Christmas - Part I

***disclaimer: this post contains some barbie nekkedness****

I really need to start blogging the Holidays as they happen.  Every year I put it off until the end and then wind up just throwing a post together to have them documented.  Oh well.  I suppose that just means I was able to enjoy them a little more since I wasn't stressing over posting pictures about them.  :)

But it really was a wonderful Christmas this year.  I absolutely LOVED decorating the house.  I feel like this house was MADE to be decorated for Christmas.  I can't wait until I have enough decorations to actually do it justice!  (Bart's shuddering in the background).

I did get one room well decorated...the room with the Christmas tree.  And once it was done, I declared it my happy place and told the kids if they even thought about leaving any toys or shoes or ANYTHING on the floor in my happy place they would face the wrath of mom.  There were a few not so happy moments, but for the most part we were able to keep it festive and clean.  ;)

The kids LOVED being in there.  If the lights on the tree ever weren't plugged in, Maya and Lilly would run to plug them in.  Sigh.  At first I tried to stop them, but gave up after a while.  At least they weren't sticking other things into the electric socket.  And the kids did love looking at the tree with the lights on.

Since we knew Santa would be bringing some larger toys that wouldn't travel well, we had a little Christmas at our house before we headed off to Moab for our real Christmas.

Bart and I try to keep our Christmas eve low key: read a few stories open Christmas PJs and call it a night.  But even that wound up being quite a challenge.

We got through about two sentences of the first Christmas story and this is what the kids were doing:

So we read THE Christmas story (we figured we'd better get that in at least) and moved on to the PJs.  (There may have been some wrestling mixed to the "Christmas Program" at this point too).

And after the kids were all nestled snug in their beds, Santa came. He brought cereal as usual.

I have it on good authority that it was Mr. Clause, not Mrs. Clause that posed the barbies in the doll house.

My favorite part of Christmas is seeing the kids faces as they walk into the room and see what Santa brought.  Hannah's expression in that lower left corner is the BEST.  She had just noticed that Rapunzel was letting her hair down from the balcony and she was almost getting misty eyed because she thought it was so wonderful.  It was hilarious!


Needless to say, the kids LOVED what Santa brought them.  Thanks Santa!

I pointed out how Santa had posed the barbie in the tub and asked the girls if they thought it was funny.  They did...and then proceeded to pose a different barbie in the tub insisting it was much more appropriate.

Hard to argue with them.    I don't often wear my clothes in the tub.

And that was our little Christmas before Christmas.  Next up, our real Christmas.  I give no promises about when it will be posted.  If I get it up before next Christmas, I will consider it a success.  ;)