Kid Funnies

Elizabeth: "Will, what is a swat team?"
Will: "It's like a team of special police fighters."
Elizabeth. "Oh, that makes sense. It's like a team of swat."

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Me: "Elizabeth, remember when we had a talk a few days ago about you leaving tons and tons of toys in the car?
Elizabeth: "Yes."
Me: "What did I say would happen if you kept leaving them in the car instead of taking them inside?"
Elizabeth: "You said that they wouldn't be my toys anymore."
Me: "Yes, that's right."
Elizabeth: (sighs) "Oh mom, I know that growing us up is a hard thing to do. You just have to keep trying and you'll get it right some day."

Last Minute Shopping and Other Christmasy Stuff

Next year I am going to have all of my shopping done by Black Friday, I swear. It's only one week until Christmas Eve and I'm not even 1/2 done!

Elizabeth has made a very specific request for a Christmas gift this year. The problem? The one place to get it for a good price (and not 3x that amount) is, you guessed it, sold out. And the store that the website hails from is not answering their phone. Or at least I guess that's what's happening since I always get a busy signal. Since it's a toy store at Christmas time, maybe all of the employees are just hiding under their counters crying at this point.

I miss the good old days when I could have a little more say in what she wanted. It was so much easier then. Well, I guess they're still happening with Ella. All I have to do for her is show her a picture and ask her if that's what she wants for Christmas. She purses her lips, taps her chin with her chubby little finger and then screams "Nyesh!!!" while she jumps up and down.

This year, Will saw a commercial for the ASPCA. He promptly decided that he would like to forgo his Christmas gift from Santa and instead ask to have Santa donate $20/month to the ASPCA instead. What a sweetheart! After a lot of consideration, he's decided that he will earn/raise money for the Humane Society here in Pocatello and then go to their adoption day in January so that he can actually see and pet the animals that he is helping. I'm so proud of how willing to give to help others he is.

And Tera, I'm sorry to say, there will be no Gingerbread house this year. I think that if I add one more thing to my to do list I'll be heard to say "Ba Humbug" and we've already got enough of that with Ben around. :)

Two Posts In One Day?

I want it to snow. Right now would be preferable. And I'd like it to stick. I'd like the roads to have feet and feet of snow piled in the middle of them, just waiting for the tractors to come and scoop it into dump trucks so that it can be driven to the river and dumped in.

I don't know of any place on earth that does things like that, other than the little town that I grew up in. Every year at Christmas time I just find myself wanting to go back there and have it be like it was when I was little. I want to drive down the snowy streets and look at the lights on the houses and watch the snow falling in the glowing light of the lamp posts. I just want to lay on the living room floor with all the lights out but the Christmas tree and bask in it's glow. I want to sled on the giant hills of snow that my dad made for us out in the pasture with his loader. I want to drive home from my Grandma's on Christmas Eve searching the sky for Santa. And then I want to fall asleep looking out my frost covered window at the Christmas lights that hang outside.

Having little kids only makes this nostalgia that I experience every year come on even stronger. When I watch how excited they are to make Christmas cookies and watch the same Christmas shows that I watched, how they keep asking when we're putting up the tree and how rosy cheeked with excitement they get when they talk about gifts that they want to get for their Daddy, it makes me so excited that my heart almost hurts. It's like I get to experience it all over again, but with a much different perspective.

It really is the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.

Ella's First Prayer

It was the sweetest thing ever! Last night as we knelt to say our prayers before bedtime, Ella looked up at me with her little arms folded and said "No you heppie me Mommie. Me do it mine sef." She remembered to thank Heavenly Father for her wonderful day, and all of her bessings and then she said: "Tankyou poor mine Gaddy, poor mine Mommie, poor mine Bessie, poor mine Willow" I think my heart melted into a puddle right there onto the floor. She remembered to ask for help to choose the right and to be safe even! She's getting so very grown up. It's so bitter sweet that I just don't know how to feel about it. Of course I want her to learn and grow and become who she should. But at the same time, I don't think I'd be to sad if there were a way for me to keep her as my little girl for forever and ever.