Favorite Christmas Songs - Part 1

I love listening to Christmas music so I thought I would share my favorite Christmas songs.  I have more than a few so I'll break it up into a few different posts.  Part 1 is my absolute, must-have Christmas songs, courtesy of YouTube:

The War is Over by John Lennon

O Come All Ye Faithful by Katherine McPhee (I don't have a favorite singer for this song, but I do love her version)

O Holy Night by Celine Dion

Hot Chocolate from The Polar Express Movie

Let There be Peace on Earth by Vince and Jenny Gill 

Enjoy!

Zhu Zhu Who?

So apparently these littles critters are the "must have" toy for Christmas 2009!  I really don't get it - why they are sold out everywhere?  Is it because they ended up being sold out and then people became obsessed with them because it was teamed up with the word sold out?  Because personally, I don't think they are anything to go crazy about and I just watched a demonstration on The Ellen Show (where she gave everyone in the audience a free pack and they went nuts?).  Sure they're ok, but nothing to go crazy about.  Thankfully Emma knows nothing about them; I don't think I could search store after store, website after website looking for one! And I don't think I've ever been on a mission to have the hottest toy of the year since having kids and I would like to keep it that way.  Hopefully I can if they keep making toys that aren't so great and making them the toy of the year!

All Wrapped Up

I need to start wrapping my Christmas gifts very soon.  Every year at the thought of wrapping so many gifts in such a short period of time I remember a woman I used to work with.  She and her husband never wrapped any of the gifts for their kids.  They were all from Santa and were just placed under the tree after the kids went to bed on Christmas Eve.  I had never heard of anyone doing this before.  As a child, we had gifts from Santa as well as my mom, dad, brother and sister and I still do this today.  I separate the gifts out and decide what will be from me and Matt, and what will be from Santa.  So I was wondering, how do you guys do it? Are all of your gifts wrapped?  Do you leave them unwrapped? Does only Santa deliver gifts on Christmas or do you partake too?  For me personally, depsite the wrapping frustrations (even though I have an awesome new pair of wrapping scissors), I don't think I couldn't wrap presents or make them all from Santa.

What a difference a year makes!

I found some pictures of Hannah's hair from this time last year and couldn't believe the difference.  I thought she had big hair before...

December 2008

(We were painting a birdhouse for Pop!)

November 2009

Of course her hair isn't "usually" this poofy because at just 2 years old she requires conditioner, leave in condition, a 5 minute gentle yet frustrating combing followed by either gel or mousse.  But if we're not going out, this is what she can look like just playing around the house!

But boy it sure is poofier than last year and I thought it was big then!  I wonder what next year will look like and I REALLY wonder if it will ever grown down instead of out!

 

Flashback Friday

We're going to get our tree this weekend and finally decorate for Christmas so I wanted to post a picture from last year during our Christmas Tree Hunting, but none of those were really good!  So here is Emma actually smiling for me "near" our Christmas tree from last year!

Letters to Santa

We finally sat down last night to write our letters to Santa.  I figured I need to know what Emma really wanted since Santa is almost done and "he" doesn't want to forget anything she desperately wants.  We've been asking her for awhile what she would want and she had her heart set on one of those big motorized powerwheels.  Since we weren't sure of Santa's budget, we asked her what else she might want in case the powerwheel was too big for his sleigh and thankfully when she wrote her letter last night, there was no mention of a powerwheel. 

I'll type it just like she wrote it and we'll see if you can manage to read it!

11-30-09

Der Santa,

I hv bn good al yer. I wod lk thes thngs for krsms.

1. DS

2. Hors gam

3. Pjams

4. Trn

Thmks,

Emma

Translated:

Dear Santa, I have been good all year.  I would like these things for Christmas:

1. Nintendo DS

2. Horse Game (for her DS)

3. Pajamas

4. Train

Thanks,

Emma

Hannah's letter read (and she named what she wanted, we didn't help her at all!):

Dear Ho Ho Man (That's what she calls Santa)

I've been good all year. Please bring me:

1. A balloon

2. Funnies (We had just finished watching America's Funniest Videos) 
3. A kite

4. Shoes

Thanks,

Love,

Hannah

 

Kids are so funny and Hannah's list changes each time you ask her of course, but it was put into writing last night, so that's officially what she wants! I waited in line at 4:45am on Black Friday to get Emma her DS on sale.  I hope she is super excited! The train was a surprise though, we'll have to see what Santa can do!

Merry Christmas! Only 24 more days to go!

What We Gave Thanks For!

I'm a little late on the Thanksgiving post, but I wanted to share about our thankful turkey we made.  I cut a turkey shape out of poster board and covered it with orange and brown construction paper, then made feathers out of different colored paper.  On these feathers we each took turns writing what we were thankful for. On other feathers I wrote some important bible verses to remind us why we need to give thanks to God on Thanksgiving as well.

We each took turns going around the table, writing what we were thankful for and sharing it with each other.  Hannah blessed us with a feather of scribbles.

Emma was thankful for "makarone" (that would be kindergarten writing for macaroni) and "famle dnrs" (did you guess that one? It's family dinners).

Matt was thankful for being able to work and having a job and for a loving wife and good kids.

And me, I was thankful for healthy kids and Matt/Daddy to take care of us. 

The green feather shows Hannahs feather and the yellow is Emma's "makarone" - she doesn't yet understand that when she tries to correct her writing you can no longer read it, but she's writing so I'm thankful for that too!

So Happy Thanksgiving to everyone and I hope you have a great holiday and remembered to give thanks for all of the blessings in your life!