Christmas Quotes

This was such a fun Christmas with Natalie. She loved the whole Santa concept (not really Santa himself but I'll get into that later), she finally understood that we were celebrating the birth of Baby Jesus (after singing Happy Birthday to Santa most of December) and she had so much fun decorating, undecorating and redecorating the tree (a far cry from last year when she'd just grab an ornament and make a run for it!).

Some of my favorite comments of hers from the season:

Me: What do you want for Christmas this year, Natalie?
N: A new teddy bear!
Me: Really? You have so many stuffed animals already. Isn't there something else you'd rather have?
N: Yeah, a car.
Me: A little toy car?
N: No, a REAL one, like yours.

(while playing with her Nativity set...a HUGE hit, by the way..thank you Nana and Papa Franc!)
Me: Is that Baby Jesus in the donkey cart?
N: Yes. I put him in there so he'd stop wrying (crying).
Me: Did it work?
N: No, he's still wrying!


Me: Natalie, who's birthday do we celebrate on Christmas?
N: Papa Rod's!
Me: No, his is BEFORE Christmas. Who's birthday IS Christmas all about?
N: SANTA'S!

We finally got this all cleared up by about the 22nd of December and then she went around announcing that Christmas was Baby Jesus' birthday to anyone she saw.

Well, at the Christmas Eve service at our church we all lit candles and took them out to the courtyard to sing Silent Night. Corey was holding Natalie in one arm and a candle in the other as the entire church QUIETLY gathered together outside to start singing. Natalie immediately started to sing "Happy Birthday" at the top of her lungs. Corey stopped her but I honestly think he should have let her go with it! She might have started a new tradition! The girl just associates candles with cupcakes and birthday parties, what can we say?

When we went to go visit Santa, Natalie caught one glimpse of the bearded fellow and would have none of it. She looked over the red rope separating her from Santa and said, "I don't want to see Santa. Santa's freepy (creepy)!" Oh well, we tried.

And finally, when we were undecorating our totally dead and dried out tree the day after Christmas she looked at my mom and me as we took ornament after ornament off the tree and said, "You guys better put all those ornaments back on the tree when you're done!"

Here are a few shots from our holiday weekend. Thanks to Papa Rod, Grandma Lala and Auntie Ashley for spending it with us. We loved having you!

This is as close as she got to Santa and very representative of the look on her face for the rest of the day after the whole almost-experience.

Gotta love Christmas pine trees next to desert palm trees!


One of the ONLY smiles we got on anywhere near Santa!


Santa has some fine taste in jewels!

One of her favorite gifts was this easel. She has not stopped drawing/painting/stamping ever since Christmas morning.

What an artist! She even takes a step back every few minutes to admire her work. I'm not kidding. It's priceless.

The other huge holiday hit was this scooter. Thank you Papa Rod and Grandma Lala. She loves this thing and amazes us how fast she can go! Because our house is almost entirely tile, she uses it inside, too. When I call her to the kitchen from her bedroom, she inevitably arrives by scooter! You'll notice the pink purse hanging from the handle bars! That goes with her and the scooter everywhere and is in addition to the princess pack that stays on the scooter. This girl always has to have her accessories!

Gardener

Anyone who has hung out with Natalie outside has been asked ever so sweetly to pick a flower for her. She insists wherever we go that she gets a blossom off of every tree, shrub or plant in sight. We have rules. No picking flowers people planted, no picking flowers at the Lowe's garden center and no picking the last few blossoms on any living thing.

When I was sorting through my bin of gift wrapping what-nots the other day, she saw some fabric flowers I'd been saving. She asked if she could have them. Within 30 minutes I found her outside with Corey "planting" her fake flowers. She was all business...with her sand shovel and rake and she was piling gravel around the plastic stem to get it to stand up. As soon as she was finished she said, "now I'm going to PICK it!" and she did. She re-planted and re-picked until it was almost dark outside.

Polished

Natalie is noticing nail polish lately and really wants her toes and finger nails painted. I told her that was a big girl treat and if she can start to go on the potty regularly that I'll happily paint her toes (a VERY pale) princess pink. We're trying anything we can these days to get this girl potty trained. She's just totally disinterested...errrgh...and when this one isn't on board, forget it, the ships not sailing anywhere!

