Still More Christmas....

After Christmas morning at my parents house, we headed over to Gary's parents to celebrate with them. The girls were getting a bit tired so I don't have as many pictures, but we had a great time catching up with Gary's family-especially his brother Brian, sister-in-law Lisa and their little darling girl Mary Ellen who were all in town from FL.

 Gary and his brother Mike, along with Mike's wife Lindsay and myself surprised my father in law with his own MIZZOU corn hole set. He was so excited and loved it! We even broke it out the next day for a little in door corn hole fun.

Later on, Gary's extended family (on his dad's side) came over to join in on the fun! By this time the girls were exhausted. Brooke fell asleep on my lap-which is unheard of since she was the age of 1 maybe-and Caroline took a quick snooze in the pack-and-play. By the time the four of us got home, we were so tired. I think we may need to re-work our activities next year for the holidays so we can relax a bit more :)

A very JOHNSON Christmas

Next up on the agenda was our annual Johnson Christmas celebration! After we had opened our gifts at home, we headed back over to my parents house with all of my sisters and my brother to open even more gifts! The girls were running a bit low on energy, but (in true Grandpa Johnson form!) they rallied.

The best picture I could get of all five grandkids. It may not be perfect...but don't Jack & Caroline look great??

  

All three boys (Joe, Gary & Matt) received super hero briefs this year from Santa.
Not sure if this is disturbing or not...but Gary did get Captain America who I think is the best.

Caroline LOVES babies...

I think that she wants one for Christmas next year.

Who is more excited about the princess pack??

THANK YOU GOD MOTHER MIMI!
Best.Gift.Ever.

Lily: "WOW...this is awesome!"
Me: "What is it Lily?"
Lily: "I don't know...but it is awesome"

Surprise gift of the day!!
Tracie's idea was to build a corn hole set for Dad...
Gary took to the challenge and built a custom set for Dad..with me contributing to the project with my tracing and painting skills. He LOVED it!

Christmas Morning-Part 1

Santa came!!

Mom was up bright and early Christmas morning at 6:00 a.m. Apparently the rest of the family thought that Christmas was the perfect day to start sleeping in. I knew that I had to keep everyone on schedule, though, so I may (or may not) have encouraged Brooke to wake up around 6:30 a.m. Brooke may (or may not) have followed mom's lead and woken Caroline up...and Dad was then up by default.

 Brooke's favorite gift of the morning-a real Disney princess castle!!

Dad's favorite gift of the day-a real DAD tie!

Christmas Eve

The Christmas celebrating continued the next evening. We get together with my mom's side of the family over at my parents house. This year the crowd was a bit smaller. We usually have around 85 + people..but with the bad weather the crowd was more around the 50 person mark and that made the house seem a bit on the light side. A good time was still had by all and the girls were exhausted by evenings end. I was pretty tired too...and I didn't even have any party punch.

Yes, as you will see in the next few posts-my girls wore their Christmas dresses to all of our Christmas functions. If mom is going to buy you a cute monogrammed dress you are going to get your wear out of it! We  may even were them next year...and the next year as shirts.

PJ's are on and we were headed home to wait for Santa.

Christmas Eve...Eve

On the eve of Christmas eve, we started our holiday celebration with Gary mom's side of the family. There are lots of us (she is the oldest of 12) so it is always a good time. The kids had a blast and Brooke made a new best friend in Gary's youngest cousin Emily. She is 8 years old and, therefore, AWESOME in Brooke's eyes.

At one point, Brooke left us and decided to go to the bathroom all by herself. When I went in there to check on here, she was in the stall chatting loudly with Emily like there were two teenagers hanging out in the bathroom getting ready for a night out. When I asked her how she was doing, she said, "What are you doing in here mom?? I am talking to Emily!!" So sorry Brooke-remind me when you turned 13??

We mad a good effort to get a few pictures of the Fleming cousins...

This may be my favorite.

Merry Christmas!!!

Gifts under the tree

I love this time of the year.

I look forward to Christmas. Spending time with family, laughing, eating, cookie making, Christmas Mass, singing (well....if your related to my mom)-all the traditional things that we do each and every December.

I am also one of those people that actually enjoys the Christmas shopping experience. I love the challenge of trying to find that perfect gift. Sometimes I succeed...sometimes I don't and you end up with a coffee mug that says, "The Buttcracker." This year, though, I have quite a few gifts that I am pretty pumped to give. It is the BEST to see the look on your family members face and know that you totally got them something amazing.

As I was thinking about some of these great gifts that I found this year...I started to think about Christmas past and what fabulous items  had put on my Santa list. Some I received...some I will still be checking under the tree this year for.

How I wanted this beauty. I mean, who wouldn't?? Sadly, she never opened on Christmas morning.
Today she is considered 'vintage.' Mom, if your Ebay still have a few left.

Electronic Dear Diary. Tracie got it. I did not.
Jealous!!!!

