Merry Christmas Eve

One of my favorite parts of Christmas is getting to go to Church with my family for Christmas Eve service. I love getting to be with the people I love, getting to see my good friends, and of course, getting to worship Jesus! My experience at the service for the past 5 years, though, has been a little fragmented...with the addition of kids to the pew, I have always had to take one or both kids out to the welcome center at some point. I was prepared for that again this year, but to my pleasant surprise, both girls did great and I got to enjoy the whole service!

Awww...the sweetest Christmas headlock I ever did see!
Maybe better?

After Church, we then headed to Gigi and Papa's for dinner and lots of celebrating! We started off the night trying to get a picture of our three kiddos all together - always a fun job!

After too many takes for these kids, they just decided they needed to hug!
Pictures - this time let's add Papa!

After a yummy dinner, we jumped into opening presents - the kids were beyond excited!

Meredith's first gift to open (that was to both girls from Landon)...as she ripped into the paper and saw the shipping box, she yelled out "Yeah! It is from Walmart!"
The insides didn't disappoint - can you tell how excited this girl was to get JoJo the hide and seek rabbit?

Jillian, in typical toddler fashion, was just excited to get to carry around tissue paper!

Meredith, loving on her Precious Moments Doll Grandma and Grandpa Geurin sent to her - they sure know what Meredith loves!
Jillian was super-excited about her new Jessie hooded towel (with one to match for her big sister). She wore it the rest of the night and would not take it off! This girl loves hooded towels or just any way she can accessorize herself.
With the added paci off to the side of her mouth (and if only this picture had her with the hat up!), Neal was convinced she was trying to impersonate John Wayne from "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly."

We had such an amazing night with family and were excited to get home to get ready for Santa's big arrival and more family time on Christmas Day!

Christmas Card 2010

I should have maybe posted this a few weeks ago, but better late than never! Merry Christmas everyone!

A Lite FM Christmas

Meredith became an official Christmas music groupie this Christmas season. It started the week before Thanksgiving, with her announcing to me in the car that "they" were already playing Christmas songs on the radio, so I needed to find the station, please. For the next month, my radio never strayed from either 103.7 or 94.9 so we could hear lots and lots of Christmas. Then, for better or worse, I introduced her to the radio function on her clock radio one day, and from then on, she also insisted that she listen to "Lite FM" as she went to sleep and during rest time (often at a pretty high volume, too!) Soon, she could sing just about any song that came on the radio, would randomly spout out obscure lyrics, and would exclaim "This is my favorite song" to song, after song (including the Galleria Mall jingle.)

Pretty soon, Meredith started asking where Lite FM was every time we were in the car. We dug up this information to share with her. Then she moved on to asking when we could go there so we could sing on the radio. So, what do you say to that? I started just changing the subject, hoping she would move on. But, even now, days after Christmas, she still talks about it. She even had it all planned out. We were going to sing a song based on a book from Gigi's house (that they also had a school) "Small One" - I still don't know for sure if there is actually a song in the book or if she wanted us to make one up? She was insistent that we would need to get a second book because I wouldn't know how to sing the song. She also knew that Jillian would probably need to nap, so we would leave Daddy at home with her so that just she and I could go. In the midst of all this planning and me avoiding the questions and planning of this trip to Lite FM, we heard the Chipmunks song on the radio. Very inquisitively, she asks "How do THEY get to Lite FM?" I realized then that she thought that all these songs were being sung live in the studio! So I explained that hey were just playing the song on a CD over the radio. She kind of giggled and said "Oh, well I didn't think it was the real chipmunks, but maybe there were people dressed up like them singing!"

I started panicking a day or so before Christmas when her obsession with singing on the radio had not subsided. Luckily, when I started to try to let her down, she stopped me and said "Well, maybe we can go do it next year!" Yes, next year...until then, I can come up with a good diversion!

Then, as we were getting ready for bed last night, I was on the verge of such a sweet moment with my little girl. She sighed and said "I was just remembering about Christmas..." It was such a sweet statement, so I decided to probe her a bit - maybe she would say she was remembering the times with family, the baking, even all the Christmas songs or some of our traditions....I of course, was also ready to hear that she was remembering her favorite presents. Instead, when I asked "What were you remembering?" And she replied "When Santa called Christine Cook!" In case you weren't an avid listener to Lite FM, like we were, she was referring to a mattress commercial where Santa and the president of the mattress store talked about getting Santa a new mattress. Now, there is a Christmas memory for years to come! :)

Gaylord ICE!

For the second year in a row, we got to have a great day out with the Sook family to experience ICE at the Gaylord in Grapevine (this year, we missed Vic and Aunt Sandy because Victoria was in Orlando and Sandy was immersed in moving).

