Ken pulled out the video camera on Christmas Eve while the kids spread reindeer food in the front yard. Enjoy!

“For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.”

Luke 2:11

So I took the kids to see Santa today.  I’ve given up on the idea of capturing that magical moment of the kids whispering in his ear what they want this year, and instead, I am happy with something I consider to be passable.

Notice how Edie is on her best behavior in front of the big guy.  Her hands are folded in her lap, listening quietly while her brother has a turn.   Trust me.  That’s all for Santa.

I mentioned a while back that Edie has been very concerned this year about the Naughty/Nice list.  She decided that she was going to go straight to the source and just ask Santa himself.  As I was snapping my last shot, she came barreling towards me, “Mommy!  He said I was on the nice list!  He said I was on the nice list!”  I guess now she can rest easy on Christmas Eve night.

I don’t get the sense that Bessie is enjoying this photo-op as much as Edie.

But maybe it’s just me…

He turns three this month.

He hates it when I call him “my baby.”

He crosses his arms, lowers his chin, and sticks out his bottom lip.

“I’m NOT a baby!” he’ll say all grumpy-like.

And even though it doesn’t make him feel better, I always respond the same, “I know, but you’ll always be MY baby.”

Dear Santa,

Have you been doing good? Are you working hard? Where you the real Santa Claus in the parade yesterday? Am I on the naughty list? I think I’ve been a good girl.

Will you please bring me a princess doll house with an elevator and rooms for the princesses? I would also like to have some more Polly Pockets that are NOT made out of paper. (Sidebar: since only one Polly Pocket doll came with the party boat she received for her birthday, she kept part of the packaging so her Polly would have some friends…those are the paper ones she is referring to.)

My brother is too young to write letters.  He would like a toy firetruck that will not break into pieces like the one he has, and my mom won’t have to fix it all the time. (Sidebar #2: A gift for everybody really). Also, my brother would like some Bob the Builder books.

How do you get down the chimney? And how do you get back up? I saw a movie where you touch your nose–is that real?

I have tried hard to be good.  I’ve painted pictures for people.  I think that’s pretty nice.  I’ve helped Mommy clean around the house.  I feed Momma Kitty, and I sometimes do my chores.  I also scratch my Mommy’s back and brush her hair when she’s tired.  Is that enough to put me on the nice list?

I hope you have fun on Christmas giving all the nice kids presents.  Merry Christmas!

Love,

Edie

Final Sidebar:  This year, she’s been very concerned about the naughty list.  I love that this comes across in her letter to the Big Guy.  I also love how quickly she goes from one thing to the next.  That’s pretty much her thought process all the time.  And even though I did help her with proper letter etiquette, I really tried hard to let it be her words.

We made sugar cookies on Saturday, and salt dough ornaments today.

Roark learned a valuable lesson: the dough for these two projects tastes VERY different.  Even though I told him repeatedly that he shouldn’t eat the salt dough, he couldn’t shake off the sweet taste of cookie dough from the weekend.  I guess everybody’s got to learn that lesson the hard way.

Today has been one of those days where I have just spent the day enjoying in my children.  I love these kind of days.  Everyone’s been getting along.  Everyone is acting overly nice.  It’s like we are all in on it and have decided to make the day a good one.

We started the morning slowly.  Instead of waking up to the alarm clock, I slept in.  Edie curled up next to me in bed around 7:00, and we started channel surfing.  That’s rare for me.  I normally hit the ground running by 6:00 every morning, but for some reason today, we changed the routine.  We landed on Full House.  I hate this show with a passion, but I didn’t really seem to mind it this morning while I lazily ran my fingers through Edie’s hair and listened to her giggling every couple of minutes like she was part of the laugh track.

Eventually we got dressed and headed out, but we were in no hurry.  No big plans for the day.  We went to the library first, and everyone behaved.  Edie played quietly while I looked for books.  Roark acted adorable and had the librarian eating out of his hand while she helped us find books about Bob the Builder. And we scored big time in the DVD section: The Polar Express AND Charlie Brown’s Christmas.   What are the odds?  Well-behaved kids and two good movies.  I must be livin’ right!

As a spur of the moment treat, we stopped by the park.  Edie finally mastered climbing onto the monkey bars and hanging upside down all by herself.  It was a big day for her.  She was super proud of herself, and I was bummed that I didn’t have one of those smart phones to capture it.  That’s what living five years behind technology will do for you.

I then treated the kids to lunch before the grocery store.  Edie has decided that her new favorite food is buffalo wings.  I really don’t recommend eating them with her though because it is slightly nauseating.  Several times, I had to tell her to slow down and that we weren’t racing.  The thought, “Show me how the piggies eat!” came to mind several times.  But man was she enjoying her lunch.  Every couple of bites she would stop to thank me for taking her out for buffalo wings.  Then there was Roark, sitting next to me in the booth, trying to give me greasy kisses every few minutes.  It felt good to be so loved and appreciated.

Our good day even carried over into the grocery store.   I had no idea my kids could be so well-behaved in a Publix.   I was walking down those isles on cloud nine.  Edie was being helpful, putting things in the cart and moving out of the way of other people’s buggies, and Roarkie was sitting happily in the cart, pretending to drive the spaceship.

And I know what you are thinking, and you’re wrong.  Not one time today did I mention that Santa Claus might be watching.  They were just being good kids.  And if that’s what I get for starting our day with an episode of Full House, I think I might have just become a Bob Saget fan.

Dear Edie,

Another year has come and gone, and despite my pleading for you to please stop growing so fast, I turned around one day, and poof, you were another year older.

