Tag Archives: 2015

Chippy

Meet our Elf, Chippy Booty-Batter.  He came to our house for the first time last Christmas.  He was named Chippy after the elf in the tv show “An Elf’s Story”. We aren’t very original because we literally took the name straight out of the show.  Of course, we had to silly it up a bit and add the last name of Booty-batter (Miller’s idea).

The kids love to find Chippy every morning. We put him in the tree, on top of the refrigerator, in the front hall, and any where else we could find to put him. Some days Chippy didn’t move at all, but that was because Tom and I forgot.  Unlike some elves, our elf doesn’t cause any mischief…that would require too much work on our part.

Some people find it surprising that we have an elf because we don’t do Santa. Years ago I told the kids that Santa wasn’t real. I explained to them that long ago there was a real St.Nick that gave gifts to children but the one in the red suit was just pretend. I couldn’t lie to them, and I didn’t want Santa to get all the glory. I wanted to keep it about Jesus’ birthday.  Faith and Wilson still want to believe in Santa and wish that they didn’t know the truth. I think Wilson is a bit mad a me for telling him. He was kind of “Bah-humbug” and cynical this Christmas, even about Chippy.  In hindsight, I may have stolen some of the fun of Christmas by not doing Santa. We have the tooth fairy in our house, how is that any different? So, now we have an Elf that I use to try to make up for the lack of a magical Santa.  And yes, I lie about Chippy being real.  I have also begun to lie about Santa being real.  Miller asked me the other day if Santa was real. He said, “Santa is real, right Mom? He is real, right?”  I answered with a vague, “Some people think he is real and others don’t.”  Miller insisted, “But he IS real, right mom?”  He said it so sweetly and with such innocent certainty that I agreed.  I have decided that I really can’t win either way.  So I guess I will do it both ways and see how it turns out – an social experiment of sorts.

Either way, Christmas is over and Chippy is back in the North Pole until next year.  So long, Chippy!  Tell Santa that we said, “Hello!”

Christmas

Christmas came and went very quickly this year.  It seems to happen like that more often than not.  Christmas is two crazy days of church services, gifts and time with family and then it is over. Tom’s dad was with us for Christmas again this year.  We went to Little Church for the Christmas Eve service and had our traditional family picture taken….

 After services Doug came over to help us set up the basketball goal while I stuffed the stockings.  It was great having him over to help. It seemed much more festive.  Here is Doug pretending to slam dunk the ball…

 The kids woke up around 6:00am on Christmas morning (too early) but thankfully they chose to watch tv and eat the candy in their stockings instead of waking us up to open gifts.  This year we adopted the tradition that Tom grew up with – putting the stockings on the kids’ bedroom door knobs. This pacified the kids and gave them something to play with while the parents slept. Brilliant!!  I was able to sleep until 8:00am on Christmas morning.

The boys loved the basketball hoop and it is still sitting in the middle of my living room. (I bet it stays there another week.)

Faith loved her bike with gears, her baby doll stroller and the cheerleader outfit that my mom made for her…. We have always had a rule in our house of “no pets”.  However, Wilson pleaded his case last month on why he should have a fish. I gave in. We now have a beta fish for a pet.  He has yet to be named.  We will see how long he stays around…

 If you haven’t noticed from the pictures yet, we were all wearing shorts on Christmas morning. It was almost 80 degrees outside.  Miller rode his new scooter around with only his pajama pants on (this actually happens more often than not).

 It wouldn’t be Christmas without one of the kids getting upset because they didn’t get the gift that they so desperately desired.  Wilson wanted the Hot Wheels Spin Storm race track. He started crying when he didn’t get it from us so my parents rushed over to give him the gift that they had bought for him – a Hot Wheels track. Christmas was complete! 

The presents were opened and time together was spent.  A successful Christmas and we still have almost a week left of Christmas break.  I wish it could be like this year round.

First day of Christmas Break

I have been looking forward to Christmas vacation ever since Thanksgiving break ended. I have two full weeks with no preschool, no lunches to pack and no 6:30am alarm. Very exciting!!   

My first day vacation was just as I had envisioned it….almost. I slept in until 7:30am (not bad).  Of course, I hadn’t imagined all five of us sleeping in the same bed together, which we did. It was a bit crowded but nice at the same time. 

I let the kids watch tv while I planned out what we were going to eat for the next week. I decided that Christmas break would be a great time to gather recipes and ditch some of the processed food that we have been eating. I even made muffins today. They were delicious (Except faith and wilson would not eat them, of course).

Then Faith and I had some quality girl time together painting our nails and doing my hair.  

 She even squeezed me into one of her bigger dresses. Haha. No picture of that one. 

I painted even painted with Miller and cleaned up a bit – all before 2:00pm.  A full day. The rest of the day was spent sitting in traffic and waiting in lines at Walmart and the post office. Yuck! That was a bit stressful and gave me anxiety. Tomorrow I think I will leave out the last minute shopping and just enjoy another quiet day at home. Ahhhh….vacation.