christmastime is here

It was the school play today. Grace finally agreed to be an elf (once she discovered - thanks in part to the old-school Rudolph - that there are actually "girl-elves" too). Her big part was to sprinkle magic dust on the other "presents" waiting to go into Santa's sleigh. She assured me by saying, "don't worry its not real magic dust, its just shiny glitter stuff." Too bad, I could use some magic dust!

We've got most of our Christmas shopping done and of course none of it is wrapped. I think we should add another color to the Christmas scheme (you know, red and green) - it should be brown. That way you could just slap a bow on a box delivered by UPS and feel good about it!

Jimmy had a bad ear infection last week and as a result decided that not sleeping between the hours of 1 and 3 a.m. and 5 and 6 a.m. was a good idea. His ear is better and we're hoping the sleeping will come back (and stay!). I must admit we are finally making progress. As a side note, I should tell you that during the day his favorite phrase is "Go Go Go!!!" Its pretty fun. He says it as loud as possible and shakes his little fists, like he really means business. It seems to get louder at red lights.

I've loved getting so many Christmas cards in the mail (thank you to those who have sent them and who might actually be reading this). So far I don't even have a Christmas card started, but I think I might know what we'll have for dinner tomorrow. Does that count for something?

amazing singer

Here is a link to an amazing gospel singer. She happens to be in my ward. This isn't the best video, but will give you a glimpse of how powerful her voice is. Her name is Nekisha Rhoades

ideas

This is for all of you out there who visit but never leave a note! I'm looking for reasonable Christmas ideas for a certain almost 6 yr old girl and I'm also wondering what your favorite Christmas CD is and why. To make it fair I'll tell you that what she really wants for Christmas (which has already been spoken of by certain grandparents) is "Puppy Grows and Knows Your Name" (I am hoping it has a volume control) and my favorite Christmas CD is Vince Guaraldi's A Charlie Brown Christmas.

holiday madness

I feel like we've already survived the holiday madness as we've visited both sets of our parents in the last 14 days. Two weeks ago, the kids and I headed North to the outskirts of Chi-town to visit Salsie and Pops and enjoy Thanksgiving. That Saturday we met up with Nate on his layover at O'Hare and squeezed ourselves into one row on flight to Phoenix. We were met by his parents (Nana and Poppy) and enjoyed our 6 days in AZ. Then we sqeezed back into one row on a flight back to Chicago (by the way, we are so very grateful for our free portable DVD player we somehow scored from our satellite dish provider several months ago). Then Sunday we all drove back home. We've been off and running since we arrived and will hopefully catch up on our lives soon!