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.