Christmas

We hope you had an enjoyable Holiday. We had to work half day on Christmas Eve. Then we went to Children's mass and it was so packed that we had to stand in the doorway of the vestibule. About half way through the service, Marissa said when are we going to church? I had to explain that we were there but there were a lot of people celebrating Jesus' birthday and there was no room for us to sit down. She accepted that, but we did have to hold her the rest of the service. The bonus was that she was infatuated with a cute 3 month old baby and her neurotic mom. (The mom told her mother in law to be very careful with the baby because her dress was very slippery. She also totally freaked out when someone sneezed. I guess I was equally entertained.) After church we went to Mark and Vicki's house for dinner. Marissa got to play with Samuel and Anthony and Rachel.

We came back home and wrote a letter to Santa, left him cookies/milk and carrots for the reindeer. Marissa went off to bed with visions of sugarplums dancing in her head. I was so excited for Christmas that I had to wake Issa up and ask her if she thought Santa had come. She was groggy at first then was stoked when she discovered Santa had left her a new baby doll. She has been taking care of that baby since then. We had a lazy Christmas morning. Then we went to give the boy's their gift. The boy's got a awesome dinosaur from Santa! It eats leaves and growls and....it was so cool. After being sidetracked for an hour we headed over to Tim & Christy's house to have dinner with them and their family. Issa got to spend some time with grandma Jean which was really nice. We have video of the kids playing the Wii. Marissa didn't care about landing the ski jump; just about becoming a snowball. Happy Holidays!

P.S.

Marissa asked me on Christmas day: "When is Jesus going to blow out the candles on his birthday cake?"

M-for Marissa

Tonight after dinner Issa asked us if wanted some music. It was an unusual night because of the silence-we always have music on in the background. Issa decided that she was the m.c. and wanted to know what letter we wanted to here about. She has a fridge phonics toy that helps kids learn the alphabet and phonics. I said I wanted to hear about "M" for Marissa and she said Oh, ok. M for Marissa. Now this doesn't seem like a big deal, BUT it is because this is the first time she has ever said her whole name. Since she began talking she has only called herself Issa.

This picture is of Issa trimming the tree. I just let her do whatever she wanted and she felt only one section of the tree was worthy of decoration!

Mmmmm Cookies

Marissa was watching the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episode "Secret Spy Daisy". Daisy is trying to keep Pete from getting Clarabelle's oatmeal raisin cookie recipe. After she watched to show she said she wanted to make Mmmmmm cookies too.

Her request is timely because it is baking season. I have been looking over all of my recipes trying to decide what type of cookies/bread to make. I have such grand ideas about what I'm going to make but in reality; I always make the same thing. Apple cake, pumkin roll and lime/lemon meltaways. Is this the year I break away? I guess we will find out Saturday when I go shopping.

In other news....I have a job. I was offered the Program Director position at TLG Smyrna!!! Daniel and I just registered Marissa for daycare. Yeah for employement.

This is from Issa's last gymnastics class at TLG West Cobb. There were quite a few kids missing, but we had fun and Issa did her first pull over on the bar without being scared.

Whose afraid of the Big Bad...SANTA?!

Well Marissa is; and I feel rightfully so! Her first Christmas, nine months old, we thought we might be able to get picture with Santa. We were wrong. She was and still is weary of men, and men with beards forget it. So this year, out of the blue Issa started talking about Santa and wanting to go see him. I just let it go. I was surprised when she continued talking about him, so much so that I asked her if she wanted to take a picture with him. She robustly said "Yes!" Yesterday we made the trek to the mall and watched the kids go through the process from the second floor. She was eager to go downstairs so we went down the escalator to go see Santa! But the reality was just to overwhelming for her. She peered at him through the set and essentially started to freak out. So we left and when she felt safe again she proudly said: "I saw Santa!"