Well, the other day she was coloring with her washable (thank goodness) markers and said, "look Mommy, I painted my fingernails!" She was quite proud of herself and even walked around like her nails were wet for hours. I have no idea where she learned that because I paint my fingernails about once every 2 years!

Our Little Hiker

We have a little hiker on our hands. Corey has been taking Natalie up a not so little mountain near our house and she just treks up it like a trooper. I've been unable to go with them but I can't wait to join them soon and see it for myself. She comes home so proud of herself. I love it.

Meet Mary

Natalie received the cutest Little People Nativity from her Nana and Papa Franc. She loves it and she now has a new infatuation with Mary. The other night she put her doll's blanket on her head and when we referred to her as Natalie she quickly corrected us and said, "no, I'm Mary". This went on all evening...through dinner. Too funny.

Fristmas Free

It's so funny to hear Natalie say "Christmas tree"...it comes out as "Fristmas Free" and when she tells perfect strangers about her tree they are utterly confused. Well, we picked out our "free" on Saturday and decorated it later that day and she loved every minute of it. Needless to say, the lowest branches are HEAVY with ornaments and the placement of each changes multiple times a day.

Last year we had a huge tree decorated with ornaments that had no sentimental value...this year we have a small tree but it's covered in history. Love it.

It was love at first sight, obviously.

Our lively little present under the tree.

Fristmas Tookies

Natalie is so excited for "Fristmas"...it's really all she talks about. So, we decided to kick off the weekend with our first batch of Christmas cookies...or, "tookies" as Natalie calls them.

After I added tons of milk to our rock hard dough (I have no idea what I did wrong but there was immediate Google advice available on how to correct it so it had to have been somewhat of a common concrete condition) we gathered our holiday sprinkle colors and cookie cutters and began.

I rolled at first and she concentrated on cutting out her shapes. Then came the sprinkles....and MORE sprinkles. I bought what I thought would be our Holiday '09 collection of sugar sprinkles but they hardly made it through the first night. The girl is not afraid to add some bling to her cookies! In fact, when the first batch came out of the oven, it looked like we were making our own version of Jolly Ranchers, too, as the sprinkles that didn't land on dough pooled up and solidified all over baking sheet!

Natalie was a natural. After returning from a trip to the oven, I found her rolling, cutting and placing shapes on the cookie sheet all by herself. They were some of our best looking ones! After a sugar high that kept her up until 10:45 I think she had some pretty sweet dreams.

Can you say, "excited"?

Now, that's some sprinkle!

Into the oven they go!

All done and they don't look half bad for being decorated by an almost 3 year old with only a little help from her mama!

Sweet success!

Thankful

This Thanksgiving weekend we are especially thankful.

We moved into our own house this past month and we greeted our stuff that we hadn't seen in 15 months. It was a bittersweet reunion. On the one hand, it was wonderful to see old treasures, sit on our own uncomfortable sofa and actually put clothes away in dressers again. It felt like an early Christmas for all of us. On the other hand, we scratched our heads and wondered what on earth we were going to do with all this stuff we'd clearly lived without for over a year....not always easily, but lived without, nonetheless.

We're still unpacking so the "after" pics will come soon...but here are a few pictures of our house and moving day...

New exterior color scheme to come!

Natalie watched the movers from our window seat all morning. She was anxiously awaiting the toy box we told her was on that truck.

THE toy box. This was Corey's (and Amber and Kristen's) childhood toy box and Natalie didn't really remember it from Asheville but she was so excited once we told her she had a toy box coming. One night before we moved in we were at the house after dark when a woman walked by with her dog. Natalie stood on the front walk and shouted, "My name is Natalie and I have a toy box on a big truck!!" What a way to announce her arrival in the neighborhood. Little did she realize that the toy box was filled with toys she'd long since outgrown (sadly) but she was thrilled at each discovery anyway and still tells people about this toy box in passing.

