That's the Spirit!

Over the past couple weeks we've gotten quite a few Christmas packages in the mail. Emmalynne has loved getting so many things in the mail and has done a pretty good job at being patient when I tell her we can't open them until Christmas. She thoroughly enjoyed wrapping a few presents with me too. Yesterday a package arrived that I had ordered for Carman. Em asked if it was for me. I told her no that it was for Daddy for Christmas. She was so excited! She said, "we better wrap this!" Along with other things like, "Oh Daddy's going to be so happy!" We dropped what we were doing so we could go wrap it. She was so excited the entire time she couldn't contain herself! Shortly after that a package arrived that had some Christmas presents and also a birthday present for Clara. Emmalynne was excited for Clara to open her present and again did a really good job about not getting to open anything.

Then Emmalynne took the box Clara's gift had come in and ran upstairs. When she came back she presented it to me and said, "Mom, its your surprise!" I opened the box up and inside it she had put her backpack full of toys. For the next couple hours she referred to the backpack (which she happens to be possessive over) as "Mommy's backpack." Finally, after a nap and another hour or two, she brought me the box with my surprise inside and told me, "We need to wrap this for you for Christmas! Its your surprise." And so we did. She chose which wrapping paper she wanted. She meticulously wrote on the gift tag "To: Mommy From: Emmalynne." In case you're impressed, it was just cute little scribbles but she knew what she was writing! After that she wanted to put it in the baby's room where all the other presents are stashed. It makes me so happy to see her excited to give. Don't get me wrong, she is anxious to open her presents too.

The Big 2 Years

Clara officially has a reason to be crabby-she's 2! We had a slightly impromptu birthday party for her on Sunday because we realized it was really the only time we could do it. Hopefully next year we'll be better parents and remember to plan something for her. Clara had a few friends over and got to play her favorite game-the duck game. We had a few other indoor activities planned but all the kids wanted to play outside for the most part. I didn't take pictures of that because in my personal opinion it was too cold!  

 Barely after we finished singing "Happy Birthday" and presented her with the cake, her friend Michael rushed out of his chair and blew her candles out before we knew what happened! It was so funny. He is the youngest of 5 so I guess he has learned to be quick! (We re-lit the candles and let Clara blow them out. She tried real hard and in the end Carman blew them out with her)

 Carman decided that it was her birthday and she deserved a huge piece of cake! She loved it. She ate almost the entire thing. She sat there for quite some time after everyone else was finished and kept eating her cake until finally it looked like more fun to join the other kids.

 Here are a few shots of her getting her presents. Grandma and Grandpa Wallis got her a cool toy phone. Clara's friend Charlotte gave her a night light. I love Clara's face in that picture. Grandma and Grandpa Ragatz sent her money. What I wanted to get her wasn't available so we're still trying to think of something else to get her from them.

Aunt Laura and Megan came as soon as they got out of church. A few days after her party, this cash register from Aunt Laura is the most played with gift.

Megan brought Clara her own gift. Megan even thought to bring something for Emmalynne. Clara got a necklace with beads on it that spell n-a-g-e-m. I think its funny. Clara loves jewlery so she couldn't have been happier-not to mention the cool case it came in.

All things said and done, her little celebration turned out to be pretty good. I'm glad our friends and family were nice enough to join us last minute to have a fun time together!

33 Weeks

Here I am at 33 whopping weeks pregnant! Only 7ish to go...I'm getting increasingly uncomfortable the bigger I get-no surprise.  I'm getting excited for this little baby to join our family. I'm also excited to decorate the baby's room not too long after he/she comes! Maybe sometime we'll come up with a name or two. 

Trying to Keep the Meaning

The past few weeks I've been feeling uncomfortable about the commercialism of Christmas. I don't want my girls to be too spoiled but I do want to give them gifts. Due to my love of garage sales, my kids already have WAY TOO MANY TOYS AND CLOTHES. They don't need anything. I've even had a hard time deciding what I think about this whole "Santa" thing. Emmalynne is old enough that we explained who Santa is. It was wretched. I felt like I was lying to my little girl who completely trusts everything I tell her. It just felt like an unnecessary thing to lie about. Although Carman and I are still trying to figure out what we want to do in that regard, I was able to figure out how to help with the being spoiled thing. 

Thanks for the idea, Mom. My nephews' school is collecting "almost new" toys for children that go to the local soup kitchen. Emmalynne and I watched a video on youtube depicting the type of kids that would use a soup kitchen. I pointed out to Em that they don't have any toys. She said, "Oh, Mom, they're sad..." I asked her if we should give them some of our toys. She was thrilled! We started with books. I showed her how we didn't want to give them the ones that were ripped or "not good." As she went through her books, she would put them into piles and followed my example of keeping the ones that "weren't good." It was cute, I admit, when she came across some of her favorite books and said, "oh, that's not good. We'll keep that one." 

We moved on to toys and she seriously had such a good time picking out toys for the sad kids that don't have any. She said a few times how "we have too much, lets share. Then the kids won't be sad." I was thoroughly impressed with her level of understanding. She knew exactly what we were doing and she loved every minute of it. She even wanted to give away a few things that I had to bite my tongue and let her give it away as opposed to saying, "But I actually bought that toy at the store for FULL PRICE!" This activity was supposed to be for her, so I let her decide. She even gave away a bag full of her favorite-dress ups. 

The next morning we all went to drop them off at the school. I had warned Emmalynne SEVERAL times that we were going to drop the toys off and the kids would get them later. I assured her at least half a dozen times that we weren't going to get to see the kids. Nonetheless, she was still disappointed. She so, so, badly wanted to give them to the kids. It was a wonderful experience. Em was totally wrapped up in the spirit of giving and it warmed my heart. It helped with all the uneasiness I was having. (Clara participated too but she didn't exactly understand what was going on.) 

Here's Emmalynne, Carman, and Clara taking in a load of toys. The amount we delivered literally doubled what was already there. We had A LOT!  

And here is excited Emmalynne with her dropoff.

 For your viewing pleasure, Em took this picture. She has a sweet view of my ginormous tummy!