Christmas

Paul worked 1/2 a day on Christmas Eve and then we drove up to Jackson to Uncle Dave's house to give him his gifts. By the time we headed home it was getting late so we just picked up some dinner on the way home. I recently heard about someone's Christmas Eve dinner tradition of getting all sorts of take-out food. I think we'll try that next year. By the time we got home Lana was fast asleep so there was no reading of "The Cajun Night before Christmas" or opening a Christmas Eve present. Neither did Paul attempt the whole sleeping by the Christmas tree. I think we were all a little pooped from the drive.


The kids woke up bright and early. The first thing out of Lana's mouth was, "Yay! Santa came!". Tanner was a little apprehensive about opening gifts. I think it was because I caught him trying to open a few gifts that were stuffed in a closet a few days earlier (think unhappy mommy moment). It took him about 1/2 a day to finish opening his gifts. Lana kept asking him if he wanted help opening his presents since she blew through hers in about 20 minutes (and then she asked me to wrap some more presents because she wanted to open more).



The one thing she absolutely wanted for Christmas was a purple pony. Her specification was it had to be bigger than a regular my little pony and my specification was it couldn't be a living/breathing one. Amazingly I found one.



Tanner was all about Lightning McQueen, Thomas the Train and tools of any sort. He has been toting around his Handy Manny Hammer and banging it on the brick wall. I have been sweeping up brick dust multiple times a day. Better, I think, than having to patch holes in the wall.

Later that night, some friends of ours braved the bitterly cold evening to go see the red-neck Christmas lights with us. I'm not trying to be derogatory when I say "red-neck", I'm just tellin' it like it is. Besides, I like the red-neck Christmas lights. What would we do on Christmas Day evening if there were no red-neck lights to see??




See, they have the Keebler Elves. We tried to get them to throw us some warm, fresh from the tree-oven cookies but they wouldn't comply. Perhaps they are bitter about the whole Christmas/Elves perception.



Then we have Santa and his reindeer chasing down the angels proclaiming Jesus' birth.



And Paul getting all chummy with Santa and a random snow man.




Here you can see Santa has kidnapped a few children. Uh, Santa...I think you're supposed to be dropping off presents not taking children out of their warms beds. Do their parent's know they're on the roof with a stranger?



It takes about 30 minutes to walk through the entire yard and take pictures.



We forgot to ask the owners if they leave it up all year round or if they take it down.






This is supposed to be Tanner posing in front of the Thomas the train display. Really it just looks like Tanner has humongous ears.

Merry Christmas!!

It's a Christmas miracle!...

...Either that or I just ruined Christmas. I got so tired of Lana being terrified of Santa. She has talked about Santa everyday since I pulled out the Christmas decorations. Santa-this, Santa-that. Pointing out all of the posters of Santa in the grocery store. It was non-stop Santa. Plus our Santa Claus just so happens to be one of her Sunbeam teachers (who she absolutely loves). So...I told her who Santa really was. I know. What a crappy mother I am. Possibly spoiling Christmas for my sweet little 4 year old. But you know what? It worked. For the first time since her 6 month old picture with Santa, she is not crying hysterically. And I don't think I ruined it completely because she still believes that "the other" Santa came to her house on Christmas and brought her a purple pony.




Tanner on the other hand, would not even let go of me to take a picture with Santa. So we took a picture of him crying hysterically. You know, just for the record.

Lana's Preschool Christmas Party

Tanner and I went to Lana's class Christmas Party yesterday. They had a "Christmas at Home" theme so everyone was encouraged to come in their pj's. Tanner was super excited to be able to wear "Elmo" all day.


He also made himself right at home with all the other kids. Whatever they did, he did too. I think he is ready to go to preschool next year.



Lana was so excited to find me and Tanner in her classroom when they returned from watching a movie (Strawberry Shortcake's Christmas). She made sure I sat on her carpet square and introduced Tanner to everyone.



Lana and her best friend at school, Gracelynn.




Singing "Happy Birthday to baby Jesus" and blowing out the candles on baby Jesus' gigantic cookie.


Lana's entire preschool class with their teacher Mrs. Monika. We've really enjoyed having Mrs. Monika as a teacher. She loves each one of her students and it shows. She also makes sure that Lana doesn't get lost in all the craziness. Lana's confidence has really grown since starting school. She loves school and her school friends.