To celebrate your sixth birthday, we had a small princess party at home.  You had your reservations at first that I could pull off a decent party at our house, but when I mentioned that I would buy you a new princess dress to wear for the party, you never doubted again.  We invited seven of your friends to come to our house and be treated like royalty for an evening.  You had a blast.

As long as I live, I never want to forget the moment when you came home to see your party decorations.  You’d been gone all day, playing at a friend’s house while I got everything ready for your party.  I spent the entire day decorating, hurrying from one errand to the next, and running around like a crazy woman hopped up on goof pills.

I wanted everything to be perfect.  I wanted your party to feel magical.  I hung Christmas lights around the living room and lit a zillion candles.   Everything was pink: the tablecloth, the decorations, the lemonade.

When you came home, you ran upstairs, and immediately started going from one spot to the next, looking at everything with such excitement. You’d yell out,  “Oh wow! Look at this!” and then run to the next spot, “I didn’t know you’d bought these!” I stood at the top of the stairs, just watching you.

Then all of a sudden, you stopped.  It was like a switch flipped in your brain.  You turned in my direction and ran across the room.  You threw your arms around my legs and said, “Thank you, Mommy, for my party! It’s so beautiful!”  And as quickly as you came, you left and went back to exploring the room.

I started to cry, big, happy tears.

You see, this mothering gig has been pretty hard on me lately.  I’ve been struggling with the fact that I am dedicating all my time and energy towards people that don’t really understand the sacrifices.  Please, don’t take that as a negative comment on your character.  It’s not your fault.  You’re a child, and it’s just the nature of motherhood.   In fact, I like to think I’ve grown a lot this year because of some of the struggles we’ve faced, but in that one moment that you squeezed my legs tight, I knew you appreciated me.  You acknowledged the effort I’d put into planning this party, and what’s more? You appreciated it.  It felt kind of like I was being given a present on your birthday.  So thank you for that.

I think on the surface you are a pretty normal six year old little girl.

You love having secret hide-outs, and I’m constantly finding areas in our house that you’ve turned into a secret oasis by draping a blanket over a chair or lining up pillows around the legs of a table.   You’ll collect toys from your room and bring them into your secret hide-out like a squirrel storing nuts for the winter.  This leaves an incredible mess, and eventually, I make you clean it all up.  Several times I’ve tried to embrace the whole tent building/secret hideout thing, but for some reason, the tents I build just don’t meet code, and you quickly become bored with them.  I probably would  have failed the “Tent Building” chapter in Parenting 101, you know, if such a class existed.

You discovered the magic of a Barbie this year and have spent many hours laying in the floor of your room, making up your own fairy-tales, and acting them out with these dolls. Man, does that take me back.  I did the same thing when I was a kid, and if you are anything like me, you have only begun to scratch the surface of make believe with a Barbie doll.  Trust me, it gets better.

However, your favorite past time these days is painting.  Well, it’s probably more accurate to say painting pictures and then giving them away.  I’m not really sure which one you enjoy more.  The painting or the giving.  You want to take pictures that you’ve painted everywhere we go, to give to anyone we see.   Most of our family and friends have been given one of your masterpieces at some point this year.  I love this about you, and I hope that this trait of giving and serving others stays with you.

Your relationship with your brother has begun to morph into a more typical brother/sister relationship.  I now find myself saying motherly things like “Keep your hands to yourself!” or “Stop aggravating each other!”  Thanks to your Uncle Sonny, I had no illusions about the two of you always getting along.  I know what it’s like to have a brother, and like most siblings, I learned the definition of a love/hate relationship early as a child.  So I think what ya’ll are going through is pretty normal, and if your Uncle Sonny and I are the gauge to go by, then you will start to enjoy each others’ company soon enough.   I’ll just  make sure no one gets physically wounded in the process.

I should be use to it by now, but I still can’t get over how much you’ve grown this past year.  One morning not too long ago, I noticed you were looking strangely taller.  I couldn’t help myself.  I sent you to your room and stood you up against the growth chart.  Sure enough.  You had grown an inch.  OVERNIGHT.  Ok…so maybe not in one night, but seriously, it was a month. I’ve got the documentation to prove it.  One month, and you grew an inch.  And all of a sudden, those pants that use to cover your shoelaces became capris.  No wonder I can’t keep up.    And I know this is going to sound crazy to say it, but you are even outgrowing your teeth.  Your teeth?! I didn’t know it was possible either, but you are living proof that it happens.  Your baby teeth use to be all snug in your mouth, but at some point while you were five, your mouth grew bigger.  And now your teeth look small and spread apart, but don’t worry.  You’re still beautiful.

I’m so proud of the person you are growing into.  You have an amazing gift to forgive others, and I love that about you.  Recently, a close friend of yours said some ugly things to you because she was trying to show off in front of some other friends.  Later you told me about the incident while trying to choke back tears.  I asked if you said hateful things back to her.  I wasn’t accusing you of anything. We were just talking about what happened.  You looked up at me and said, “I would never say that to somebody.”  You were so sincere.  You acted like you were shocked that I could even think such a thing.  Even now as I write this, I tear up over it.  I’m not sure that I would’ve had the self-control to hold my tongue like you did.

Edie, if you don’t remember anything else about your childhood, I hope you know one thing–you are a good kid with a good heart.   And I couldn’t be prouder of you.

Love,

Mommy

So you can’t say I didn’t warn you.  Prepare yourself for cuteness overload when watching this video.  You might not be able to stand it. Enjoy!