Christmas 2007 (Very long post!)

We had a great Christmas this year! I've finally weeded through all of the pictures and narrowed it down to 58! It may very well take me a week to get them all uploaded, so I probably won't put any on the blog, but you can check out the flickr link at the end of this post.

We were planning to leave bright and early Friday morning for Oklahoma. We had the car loaded, had eaten breakfast, and even picked up the house before 7:30am. I had all of Ainsley's clothes laid out so all I had to do was get her dressed and stick her in the car. Well, we waited and waited, but she never woke up! So about 8:45am I went in to get her and I could smell it as soon as I opened the door! Yep, she pooped in the bed! Ugh! It seriously looked like Swamp Thing attacked her during the night! (If you didn't know, she's been on medicine because she will go 10 or 12 days without a BM. With the medicine, she has no control over her bowels...it just comes) So, after stripping her bed and bathing the child, we finally left about an hour later. It actually turned out ok and I was very glad she had a good poop before we left! Never thought I'd be praying for poop!

We stopped in Tulsa and ate lunch at Fish Daddy's and it was really good. Then Ainsley was asleep by 12:45pm and slept almost the rest of the way. We unloaded at my parents house and then headed over to the Bean's for our gift exchange. As we had expected, Ainsley asked for Blaine several times and kept looking for him, but once we started opening presents she seemed to forget about it. She got little stainless steel pots and pans, a wooden stand mixer, wooden cookie baking set, and measuring spoons which all match her new kitchen. She also got several trains which she was very excited about, including the pink train, Rosie, that has freckles! My sister-in-law got her a huge pop-up princess tent with a skylight in the top, so we had lots of pretend tea parties and Ainsley served pretend tea to everyone. She even had a pretend crown for all of the girls and a "big king" crown for Daddy. She got a box full of clothes and dresses from her Grandma too, which were definitely needed! We all had a great time and still got back to my parents house in time for Ainsley to be in bed by 8:45pm that night.

This was the first time Ainsley and my niece Hailey had been at Mimi and Bapa's house at the same time, so we weren't sure how the sleeping arrangements would go. It actually turned out great! Usually we put Ainsley in the crib, but lower the mattress all the way and leave the rail down so it's almost just like her toddler bed. But since Hailey was sleeping in the crib, my mom put my old play pen (it's huge!) in the office for Ainsley. She had 2 down comforters in it with lots of teddy bears and blankets. Ainsley slept 12 hours that night! "Present time" started as soon as Ainsley woke up and went on all day long. After the first 10 presents or so, Ainsley was tired of opening presents and just wanted to play. So, we opened a few toys and let her play with them while Hailey took her morning nap. Then when Hailey woke up we continued with the kid presents. I can't even remember everything Ainsley got, but we had a car so full we barely found room for the dog! One of her favorites was a pink Barbie VW bug. She loves it! She's also really into mermaids so she got 2 Barbie mermaids which have been big hits at home. Another favorite is a Mickey Mouse doll that comes with a piano with numbered keys. He sings "La" to each note that you play and even starts singing the words to the song if he recognizes it. It's totally age appropriate too! Since Clint and I both play, we can tell Ainsley some numbers to play and she gets SO excited when he recognizes "her" song. It comes with a play book too that tells you which numbers to play so we'll probably get that out next and start working on her first piano lessons! But I have to say, the biggest hit at Mimi and Bapa's house was the trampoline! It's an indoor trampoline with a bar to hold onto. And the best part is that there are no springs. It's just a big bungee cord wrapped around it. Hailey was crawling all over it while Ainsley jumped and there's no way for her to get hurt! It goes up to age 8 so we have lots of years of fun left in that one! She also got lots of music and books. Ainsley will sit and listen to a kids songs CD for an hour even if I'm not in the room. It's crazy how much she likes to sing...and dance! She got a really cool DVD set of probably 15 movies too. It's basically the book of Matthew....the adventures of these kids and how they relate them to Jesus' journeys and teachings through his resurrection. It's pretty neat! Oh, and Ainsley, Hailey, and "baby brother" all got bath robes! Too cute! ("Baby brother" got several things this year!)

I didn't figure Ainsley would nap long since she was so excited about her presents, but she slept almost 4 hours! Seriously, I was getting worried about her. A normal nap is about 2.5 hours. It snowed while she was sleeping too, so I really wanted her to see all of the snow. Luckily it was really cold so there was still a little bit of snow for her to see when she woke up, but the wind was already blowing a lot of it away. She played in it for a while before we headed over to my grandparent's home for another Christmas. Despite her super long nap, she was very tired that night after all of her excitement. Speaking of excitement, she would get SO excited when opening each present. Her mouth would drop open and she'd gasp....even if it was clothes! We never really talked about Christmas presents before the trip so I think she was really surprised she was getting all of these things. She was also very good to share her toys with Hailey and gave LOTS of hugs after each present. I got several comments over the weekend on how polite she is. She slept about 12 hours again that night so we had the car loaded and ready to go when she woke up the next morning. On the way back, we stopped in Tulsa again and hit Babies R Us to get some inspiration for the new baby and try out some strollers. I didn't think there would be enough room for Ainsley in the big double-limo styles, but she had plenty of room! Her favorite, by far, was the sit 'n stand, though. I'm not sure that we'll even get a new stroller, but I wanted to at least look at them and see them in person before I made my decision. Oh, and while we were there, Ainsley pooped again! Yeah - you go girl! 2 poops in 3 days! Woohoo!