Remember these! Yep. I got one. My awesome god-father gave me one and I couldn't have been more thrilled.

Did you love them?? I wanted to be a collector. Sadly, I only had one.

Oh yeah. Doc Martens. I landed these Christmas of 8th grade.
Perfect timing so I could wear these bad boys of my first day of high school.

Don't get me wrong. I know that Christmas is not all about presents and Santa. However, after watching some family videos this past week of our Christmas celebrations, I couldn't help but laugh at the unwrapped gifts. My how time, kids and technology have changed! What did you all want for Christmas as youngins??

Santa Visit

So, I finally caved.

I took the girls to see Santa.

Yes, I know, you may think that I am a bad mom..considering Brooke is 3 and has never sat on the big guys lap. As most of you know, though, I am not the biggest fan of crowds, malls and / or public swimming pools (but that is for another season). This year I decided to take one for the team and let the girls tell Santa in person what they were hoping to find under the tree.

After hitting up two separate malls (the first mall only has Santa on Saturdays & Sundays) we found him.

Brooke was PUMPED.

Caroline was hungry...no surprise.

I was worried Brooke would freak when it was show time..but she was on her A game. She jumped right up on his lap-let him know that jewelry and makeup were high on her lists-smiled for her picture and hugged him good bye. Caroline went along for the ride and didn't cry...so, no complaints.

Pretty good-looking Santa right??

I think I will (finally) make this a yearly tradition.

Tis the Season

Brooke has very interesting tastes.

In my prior post, you read of her slight obsession with high heels. She also told Santa that she wanted earrings, necklaces, bracelets and rings. Brooke also whispered that she needed some new make-up...just like moms and lots of lipstick. She may have mentioned a few fancy dresses too.

Additionally (and especially during Christmas time) Brooke is all about Jesus. She looks for him everywhere. You can imagine her delight upon seeing multiple nativity scenes in her Grandma Etta's subdivision. Kid in a candy store. She can spot a Cross miles away. Taking her to Mass is the ultimate reward.

Talk about diversifying your interests!

My mom thinks I should consider a Mary Magdalen costume for Halloween next year. It is worth some thought...

Carousel Rides

Brooke LOVES to ride the carousel. Luckily, during out mall trip this week, we had some time to kill so I let her take a ride. As she was waiting in line (behind another girl...the only other child waiting in line) she proclaimed that she was going to ride the dolphin. She continued to inform me (and everyone that was within 10 feet) that she was SO EXCITED to ride the dolphin.

Upon hearing Brooke's excitement, the darling girl in front of Brooke informed her mother that she too would now like to ride the dolphin.

Seriously?? You did hear that my daughter is totally pumped about the dolphin. Could you encourage your child to choose another animal? I mean, there are only 30!

You know where this is going right?? Other girls mom hears my daughter's choice in animal, also hears her daughters new claim to same animal, and now lets her daughter run ahead of my child so that she can ride that dolphin.

Insert real..large...tears.

Sure, I could have said something...but really, it is worth it?

Good opportunity to teach Brooke that dolphins are not really that cool and that her aunt Amy actually thinks that they are pretty lame.

Kidding.

It was good, though, to let her know it wasn't the end of the world, things happen, and there is a pretty awesome upper deck on this carousel that has otter.

It worked.

If the shoe fits...

Brooke, Caroline and I met my mom at the mall today for a little last minute shopping and a trip to see Santa. I am an avid non-mall shopper for many reasons. Crowds, food courts, kiosks where people are getting massages in the middle of the day...all major reasons I don't hit up the mall on a weekly basis.

Brooke, on the other hand, LOVES malls. The people, the stores and those kiosks. She finds it all fascinating. She will probably grow up to be a mall kid that wants to 'hang' there with her friends on a Friday night.

 Today, though, she was a bit of a shoppers nightmare. Apparently Brooke has a bit of an obsession with high heeled shoes. I knew that she enjoyed walking around the house in a random pair of pumps but I was unaware of the drooling that would ensue when she walked into the shoe department.

It all started out innocently enough. She eyed a pair of glittered stilettos that happened to match her outfit, "perfectly." Since grandma was trying on shoes, she wanted to know if these beauties came in her size. When the salesmen told her no...the tears, yelling and falling to our knees in the middle of the store began.

Her sharing of emotion continued as we shopped throughout the store. Due to the holiday season being upon us, we couldn't get away from the high heels by simple leaving the department. It was a shoe fetishes dream as every where you turned was the perfect shoe to compliment that holiday outfit. It was a bit embarrassing as employees chuckled listening to the three year old girl cry to her mom that she too wanted high heel shoes. How could they not be in her size when mom said they were big girl shoes and she is a BIG GIRL!!

As we were leaving and I was able to calm her down a bit, she did let me know that she REALLY thought that these were nice and would look good on me. Since we were going to see Santa, she thought I may want to ask for them.

If  only I could find the perfect outfit to wear with them...

St. Nick

...brought us P.J.'s

...how about you??...