Charisa Darling

7:38 AM

The kids anxiously awaiting to come downstairs to see if Santa left anything for them. The parents, grandparents, aunt and uncle were still in a stupor at this point.

Vaughn didn't waste anytime getting into her Cinderella dress, do a little dance with her princess wand, and offered up tea from her Beauty and The Beast tea cart to those willing to humor her. She does make a mean cup of pretend tea.

Vance got his DS. He now refers to it by its full name, Nintendo DSi. As in, "Can I play my Nintendo DSi?" and "Where's my Nintendo DSi?" Justin and I mock him, because we're horribly malicious parents, which has only reinforced the idea that it's okay to call it that. He loves it and I can't wait to buy Tetris & Ms. Pacman and play it while he's asleep.

Justin and I were this year's lucky recipients of the Irish whiskey cake and can of Spotted Dick. It was disguised as being a sweet gift from our two darling children.

Many, many years ago my uncle gave my mom a whiskey cake for Christmas with the best intentions. She in turn decided to mock his generosity and made a move that altered our Christmases ever since.

The next Christmas (or it might have been that same night - while we open gifts Christmas morning, we used to save one gift to open on Christmas night. I need a fact checker on this one.) she wrapped it up and gave it back to him. For years it just went back and forth between them. They got creative with how they gave it to each other, one time my mom had it Fed Ex'd to my uncle's office. One year it was decided that the love needed to be shared with everyone and it's been going around the family ever since. The can of spotted dick was added last year, acting as the ugly stepsister of the whiskey cake. (The spotted dick is apparently some sort of sponge pudding. It's in a can and I should probably provide a picture of both of them for visual purposes.) I'm already plotting how, when, and who we'll be giving it to.

Silly? Yes. Immature? Of course. But we sure do have fun.

What to do when you're short on time? Make a photo collage to sum everything up!

Honestly, my pictures from the night aren't very good at all. I wasn't able to get a decent one of the family, or even the kids. However, we had a great Christmas Eve. There was snow on the ground and family all around. It doesn't get any better than that.

Little did I know that in less than 8 hours I was going to be gifted a boxed Irish whiskey cake and a lovely can of Spotted Dick.

This is how much fun the kids had on Christmas Eve.

I kid, I kid!

Both kids are out of school, we've been busy doing other things, Christmas decorations are still up and need to come down: No time for blogging!

Consider this a placeholder until I get some time!

We're back from Holiday. We had a great Christmas, hope you did too!

My family kicked the holidays off with a little bowling. It's besides the point to tell you that I never found my groove and scored ridiculously low.

Ahem.

My parents and Vance were accused of being closet bowlers because of how well they scored. Vance earned his first Turkey and was super excited.

I believe everyone had a good time. Bowling isn't something that we do often, so it's always fun to get out there and roll the 7 lb. balls.

Side story: We lost three pairs of pants due to knee blow outs while we were away. Two of Vance's, one of Vaughn's. The first of Vance's almost made me cry. Holes in the knees are common occurrences around here, so I thought if I bought more expensive, lined pants it would help. Wrong. Turns out that no fabric is strong enough to hold up against sliding on bowling alley floors, which is what all the boys did in between turns that night. He had worn these pants 3 times, which makes this investment just plain silly.

What's up for today? We returned to a house without food, so I'm dragging the kids to the grocery store which is always a lot of fun. Christmas Eve pics are up next. Today or tomorrow.

Happy Everything!

He spelled all the words himself, except guitar. I haven't told him that he misspelled 'would' yet. I'd like to slow his aging process drastically and keeping that bit of information from him is helping.

I'm sure of it.

Christmas is getting closer. Can you feel it?

*I know that I forgot to round the corners on the second picture. Let's just pretend.

Vaughn was confused when I explained to her that we don't eat the gingerbread houses.

I mean, I guess you could eat some, but these prepackaged ones are a little suspect.

And the fact that I used hot glue to assemble each house makes it a little less appealing too.

...............

I've made a homemade gingerbread house years ago and I promised myself to never do it again. The dough was so massive that it fought the stand mixer and it took me two days to get everything measured out and baked. Even that one didn't get eaten.

We've been inside pretty much for 2 days. The kids are nuts and I have to find somewhere to take them today to run off some energy. I'm dreading that I'll be in a bounce house warehouse in a few hours. Yikes.

We saw Santa yesterday. To date, it was our easiest encounter with The Big Guy.

We parked not knowing where Santa would be set up. We walked in the doors and he was right there. There was no line. Santa asked for high fives, the kids obliged. Vaughn hopped up and said she wanted a Cinderella dress. Vance followed and said he wanted a Nintendo DS...and a guitar. Kids smiled, picture was snapped, candy canes were doled out.

It all took less than 5 minutes. That's my kind of Santa.

...............

Honestly, seeing Santa always seems like a chore. I'm always glad to have it checked off our to-do list. I keep all the Santa pictures from previous years in the same frame and just add the newest one on top. It's fun to unpack it from the decorations and look at the old ones.

Have you seen Santa? How'd it go?

If this is where Vaughn is planning on attending college, I guess the silver lining would be that we already have enough saved in her 529 to cover tuition. Mommy's got a few other ideas on how we can spend all that money that we've been putting aside for the kids' education.

I did not alter this in any way. She did this all on her own. If it's anyone to spell out a variation of BARF, it's Vaughnie. That's my girl.

Last year I bought this little one for her, just so she had something to hang. It took me 2-3 years to finish Vance's and I haven't even started one for Vaughn. Yikes. I've searched Etsy for a handmade one, but didn't see anything that I liked. Guess I should go ahead and start on one for her...It's sad up there, isn't it?!?

If anyone has seen a cute, girly looking stocking that can buy me some time would be much appreciated! I've looked around the stores and online, but haven't seen anything.

We're two days into December. I know this because two little doors on the kids' advent calendars are open, 2 paper rings have been torn off the chain that's hanging from the fireplace, and yesterday we received packages from UPS, FedEx, and the good ol' USPS. If DHL would have paid us a visit, we'd have bingo!

I'm doing well on shopping, how are you guys doing?