The Sunday after Christmas

I probably should be removing the ornaments from the Christmas tree and making an attempt to put stuff away. But after standing in the kitchen most of the day so far making chicken pot pies I think I will take advantage of the last half hour to hour that Skadi is sleeping.

Christmas was great. This year and last we made the decision to stay in our home for Christmas. As our kids approach that age where Santa is a big thing, we want them to 'wake bright and early and rush for their toys' (and the noise, noise, noise, noise) in our own home.

This year there was no disappointment with this. We finally woke Leif at 8am after his sister had already located her gift from Santa. Leif came out and jaw dropped open when he saw his Legos Coast Guard set with the "saving helicopter" and he said, "that is EXACTLY what I asked Santa for, EXACTLY and I love it!" He was so very excited and it was so funny hearing his squeaky little tired voice exclaim his excitement.

I started shopping early this year and while it was convenient to spread out the damage... I am not sure it was really the best idea since I started pulling out stuff that I had forgotten about and my kids had freakish sized mounds of presents to open.

Leif's highlights: his Santa present - the "saving helicopter", and two foam bow and arrow sets. He enjoys the ice cream shoppe Play-Doh set from N (I *can't* believe we didn't have anything like this to this point!), a set of walkie talkies from grandma, a charades game from C (why does everything he imitates look like a tree?) and a number of books to add to his huge collection.

Skadi's highlights: her kitchen and loads of plastic food to go with it, her easel and ALL the accessories (she has been begging to paint, but we keep relegating her to the chalkboard side for now), a new baby doll from her cousins, Nina Ballerina (bought after she flipped out over it when we gave it to one of her friend's for her 2 year old birthday) and lots of new books for her too.

I am seeing a side to Skadi that after raising a boy, is hard to register with me. Her girl side. Her use of the word "pretty" is frequent - "pretty Skadi", "pretty dress", "pretty jimmies"... everything is pretty. Sure I love the girly clothes, but to this point a lot of the toys she has enjoyed playing with are her brother's toys. Nina Ballerina was one of the first stereotypical "girl" toy that isn't a doll that I have bought for her.

Anyways, back to Christmas.

My highlights were a pair of foot duvets from Restoration Hardware that I am loving as well as a point and shoot camera! I love my Canon SLR, but I really want to be able to slip a camera in my pocket when we are doing something active. My husband bought me an 10.1Mp Olympus that is shock proof (I can drop it and it won't break!) and water proof (as in I can actually take pictures underwater with it (up to 10 feet underwater). Very nice. And I will also give huge kudos out for my brand new orange silicone rolling pin - I just made 6 chicken pot pies and my rolling pin didn't fall apart!

Leif bought me a pair of red satin pajamas covered in hearts. ;-) AB said he tried to steer him to a different color, style and fabric - but Leif was sold on them! I love them because Leif loves them. Leif also found a rainbow striped scarf for me from - as AB put it - some teeny bop store. Apparently he saw it, was drawn to it and insisted he buy it for me.

AB scored a lot of tools and random small things. I think his favorite present - or the one seeing the most use right now - is the mug/bowl that Leif painted yellow for him and stamped with red monsters.

We had a VERY white Christmas, which was thoroughly awesome. But we have had a quick warm up and our formerly white Christmas is now a flooded backyard. Seeing the disappearance of white put me in a little bit of a funk this morning. I really was enjoying the snow.
Our Christmas meals were great - AB smoked a prime rib and I made a pumpkin cake that was good. My cinnamon rolls were a flop this year - I am blaming the yeast I bought that was an unfamiliar brand and didn't let my rolls do their second rise in the fridge overnight like they usually do. Instead we ate cinnamon rocks for breakfast and my family was a good sport and never mentioned them being anything less than delicious!