Holiday (over)excitement

Thanksgiving is over and I did not take one picture. Not one! We hosted a wonderful dinner at our house and I have no pictures to prove it. I wasn't even cooking, so I don't have the excuse of being too busy. But it was nice and everyone enjoyed themselves. Jack and Kaitlin loved the pumpkin pie with the "cream" on top the best. What's not to love about that!

Jack will be getting this -- in his dreams.

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So now we've moved on to all-things Christmas. Jack wrote out his list a couple of weeks ago but it gets edited every so often if he comes across something he forgot about. He as been pouring over the LEGO catalog we got in the mail a few months ago and I know he's just drooling over the Millennium Falcon and Death Star sets for the low prices of $499.99 and $399.99, respectively. I don't think so. I think we're saved by the fact that he noticed that it's for ages 16 and up (in fact, this is how he chooses many of his gifts; if his age is included, then it must be something he should have). However, we have already started buying gifts for them and I'm thinking they're not going to be disappointed.

Daily I have been hearing things like: "We have to remember to turn the fire off before Santa comes" from Jack and "I think if Santa's sleigh gets stuck in the snow a llama will help him get out because they are very strong" from Kaitlin. When I asked Kaitlin if she thought the reindeer could help Santa get unstuck she said "no, a llama can do it." I have no idea where this came from but it's fun to hear both of them talk about Christmas and Santa. I'm trying to get Jack used to the idea of us getting a real tree this year and not put the fake one up and he seemed a little sad! I don't think he even knows about going to pick out Christmas trees and not just assemble one from a box. He loves to pick out pumpkins at pumpkin patches so I had to explain that this is the same type of thing. We've deprived our kids of the family tradition of aimlessly wandering through a tree farm for hours trying to find the "perfect" tree. I think the time has come to remedy that.

So for these kids (young and old), Christmas cannot come soon enough.