We got home in enough time to get most of our presents put away and clean out a lot of toys for the garage sale to make room for the new ones. I really wanted the house back in order before Christmas Eve so I wouldn't have to worry about anything and Clint and I could relax. Ainsley slept another 13.5 hours that night and took a 3 hour nap! I took that time to get all of my food prepared for Christmas Day so I wouldn't have to do anything but pop it in the oven. Clint got home from work early and we just laid around and relaxed until Ainsley woke up. Then we all had some dinner and got ready for church. The service was great! It was my first Christmas Eve service - ever. There wasn't a sermon really, but Pastor told the Christmas Story on a kid level (to all of the kids on stage) which I thought was very appropriate for any guests who might be visiting too. Then we sang several songs, had the candle lighting ceremony (which Ainsley thought was for Jesus' birthday cake) and we were dismissed in under 45 minutes. Our plan was to go to Cold Stone after the service since I had holiday coupons, but it was closed. I had already planned on it being closed and bought some gelato that morning so we went home and had ice cream. Then Ainsley and I baked cookies. It was so funny! As we were putting the cookies on the plate for Santa, she took a bite of each one to make sure they were good. Then she helped me pour the milk and took everything over to the table. As soon as she laid it all down, she just sat her little self down and started eating again! I literally had to pull her away from the table so she'd leave some cookies for Santa! She even wrote a letter saying that she'd been a good girl this year. (She actually said that she wrote, "Ainsley's a good girl - go peepee in da potty!") But either way, I think Santa knew what she meant. Then off to bed...she was asleep just before 9:00pm.

Here's where my fantasy Christmas Day (the first EVER at home in our 8 years of marriage) started getting skewed a bit. I got up a little before 7 to get the stockings stuffed and Clint already had the Santa gift put out. My plan was to cook breakfast and eat an early dinner. But by 8:30am Clint and I were getting really hungry. So, we ended up eating cereal while we were waiting on Ainsley to wake up. I figured surely she'd be up early....especially since she went to bed late and was so excited about Christmas. Well, by 9:30am we had already eaten breakfast and watched a movie together! So, I woke the little hobbit up from her hibernation. She walked into the living room and saw her kitchen and table all set up and said, "Hey, what's this?" Ha! We told her that Santa left these presents for her and she said, "Oh! Ok." What a goof! She loved the kitchen, but was even more excited about the little table! It's a wooden crayola table that I got from this store in Ada for only $15! She also had "Return to Neverland" in her stocking with bonus Tinkerbell stories....we've watched it about 5 times already! Even amidst all of the chocolate and candy in her stocking, her favorite was the pack of Slim Jims I had put in Clint's stocking. Go figure?

Next we opened our gifts to each other. Ainsley made a mug for Daddy with her handprints on it and picked out some gloves for him. For those of you that see her at church much, you've probably seen her wearing the latex gloves before. She LOVES gloves and it was the first thing she picked out for Daddy. (And they were cheap from TJ Max) Ainsley bought me some Egg Nog flavored hot chocolate in a cute little tin and "baby brother" even got me something! It's a devotional for mommies of babies with a prayer to pray over your babies each day. Really cute and special. Daddy got Ainsley a really cute Noah's Ark book that has these HUGE googlie eyes on each page for different animals. She loves Noah's Ark (and even thought pictures of Santa were Noah until recently) so this has been a big hit too. And Santa brought me a waffle maker! I've wanted one for a long time...not sure why I never got one. Only the tag said for "Clint and Mandy" since Clint said he figured he'd enjoy it as much as I would. :) We always do the three wisemen gifts for Ainsley so in addition to the book, she got another train set and a big tub of wooden train tracks that I bought at the consignment sale this Fall. She and Daddy built tracks the rest of the day! After each gift she was supposed to say something she was thankful for. So after the first gift I asked her what she was thankful for and she said, "All my pwesents!" Ha! Of course, what else would a 2 year old say? Then next she said, "All my fwiends!" and the third time she said, "My tummy!" I know it has something to do with me being pregnant, but I just don't get the new infatuation with her tummy! After we ate lunch (instead of dinner) Ainsley took another marathon nap and Clint and I watched another movie. Then we all watched "Hairspray" when she woke up. There was 1 bad phrase in it, but not anything Ainsley could have really caught on to. She LOVED the movie and wanted to watch it again. She kept dancing with all of the songs and now she does this cute little 40's style dance around the house. It was too cute!

So, that's our Christmas...2007. I've hit a few after-Christmas sales and bought a new 7.5 foot pre-lit tree for only $25 and several ornaments and such. I sure wish Motherhood had after-Christmas sales! :) If you'd like to check out all the pictures, just click here. Merry Christmas!