The cousins eagerly waiting to get into see the Snoopy ICE!
After waiting forever (or at least forever for sleepy toddlers/preschoolers) we got our big old parkas on and headed in!

Jillian loved hanging out with Laura - don't think La minded too much either!
Don't they look cute in those humongo coats? Jillian got pretty tired of hers so she kept trying to get out of it (which wasn't hard!)

Meredith thought it was so cool you could go through Snoopy's doghouse. And what could make that better, you ask? Going through with PJ! This girl loves PJ!

The highlight for Meredith was definitely the ice slide. She remembered it from last year and couldn't wait! It was a pretty long line and Jillian and Landon didn't have as much patience for the line (namely Jillian) so she was pretty sad that we could only do one round, but she still had fun! Jillian and I got to go down a smaller little kid slide, which was a little less exciting for me, but Jillian had fun, as she always does on slides!

This picture makes me laugh - I think she is singing like Snoopy!
Meredith loved seeing the Nativity made of Ice too - I love that this is a part of the presentation!

Christmas Storytime

Tonight was one of my favorite times at our church! All of the preschoolers came up to church in PJs to hear Dr. Wiles tell the Christmas story. Such a sweet time!

Meredith and Kylie were very excited to sit together
Meredith moved up toward the front, but I didn't want to block little views, so I stayed back. I was thinking that Jillian would not want to leave me, but I was wrong. She was quite happy to walk up with the big kids!
Dr. Wiles did a great job keeping telling the story perfectly for all those little ears.
Jillian was having a great time - she would crack up, to which Meredith would shoosh her. So Jillian would crack up again, then shoosh herself, then laugh some more.
Love my sweet girls that love to match and love to be together.
Meredith wanted to make sure I got a good picture of her jammies.
The kids also got to bring a stuffed friend, Meercat was the lucky friend to come with Meredith.
Jillian brought Ruffles, plus some milk and couldn't resist accessorizing her PJs with a rainbow necklace.

We headed out and it was time for dinner. Neal was at a concert but I fully intended to head home to make something quick. Meredith didn't seem too excited about anything I had to offer so I decided to just make tonight a really fun night (I could also say that I threw parenting common sense out the window, but whatever). So we had doughnuts for dinner. Yep. Not sure if that makes me a really fun mom or a really bad mom. I am going with fun.

Months ago, Meredith started asking why doughnut stores were closed at dinner time. Which just got her to want to eat doughnuts at dinner even more. I told her that someday we could go to Krispy Kreme for dinner since they were open all day as a special treat. Tonight seemed like the perfect time!

Happy girl with a Snowman doughnut!
Jillian was pretty excited with our dinner destination too!

Tomorrow seems like a good day for an extra serving of vegetables...

Lights!

This weekend we headed out to the Prairie Lights in Grand Prairie with my parents who were keeping Landon. The girls loved the lights - and I heard lots of words that I had no clue Jillian knew how to say when she saw light figures she loved (like "butterfly" and "fire truck") and she loved pointing out all the elves by calling them Sphrunkles (our Elf on the Shelf's name). Meredith was a great big sister, making sure to try to teach her other new words while enjoying the lights too!

After seeing so many lights, it was time for a quick break for some fun and snacks.

We started off with the world's fastest carousel
Then we took a turn in a fun Dragon Ride.
Gigi treated the kids with these fun Tree Lights
Warming up with Papa
This girl loves being anywhere with her big sister, cousin, and her Gigi and Papa!
Being with Papa was even better last night because he was sharing his kettle corn with a certain little girl.

A Very Turtle Christmas

Meredith's class celebrated their last day of school before Christmas with a fun party. The kids ate pizza, played Bingo, decorated cookies, and made crafts.

Jillian was sure the party was for her too, so she joined in Bingo - or really, she just ate the Bingo markers.
Meredith was very excited to Bingo!
She has this cookie decorating thing down!
Jillian entertained herself throughout the party by putting herself to bed in the doll bed

Preschool Program

After warming up with her Church Program on Sunday, Meredith was more than ready to perform on Tuesday at school. I am amazed at how many songs these kids can learn! They were all fantastic and oh-so-cute!

Santa on the Roof

Our playgroup friends have a fun tradition, called Santa on the Roof-they took a year off last year, but this year we were thrilled to see it happen again! This was Jillian's first time and this was the first year to take Meredith when she has been excited to see Santa instead of scared, so I was looking forward to it more than ever!

Santa finds his way to the house by listening for all the kids singing carols loudly.
Jillian resting her voice with a little hot cocoa.
After a few songs, Santa made his debut! And then he handed out gifts to all the kids!
Both girls were very excited!
Jillian usually just says "Ho Ho!" When she sees Santa, but when she saw him on the roof, she yelled "Hi Santa!"
Santa even made sure that Meredith got a green bag - how sweet!
Jillian had so much fun digging through her loot! What fun!