyone get so excited about a key as Aaron did about the key Andrew and Debbie gave him to their house. Who knew a little key could bring so much Christmas cheer?

Monday night we went to a Fezziwig Christmas Ball.

It was a very Christmasy event and many in attendance took the invitation to "come in costume" quite seriously. 

Unlike the Civil War ball where my dance card was overtaken by a boy named Brandon, my dance card for this ball was primarily taken over by someone whose name starts with a C and ends with an r.

Tuesday found us doing errands, eating Chinese food and getting together with Katie for ice cream. Katie and I hadn't visited in approximately forever so we did a lot of talking. Poor Christopher was subjected to listening to many conversations that to the unaccustomed sounded like a bunch of half sentences and quite a bit of nonsense, but in reality it's just the way Katie and I generally communicate. We've learned a unique brand of communication over our 20 years together.

Mr. C. and I are Christmas lights people so we drove around looking at the beautiful and not so beautiful sights. It's a little disturbing what some people find attractive when it comes to Christmas lights. After looking at neighborhood lights, we went to see a huge display of beautiful Christmas lights at a former monastery. The picture below does not do it justice.

I had to babysit on Wednesday but while the kids were watching their show, we had Wedding Planning Meeting #1. Daniel and Erika gave us this very helpful book as an engagement present and we plan on studying it from page 1 all the way through page 293.

As tends to happen when he comes to visit, Christopher had to leave this morning BUT I'll see him {as well as Stephanie, Logan & Co.} on Sunday when I travel to Phoenix!

Have a mipy christmas

Scott the Mailman recently delivered this Christmas card to my mailbox.

My favorite part is the way she spelled merry. 

Poor girl, not only did we share a crafting gene, apparently we share a terable speling gene as well.

We have some big Christmas questions

We interrupt the romance of Tuesday to discuss the Christmas shopping trip Autumn and I took yesterday. It only rated about a 7 for productivity, but easily a 10 for everything else. "Everything else" includes talking at an inappropriate volume {something we're very good at}, Autumn's very excitable driving which made us leave the lane we were supposed to be in, the mechanic Autumn takes her car to, sales and more sales, Autumn telling me 15 times in 4 hours that she "JUST CAN'T BELIEVE" that I'm engaged, and discussing some of the world's biggest Christmas questions.

Question #1: Why does the Lexus dealership tell us that "a Lexus is the perfect gift for everyone on our list" when nobody {except maybe Donald T.} can afford to buy a Lexus for everyone on their list?
Question #2: Why do plastic surgeons offer gift certificates at Christmas time? You might as well just hand that special someone a card telling them you think they're a nice person and all, but for goodness sake, they are so ugly!

We just don't get it.  

We also took 60 seconds to compile this very incomplete list of a few favorite Christmas songs. It was shaping up to be a good list but we were interrupted by a trip into Hallmark and we forgot to finish it. I blame the Star Wars ornaments for that.  

Away in a Manger 
Last Christmas I Gave You My Heart {This song "brings out the 80's" in Autumn.}
Walking In A Winter Wonderland
"The song about the walking magi" {I can't be sure, but I think she meant We Three Kings}
Oh Holy Night

Our next stop was TJ Maxx. Almost immediately we found these:  

Someone made a terrible fashion error with the production of these yellow pants. 

We needed a little time for our eyes to recover so we went to the children's section in search of a gift for a certain small sister of mine. We found something for her, but almost more exciting was this discovery:

Adorable baby shoes 

We instantly began searching for babies to go with the shoes but we found none. Autumn asked me if I want a girl or boy baby first and when I said girl, she said she wanted a boy first. Naturally my little girl will marry her little boy and we'll have the same grandchildren and life will be beautiful. 

Please don't ask why we like to discuss the marriages of our future and as of now unborn children. It's very hard to explain to those who don't understand.

Next on our agenda was the mall. We stopped by Crazy 8 to visit Marissa, looked in on Autumn's friend Kory at another store, and shopped around two other stores before leaving with slightly less money than we arrived with. 

That's another big Christmas question we have: why do you always end up on the other side of Christmas with less money than you have before it? 

Yes

December 10th, 2010

The Gingerbread Couple

This picture is dedicated to the one and only Christopher.

Oh Christmas tree, thy branches are so lovely

We finally put up our Christmas tree last night. In an effort to avoid a lot of words about how it took three people twenty minutes to get the tree to stay in the stand and how I fell in love with my Baby's 1st Christmas ornament for the 21st year in a row, I'll just show pictures of the tree.

Before

After

That's quite the transformation, don't you think? It's possible I say this every year, but I think this is our prettiest tree yet.

***

I am now going to start packing for my very exciting trip to visit Christopher this weekend. The Office of the Official Timer has told me departure time is T minus 12 hours. 

The Shopping Extraviganza

Yesterday morning Marissa and I got together for our first annual Christmas shopping extravaganza. First we went to the store that sells way too many things for way too good a price, thereby making you spend way more money than you really should for stuff you don't really need. The store is commonly referred to as the Christmas Tree Shop. We wandered around looking for cookie cutters of which there were none, but Marissa did find a Marilyn Monroe book that excited her to no end. Apparently Marilyn and Betty Boop are her new favorites. I was completely unaware of that fact until standing between aisles 7 and 8 of the Christmas Tree Shop.

