Christmas 2014

The night before Christmas this year, Mick Elf brought us ALL Elf jammies or t-shirts!  

Cookies, carrots and egg nog were remembered only because I'd made myself a list of things to do!

Kendall was in bed by 7:45 even though the Santa tracker showed him still being somewhere over the Atlantic at that time.  But clearly he showed up!

6:15AM:  1st Santa gift was the much coveted Ivy American Girl doll that was discontinued this year.

Then everything got a bit blurry in the haze of frantic gift opening as the sun started to come up.

Sparkly diamond high heels.  She wore them to the movies the next day.  In 30 degree weather.

Nothing like a glass of mulled wine for breakfast!  At least the sun was up.  

I successfully cooked my first turkey and we had a huge dinner at 2:30.  I am officially done cooking for the year.

Later in the afternoon, we trekked across town to play with the Conleys for a bit.  It's a Christmas tradition!

Fish tragedy aside (see previous post), it was a wonderful and very happy Christmas!

RIP Emily Fish .... Welcome Twilight Fish

After an absolutely lovely Christmas and get together with old friends, we stumbled in the door at 7:00 stuffed and exhausted.  I could barely keep my eyes open so when I didn't see Emily the fish when I first fed her, I wasn't too concerned.  The lid was still on the bowl so surely she couldn't have gotten out?  But she did.  Through a hole in the lid that was less than 1/2 inch wide.  And off the counter and into the dog water bowl.  Fortunately, Ralphie stopped drinking from the bowl when I saw the floating fish and screamed.  Unfortunately, I was too tired to think things through before agreeing to let Kendall see the dead fish in the dog water.  She immediately burst into tears.  The suggestion of giving her a burial at sea via the toilet did not go over well either so Emily is buried in the backyard.  The next day, we had several funerals.  And she made a stone for her.  And everyone had to say a few words about Emily while Kendall, dressed in black, paced back and forth and told the fish's almost year long history.  It was the never-ending fish funeral.  

Then we went to Petsmart and bought "Twilight."  He is a much prettier fish because he's male but Kendall has been told he is a girl and I don't think it really matters to him what Kendall thinks he/she is.  She insisted on a girl betta and while, as far as fish go, Emily was a good one, she was not pretty. A new tank and decor also had to be purchased because the other one "reminded her too much of Emily."  

Kendall has told everyone who will listen that "if Twilight dies within the next 2 weeks, she'll get a new fish for FREE!"  Nothing like a fish guarantee to cheer a girl up!  

Santa's Village

The Richardson library and City Hall puts together a neat "Santa's Village" every year that consists of lots of lights, little holiday houses and a show by a local school every Thursday - Sunday night for 3 weeks.  We went to see some of the classes from Kendall's dance studio perform and ran into a friend from her class.  It's a neat event!  We didn't see Santa because the line was a good hour long and we'd already seen him.  But we did see Mrs. Claus and Clifford!  

Pre Christmas Activities with Nana

LOTS of baking!

A little bit of cleaning.

LOTS of iPadding!

And a horse drawn carriage ride through Deerfield neighborhood to see Christmas lights!

One of my co-workers gave us these neat glasses that are kind of like 3D glasses but when you look through them at Christmas lights, you see snowmen, stockings or gingerbread men.  It's really neat and Kendall wore them for a lot of the carriage ride.