The Christmas Rush...

Is on!!!! Today my Christmas rush started. I have a list a mile and a half long and only 1 week to finish it. Can I get it done???? Only time will tell. Will I ever prepare better for Christmas??? Only time will tell that too. But so far I haven't lost my cool. I think the children's excitement this year is helping. James and Audrey are at a new phase of Christmas joy and it's one that I am really loving. They know most of the words to our favorite Christmas jingles, they keep asking me what I want for Christmas, they are looking oh so forward to going to the country this year, and even though the twinkle in their eyes for the season is a slightly different (in a more mature way) one than their baby sister's, it's still the joy of my Christmas to see them so excited!! Olivia is 2 1/2 and the joy in her little heart for all things Christmas is magical. The years of 2 and 3 are my absolute favorite age for Christmas time. They are aware of what is going on but still so innocent that EVERYTHING excites them. And with Olivia that excitement reaches the highest degree. She LOVES to sing Jingle Bells and Frosty the Snowman and her favorite version of Jingle Bells is Dolly Parton's. I think because you can hear children's voices in the back ground. She's not a huge fan of watching Rudolph but she loves Frosty. J&A were the same way. We made ornaments at story time yesterday and then all the children went to the front desk and sang Jingle Bells and We Wish You a Merry Christmas to every one. She didn't bat an eye and sang as loud as she could!!

We have an Elf on the shelf and while it's fun and all, I think that next year Fiskal will be taking an extended vacay at the North Poll. It's just so time consuming and darn it if I don't forget to move him almost every night. And the whole 'don't touch him he's magic thing' doesn't exactly work for us. James wants soooo bad to believe that he's real but he's so smart, he knows he's not. So he tries to convince himself (and every one around him) that he does believe Fiskal moves around all by himself. It's hilarious to watch. And Audrey, she's the same way but she's not so determined to make her self believe it. She saw his tag the other night and was like "Mama I saw Fiskal has a tag on him so....is he really real?" Good thing she can't read "made in america" yet :)

We are going to make and decorate Christmas cookies tonight for our Fun Family Friday activity and thank goodness we already made gingerbread houses at my mom's 2 weeks ago. I don't exactly have the best track record with those things. I always put the roof on backwards or use the roof for the walls or what ever else I can do to mess it up. Poor Matthew got stuck with me as a "builder" at Mama's and after he loaded his roof down with candy and icing, it collapsed. That's when we discovered I had put the roof on sideways....

I can hardly believe Christmas is almost here!!