Christmas Friend Survey

Several friend emailed this to me, so I decided to follow another blogger's lead and just post my responses. If anyone else wants to participte, jump on in!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? A little of both. The kids have to wrapped, since that only kind of stops them from opening them early.

2. Real tree or artificial? Artificial, always. Too messy otherwise. Plus don't you have to remember to water them. Yeah, like I would really remember to do that!

3. When do you put up the tree? Sometime during Thanksgiving weekend, definitely by the next weekend.

4. When do you take the tree down? Right after New Year's

5. Do you like eggnog? nope

6. Favorite gift received as a child? A cabbage patch kid, or maybe my Barbie swimming pool

7. Do you have a nativity scene? I got my first one this year. It's a Little People's one. It's really cute, but the one I really want is the Willow Tree one.

8. Hardest person to buy for? my sister Angie

9. Easiest person to buy for? everyone else

10. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? I can remember taking back some clothes my dad picked out for me. Oh wait, I just remember the year my grandma gave me a college care package full of deodorant, shampoo, lotion, etc. None of the right brands of course. She also included a roll of quarters which was very helpful for laundry, so I guess it wasn't all that horrible.

11. Mail or email Christmas cards? mail 1

2. Favorite Christmas Movie? I really like all of them, but some new favorites are Elf, and The Polar Express.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? November

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Many times. In fact, I have a box in my basement of things that I can "regift".

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Magic Squares (Hey, mom! Where are they? Weren't you suppose to make those and give them out to us?)

16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? My upstairs tree is just white lights, by downstairs tree is multi-colored

17. Favorite Christmas song? O Come, O Come Emmanuel

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? We usually drive to FL at some point, but Erin's mom is coming up here this year.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeers? absolutely

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Star on the downstairs tree, big red bow on the upstairs.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Lingua family on Christmas Eve, Roades family on Christmas Day

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? Being so busy every night of the week, I lose track of what the whole season is suppose to be about.

23. Do you decorate your tree in any specific theme? Our downstairs tree is full of all the ornaments we have collected over the years. My mom still gives each of us a new one every year, so it's really full! The upstairs tree has little red bows and snowflakes that Erin's grandma crocheted.

Learning Place Christmas Programs

This past Monday and Tuesday were program nights at preschool for the kids. They were really long, tiring days, but for the most part went well. Kalista did great singing all her songs and doing the motions.

Isaac, on the other hand was crazy. He started out okay, shaking his Jingle Bell, doing some of the motions (leaving his place on stage to find his sister and give her a hug. . .) This was him singing O'Christmas Tree on Tuesday night.

Their last song was called Christmas Lullabye. I guess he took them seriously Monday night.

By the end Tuesday night, he was done. He didn't want to get back up on stage to sing their last song, so this is what happened. . .

Such is program life with a two year old. . . Stay tuned for pictures from Kalista's last performance of the season. Sunday night (if it's not snowed out) will be our annual Cookie Social at church. Kalista will be singing along with the rest of "His Singers", a group of 8 girls 4 to 10 years old.

Learning Place Christmas Programs

This past Monday and Tuesday were program nights at preschool for the kids. They were really long, tiring days, but for the most part went well. Kalista did great singing all her songs and doing the motions. Isaac, on the other hand was crazy. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. . .

Visiting Santa

Each year when we go to visit Santa, I never quite know how the kids will respond. This year they both did great, even after a 15 minute wait while Santa when to "feed his reindeer"! Isaac kept telling me he wanted to go feed them too!

Cookie Baking

It's that time of year again. Time to go off of diets, attend countless parties, and bake cookies. This week has not been the best, but it certainly ended on a sweet note. . .

It started coming apart on Wednesday morning about 4:00 a.m. when Kalista came in my room saying her head hurt. I snuggled her and sent her back to bed. At 7:00 when she woke up for good she said her head still hurt and she was cold. I took her temp and it was 99.4. Now Kalista's normal temp is around 96, so this was high for her. However, we have been really short staffed at work, so I asked her if she could make it to preschool and she said yes. I guess we were both too optimistic. Half-way there she threw up. Over the next 24 hours she threw up 4 or 5 more times, looked as pale as a ghost, and laid comatose on the couch.

By Thursday morning I could tell she was feeling better and as the day wore on she was able to eat more and more and it all stayed down! The opposite was true for me. I woke up Thursday morning with a sinus infection. I blew my nose every 5 to 10 seconds and felt miserable. I was glad we still had to stay home from preschool for Kalista's sake, I don't think I would have made it through the whole day myself. The worse part was that Erin, who never gets to do anything, was going out of town Friday to a track coaching conference and staying overnight. That meant I had two more days of just me and the kids and feeling like I'd been run over by a truck!

Things did get better. My medicine started working and I was able to get some sleep. Isaac was remarkably well behaved through both Kalista's and my illness! God was with us for sure! Saturday morning I disinfected the kitchen and got ready for my sister and niece to come over for cooking baking with me and Kalista. This is a annual tradition in my family, but it is always different who can come. Mom got iced in and couldn't come and Angie claimed that she was on a diet and didn't need cookies at her house, so she stayed home as well (check out her recent post). So the four of us got to work (Isaac didn't help much, just kept asking where the cookies were and trying to take the unbaked dough off the cookie sheets). We baked all afternoon and into the evening. It was a lot of fun, but very tiring. The worst part is that I couldn't taste anything since my nose is still so stopped up!

Conversations with Kids

On the way to school this morning the kids and I were having a typical day. They were listening to the Wiggles (it was Isaac's turn to pick), and I was listening to Christmas music on my Ipod. When out of the blue Isaac says to me . . .

"Mom, I whike Whacie" (I like Gracie)

"You do? That's good." I reply.

A few moments pass.

"Mom, I whike Whacie and Sissy whikes Whexie" (I like Gracie and sissy likes Lexi)

I repeat to make sure I heard him right and then ask, "Well, who do I like?"

"You like MawMaw." He replies.

"You're right I do." I say

At this point Kalista chimes in and says, "Yep, you like your mom. And both of us likes Gramme."

Isaac says, "I like Gramme too."

And we continue on down the road. What sweet kids. . .