Our next stop was the craft store. I have a well-documented addiction to craft stores so I'm very proud to report that I did not buy ANYTHING thing that I don't need. I'm just as proud of the fact that everything I bought was on sale. It was a big day for me and my craft needs. 

Next, we headed to the mall because our shopping was finished and we still had some time before we had to be at our respective homes. We wandered the mall for a few minutes before remembering our deep and abiding love of trying on fancy dresses. We headed to the closest store and spent a good deal of time trying on dresses we'll never get to wear anywhere.

I learned another new thing about Marissa yesterday: she has a rotation of 4 boys she likes to see every time she's at the mall. Since she works at the mall she sees them quite a bit. I don't know any of these boys but since I'm her relationship counselor I felt it was necessary to meet them. And you know what? I don't approve of any of them. Not that Marissa asked my approval, you understand. I just like giving my opinion on things. Besides, I probably have 3 people in mind who would be so much better for her.

As all things must, our shopping day finally came to an end. I dropped Marissa off, wished her luck in all her babysitting endeavors {to quote her, "I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THOSE KIDS!"}, and realized as I was driving away that I had to go to the craft store again. Like I said, I'm addicted to the craft store. Luckily I had another coupon so I saved a whopping $2.00. 

Knowing myself as I do, I'll probably just spend those $2.00 on another craft item down the road. 

A Christmas Carol

"Stunning, breathtaking,and funny."

The Ultra-Cool Homeschoolers Times

So say the reviews after tonight's performance of A Christmas Carol.

Our family loves to attend shows. When a show happens to involve 1. one of our own {in this case, Elizabeth} 2. our friends and 3. fellow homeschoolers, the fun is tripled. A Christmas Carol involved all three so we knew it was going to be good. In fact, I think it's accurate to rate it as superb. The acting was fabulous, the singing was wonderful, and the children were adorable.

Unfortunately, I was unable to take pictures during the performance because the director made it clear in no uncertain terms that photography was NOT allowed. Last time, she said, the camera's got in the way of people's view of the stage. Completely understandable. I briefly considered being rebellious because I feel it's essential to have photographic evidence of any and all events, but then I considered being dragged out of the show because of unlawful behavior and I decided to obey. Just think, if I had been dragged away, I could have yelled "it's for the blog! It's for the blog!" on the way out. It would have been just thrilling to behold.

Anyway.

Hannah came to visit during the intermission so we seized the {completely acceptable at this point} photographic moment. I'm not sure where Amanda was to begin with, but all the sudden she was very much there in our picture.

 This is where I would insert any Act 2 pictures if I had them.

The lovely Elizabeth, the charming Hannah, and the trying-to-look-aristocratic Daniel

Daniel told me that he would dress like this everyday if he could and I totally believe him. His main goal in life is to own a home in England where he can ride a horse through the woods with a pack of hunting dogs at his side. When he's done for the day, he will retire to his library and socialize with fellow aristocrats. His brother Brandon has similar goals except his location of choice is Paris. 

Look who else graced the stage tonight: 

It's our slightly flushed and tired friend, the one and only Mr. William the Great.

He was quite suave and debonair.

I have saved the best for last...Elizabeth played the charming, witty, slightly flirtatious Miss Besty. Even if she wasn't my sister, I would say that Elizabeth's character was one of my favorites. Miss Betsy is a guest at the Christmas party who is head over heels in love with Mr Topper, another guest, and is completely giddy the whole entire scene. She was, without a doubt, one of the shows most popular characters.

PS. Because she IS my sister and I take her potential love-life very seriously, I fully approve if she wants to like the boy who played Mr. Topper. They were so cute together!

Some December 1st Thoughts

Today is December 1st.

That can mean one thing and one thing alone- it's almost Christmas and I'd better get moving with my Christmas shopping. I am a HUGE fan of giving Christmas presents and if it wasn't completely against tradition, I'd give them year-round. 

Trying to gain useful information from Aaron regarding what he would like for Christmas was similar to pulling teeth. The first answer he gave me was a very vague, not-really-paying-attention, "it doesn't really matter". I think he put so little effort into his answer because he was on Facebook looking at pictures of Christiana which always renders him completely useless. I asked him again a few days later and he replied that he'd like an external hard drive for his xbox. That would be a useful answer except that I have no idea what an external hard drive for an xbox actually is. I think I'll stick with the "it doesn't really matter" idea.


Zachary, on the other hand, provided us with an in-depth list of his Christmas wishes and desires. Notice how he even ranked everything just in case there's any question about what he wants most. 

Because today is December 1st, and because I am a fan not only of Christmas gifts but Christmas decorations, and because I am slightly proud of the babysitting skills that lead me to conjure up such a time-consuming activity as making Christmas decorations, I present the Sarah & Molly Christmas Creations, Edition 2010.

I have yet to figure out why Santa's trademark 'ho ho' was painted in hippie colors. That just doesn't seem Christmas-y to me at all.