Natalie found the loudest toys first (just can't thank you enough for this little piano, Kelly and Micah!) and the poor movers got to listen to her play and sing in an empty house (full of tile, mind you) almost the entire time they unloaded.

Another exciting part of the move for Natalie was the transition to a big girl bed. Her crib is one that turns into a toddler bed, but, of course, since we only thought our things would be in storage for 30 to 60 days when we packed them up last August, we didn't think to bring along the teeny tiny critical piece that allows the transition to happen. Consequently, this very big and heavy girl has been in a crib this whole time. The first night in our new house she slept in her toddler bed and has been happy as a clam ever since! And our backs are thanking us!

This is one of the only interior shots I have that turned out. We have a really cool wall of niches and we're so excited to light and accessorize them.

Speaking of thankful...we are so grateful that Grandma Lala and Papa Rod were able to come to town on moving weekend. They were such a huge help with cleaning, unpacking, Natalie busying, cat finding, lunch take out pick up-ing...you name it. Thank you both so much for all your help!

Not that we're trying to combine exciting news posts here but it all seemed to fit under the "we're thanking our lucky stars" theme...

We're expecting a baby in late May! Natalie is going to be a great big sister and we think we're up to doing this again! Exciting times at the Brooks house!

Hope everyone had a very happy holiday!

Dancing Queen

A few weeks ago we watched a few minutes of Mama Mia and Natalie was hooked. We agreed to let her watch about 10 minutes every night before bed. At first it was harmless...our little toddler sat glued to the movie right before bed and spent the afternoons humming "Dancing Queen", "Mama Mia" and "Honey Honey". We started to raise an eyebrow, however, when she started asking me, "Mommy, who's your dad?" and announcing, "we have to hurry, I'm going going to be late for my bachelor party." We finally decided it was Mama Mia overload when she said, "oh (pause) my (pause) God!"...a direct line from the movie delivered with just as much dramatic effect.

I tucked Mama Mia away for a while and headed to Blockbuster to seek help from good ole' Disney. We got in the car and what was on the radio?..."Dancing Queen"...yes, indeed. Natalie calls it "Dancing Feen" and she knows almost every word. (side note: yes, I listen to a radio station (occasionally) that plays ABBA and I'm not ashamed!!) She sang her heart out in the backseat all the way to the video store and was less than enthused as I checked out Mary Poppins. She liked Mary Poppins. She likes to pull her pants down to her knees and waddle dance like a cartoon penguin now, but she still asks for Mama Mia EVERY night. Luckily we found the ABBA Gold CD in the moving boxes and that's appeasing her for now!


Yes, she's wearing Mardi Gras beads. Corey picked them up at a garage sale. What has happened to our good judgement?? Not only does Natalie wear them around the house but she insists on wearing at least 3 strands to church on Sundays. It was in her Sunday school class that a friend informed me they are a major lead poisoning threat. Lovely. I just can't take the beads away from her the same month as Mama Mia when M.I.A. I'll convince her to leave the beads for Santa alongside his cookies and milk next month!

Happy Belated Halloween

Okay, so we're a little behind in this house right now. I'm finally getting around to posting Halloween pictures. In lieu of trick or treating this year, Corey and Nana took Natalie to the Fall Festival at our church. I was on a business trip and it broke my heart to miss it, but they did a great job dressing her in her costume and documenting the day.

It was actually a perfect Halloween celebration for her age. There were games, face painting and, as if Natalie designed the perfect fall celebration, a cupcake decorating station. Yes, the girl was in heaven. She asked Nana if it was her birthday. Nope. Just your lucky day, kiddo.

In addition to Nana, Natalie's other grandmas helped with this year's costume as well. Great Grandma Elizabeth gave Natalie this fairy princess costume last spring and Grandma Lala helped to tame the wings with some needle and thread on a recent trip to Palm Springs. Thank you all. She loves dressing up like a princess anytime (and anywhere)! She even got the royal treatment that day when she had a private wagon ride to the haunted house. She promptly declined the invitation at the door to the haunted house, however, and told me later that it was because it was "scaywee" (scary) and "freepy" (creepy).










The princess and her carriage! This was how she could have ridden through the haunted house if she had opted to go in. Maybe next year.