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!