Rainy Days

So we've had a lot of rainy days lately. There were about 5 days where there was no sunshine at all and just a constant rain fall with hardly any breaks. Sometimes one got the feeling of thinking maybe this was how the flood in Noah's time began.

These may be still shots, but the water is anything but still. This is water gushing through the front yard.



This is water gushing through the side yard.


And of course, water gushing through the back yard.

Finally, Wednesday, we saw sunshine. It was amazing and fantastic and I wish it would've lasted longer. I spent as much time outside with the kids as we possibly could. I even bought them more sidewalk chalk (the last box was thrown in the garbage after Lana refused to put the chalk away after she was finished playing and then Tanner drew all over my the screens on the back porch. Thursday we saw the clouds come back and the rains come tumbling down once again in the evening. It rained pretty hard throughout the night, so hard that it kept waking Lana up and she finally came into our room to sleep. The radar this morning shows that we're done with the rain for a while (hopefully) so I'm hoping to stay dry for a while and enjoy some sun this afternoon.



Tanner will most likely kill me for this picture when he's older, but he seemed to be enjoying dressing up with Lana. I found it humorous watching Lana put the clothes on him because Tanner kept saying "It tickle!" and laughing and kicking his legs so she would have to start all over. She was pretty persistent and Tanner was a good sport.

Lana's Christmas Program

In the rush out the door, I completely forgot the camera so we only had Paul's small work camera to work with last night at Lana's Christmas Program. Better than nothing but we didn't get any good still pictures. Just 2 video clips.

Lana was so excited to be in her program tonight. She kept asking me when we were leaving and if it was time to change into her program clothes.



The program included dinner which was a taco bar. While we were waiting for our food, Lana's best school friend Gracelynn and teacher Ms. Monika came and sat with Lana to chat. Ms. Monika was happy to report how much progress Lana has made just in the last few weeks. She's finally started to come out of her shell and participate in being class leader when it's her turn. She can even recite the pledge of allegiance (with a little bit of help). We've also noticed here at home how much more talkative she is. When she goes to bed at night, she likes to have long conversations with us. They always start out "Hey mom (or dad), I want to tell you somethin'." Last night it was a couple of somethings. I love those conversations. They are my new favorite part of the day.

The program itself was cute. Poor Lana was squished in between Gracelynn and Ava and at one point in time gets pushed down. She also got really sad toward the end because she had been looking and looking for us and was never able to see us. In her defense there were a lot of people there last night and we started out on the wrong side of the room and had to move to get a better view of her which put us in the very back. Next time I will think to ask her teacher where she'll be sitting in the program. They'll have an end of the year program in April so I'll be sure to be better prepared for that one!

Once there was a snowman...

and he lived for 24 hours in Hattiesburg, MS. I hope he doesn't return until next year because my toes have been freezing cold for the last 3 days. The kids really enjoyed playing in the snow. Lana fell asleep watching the snow fall outside her window and was excited to see that it lasted through out the night so she could play in it again that morning.













Happy early white Christmas! According to the forecast it's supposed to hit 70 on Wednesday.

Family Home Evening

It's always nice to have visitors on Monday nights. Paul's sister Karen, her husband Karl and their baby Daniel were here. We had a lesson on the story of Lehi and his family leaving Jerusalem and living in tents in the wilderness. For the activity we did miniature gingerbread houses. Not exactly tents, but they are a type of dwelling. And I wouldn't want to live in a tent or a really tiny gingerbread house.



Tanner prepped himself for the icing mess with spaghetti mess during dinner.



Lana helped choose our activity and a good choice she made. This kit was a step above the usual nasty tasting stuff. This one came with powdered sugar and you just mix up the icing. It even came with bags and piping tips.


Prepping supplies.


Mmmm, icing.



Yum-O!



Chomp!



Tanner thought it was so good he took a couple of big bites out of his house. He didn't even want any of his Strawberry Malt that Paul made for dessert.



When all was said and done he was pretty much covered from head to toe in frosting.



Our little village. From left to right: Lana's, Karen's, mine, then Karl's. Tanner's was completely demolished and Paul made the strawberry malts while we decorated.