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Monday, December 26, 2011

Christmas has passed.. time to get ready for a New Year!

We ended up staying home for Christmas this year. Since I had so much on my plate with work, Christmas & Phoebe's upcoming party, and was recently diagnosed with high blood pressure, my hubby is trying to help me lessen my stress factors. Whenever we have vacation time, we use it to travel to see family. We planned to go in for Christmas this year, but we decided it was best to stay home and get some of the clutter in the house cleaned up, so I don't stress as much over it. It was nice to have Phoebe wake up at home on Christmas morning again, but it would be perfect if we could share it with more family members. Phoebe seemed to be happy with all she received. Her favorite gift was a 4ft tall sock monkey, which we named JoJo. She is extremely attached to this monkey! We even put a shirt and pants on him today because she said he was cold. We didn't have any boy clothes, so JoJo got a pink shirt and purple pants. Here they are inside the tent that Nanny & Uncle Ruby got her for her birthday:

Santa brought Phoebe a Bop It XT game, a telescope, microscope and JoJo (the 4ft sock monkey mentioned above). Santa paid a visit to Phoebe, Aidan & Evan while we were at Nanny's on Christmas Eve. He gave her the Bop It game and she was oh so thrilled. Mom & Dad got her a Spongebob hangman game, a motorized train with lights that goes around the tree, a travel kit for her DSi, Hello Kitty puzzle, remote race car, create your own jigsaw puzzle, and a few other things. Here are the before and after pictures: Before

 

After:
 

She did have a birthday 5 days earlier, where she got a Dsi, Super Mario game, Bumble Chase set with motion and music and an animated Abominable snowman (named him Bumble). We made a point to talk about the meaning of Christmas and how it was Jesus' birthday.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Happy Birthday Phoebe!

I can't believe our girl is 6 years old!!! Phoebe has been asking for a Nintendo DS for about 2 years now. She had a Mobigo and Kinect so we let her wait a while and enjoy / make use of the stuff she already had. Well we finally decided to get her one, we got the Metallic Rose DSi XL and the Super Mario game. We recorded her opening it and the excitement is oh so cute. Enjoy! The best part is that before she opened any gifts, I asked her how her birthday went and she said she had a great birthday. So this was just the icing on the cake. :)

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Visit from Maddi, Britt, Chris & MawMaw

They all came in on December 15th. We went to the Woodlands Mall on Saturday to eat dinner in honor of Phoe's upcoming birthday. Then we rode the boat to see Christmas lights, but ended up getting off the boat to hang out by the Marriott. There was live Christmas music, lights, a huge Christmas tree and Santa was there! We took pictures of each kid with Santa. They gave each kid a spin light (free!) and we all enjoyed a cup of hot chocolate (again, free!). It was beautiful, relaxing and fun for all of us. Here are the pictures of the kids with Santa and a few from dinner. "silly" family pic:
Phoebe
 
Aidan
 
Evan
 
Maddi
 


Maddi & Phoebe were excited to see each other :)


From left - Aidan, Maddi, Phoebe, Evan
 


She was so surprised when we all began singing Happy Birthday to her. I love her expression in this picture!