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!