Wednesday, December 24, 2008

christwish 2008

each year, my family celebrates christmas a bit earlier than most everyone else. we do this because every year around this time, we pack our scarves, coats, burt's bees lip balms, and christmas gifts to make the short plane ride home to michigan!

so a few days before we made out jaunt to freezing cold (got around 7inches of snow today, it is 9 degrees right, and beautifully white) michigan-we celebrated christwish. santa makes a special trip to out house on chriswish, where stuffs the the kid's stocking full of dinosaurs, m&m's, candy canes, a new box of crayons, painting supplies, new travel toys, a few bucks, whoopee cushions (hey, they love them), lipgloss, pencil bags, an orange (tradition)...lots of fun !!!stuff

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right after i read the kids , the night before christmas for the 100th time this year, it was more special tonight. peyton's worried little face that we don't have a chimney.
"how will he get in the house, mommy?"
"sweetheart, santa can do anything. i pinky promise, he will come tonight when you are sleeping!"
(excited face) "well, can i stay up and wait for santa?"
"nope."
this went on for a while and then i realized she was stalling. tonight was sweet and exciting and i never ever want to forget the looks on their little innocent faces...!
tonight was made up of exactly what i am pretty sure many parents of older children wish they could get back. this reality hits me hard tonight, like it does more and more often now, but especially with big events like this one.
jeff and i ran around, getting things ready...perfect. we became santa's elves, singing along together to the christmas tunes playing in the background, scurrying like mice wrapping, bowing, making, planning, dreaming...
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for the first time, we did a...follow the string gift, for the BIG gift!
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we made sure santa knew we had been learning all about him and how he does things to make christmas so special.
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we made santa cookies, milk, a note to read...
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oooh's and aaahhhh's followed by, "look, SANTA came!!!" beckham just lauhghed because he doens't really get it yet, but his sister was excited, so why not join in!!!!
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my favorite shot of the morning! look at peyton's face over unwrapping the gift she wanted the MOST...rollerskates. gido's face is so happy for her too and i'm just gettin' my picture taken...clueless!!!
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beckham's new rollerskates! he loves to do whatever peyton does, so this was an important gift!
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thank you, gido!
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christmas morning loves!
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last surprise...following the string...
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a new market! it turns into a lemonade stand as well. i know we will get so much use from this. i have been sooo excited to play with them. although, the produce in our house costs a lot of money, my last banana purchase was 40 million dollars, FOR ONE BANANA!!!! it is so worth it to see them play and learn counting money, interacting, pretending! i could listen to it all day long.
one christmas down and one more to go!!!! we have a couple of days until our next celebration, and until then we will be baking cookies, making food, buliding snowmen, making snow angles, sledding, seeing family, dressing up,...just plain having fun. knowing how lucky we are and being reminded of it every single day!!!
we know that some people are not as fortunate. i try to make peyton understand how lucky she is to have a warm house to live in, good food to eat, and a family who loves her more than anything in the whole world. we say our prayers everynight, we pray for other people, other children.
*tonight, when we were saying our prayers together, she asked me if she could give one of her presents to a, "children without any toys." bestill my heart. she is a sweet little girl that has reminded me not to only pray for others, but to do for others less fortunate. so we will together, do something meaningful for someone else this holiday season.*
merry christmas to all and to all a goodnight.
xoxoxoxo

4 comments:

Kelly Hutcheson said...

Holy motherload of pictures and stories! I loved it all and felt like I was sitting on your couch watching. Not like a stalker, but an invited guest!!

Merry Christmas times 2!!

dig this chick said...

What fun the whole follow-the-string thing is. I will definitely do that. I am having a hard time with santa and my girl cause I was SO devastated when I found out the truth....felt lied to and just plain awful. But, the spirit of it all is so lovely...and the expression on your girl's face is great! I do love the thought of scurrying like mice to prepare while kiddos are in bed. Hmmm. We'll see.

Steph C said...

I love all the pictures. You take fantastic pictures! How fun I thought you were in Michigan? I guess you were not! Hope you had a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Barb said...

um....i wanna come and play at your house.