Sneak Peak of Christmas

This has been one more exhausting weekend. I am really sad that Christmas has come and gone once again and will really miss listening to 24/7 Christmas music and watching nonstop Christmas movies. I have lots to share regarding Christmas, but am much too tired to try to do that now so I thought I would just post some pics I had on my phone for now. I hope everybody had a merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve

So I skipped a couple of nights of posting, but I've been sick. Today has been a very busy day as Christmas eve usually is. We went shopping from 9 a.m. until close to 3 p.m. today. It is our year to host Christmas so me, my mom, and Maddy piled in the car to go grocery shopping for lunch. We also had to get a few last minute gifts as well. When we got home we played some and then it was time to start making cookies for santa. I really wanted to make the cookies from scratch this year, but my getting sick really put a damper on those plans. I got some dough that Maddy could still roll out and cut shapes out and after trying to make them tonight I realized that really is the only way to go with a two year old lol.

While the cookies were baking in the oven Maddy was a big helper and helped her Nana vacuum.

After the cookies were done we decorated, but Maddy didn't really want to put them ON the cookie. She wanted to eat the decorations herself. She put some decorations on santa's plate too. We then made some reindeer food and sat outside for the reindeer. She was too exhausted to really care about the reindeer food lol. One tradition I have kept going is on Christmas Eve. Every Christmas eve night we were allowed to open one present. Here is Maddy opening her present..

We normally go to a candle light service at church, but there was just no way to make that happen this year. Maddy left her plate of cookies and milk for santa on the table near the tree and is sound asleep in her bed. We did make sure to sing happy birthday to Jesus before bed because He is the reason for the season! Me and Maddy had a great day and I just can't believe it's already Christmas eve. I hope everybody has a wonderful Christmas with their family!

On the Fourth Day Till Christmas

I want to start off by saying that Maddy is not ALWAYS in just a shirt and diaper lol. I don't remember the exact scenario in this video, but on the weekends it is an act of congress to get her diaper changed and usually if I can just get her diaper on I don't worry too much about her pants until I have to. I think this was the case here because the painting that was fixing to take place occurred in the mid morning to afternoon. This is the beginning of our home renovations. I know this has nothing to do with Christmas, although it kinda does because my mom had goals to meet to be done by Christmas. Maddy loves to clean things and as you can see she was keeping her eye on Nana to see what she was doing. I didn't get to write this last night because I took a one stop train to bed after work. On the fourth day till Christmas not much happened. The most exciting thing was Maddy had PJ day at her school. Here are a few pics:

It's so hard to believe that her PJ's are a 3T and for the most part fit! Her waist is so tiny that the pants are a little big but after rolling the waistband over they fit just fine. This is really random but she is in a size 4 diaper and I think we will be in this size a while longer. I am so thankful that I only have one more full day at work before beginning the crunch phase of the countdown to Christmas. 

On the Fifth Day Till Christmas...

Today was a little harder than I anticipated it being emotionally. I was for sure my car would be able to be fixed this week and not cost the $2700 I was originally told. I've since learned that the lowest total is $2500, which really does me no good. I will have to have my car towed back to my house until I can come up with the money to fix it. I told myself I wasn't going to cry today, but that didn't work out too well. I do feel as if God has everything under control, I guess I'm just a little bummed not knowing when I'll have my car again. That's been my day in a nutshell. As I mentioned earlier, I realized I could post video from my phone via youtube so I'm gonna be doing that. This obviously was from Thanksgiving. Maddy is so cute! I am so thankful that tomorrow is my last long long work day of the week. If I can get my last 12 hour day done then the 8 hour day on Thursday will seem like nothing. Friday is going to be an exciting day. Apart from getting up at 4 a.m. to work, my niece's are going to be coming up and we will be baking our "santa" cookies. This will be the first year Maddy has gotten to bake and I can't be more excited that she gets to bake with her cousins. The fifth day till Christmas is kinda boring so I will stop here, but tomorrow will be a little more exciting :)

Creativity

Maddy showed her first real creativity side. Maddy has been exposed to people wearing glasses a bunch...her Nana wears glasses to read and see, her dad wears glasses to see, and then everybody wears sunglasses. On this particular day she found like a twist tie laying around on the ground and decided to turn them into her glasses. Every time she saw that tie she would point and say, "glasses." I think it's neat to see her imagination come to life. I remembered I could send the videos from my phone to youtube and then from youtube to my blog so that's what I will be doing...I hope you all have a wondeful day and remember...only 5 days till Christmas :)

On the Sixth Day till Christmas...

I was actually gonna post this before I found out about my car, but now I need to post this to keep from crying my eyes out lol. I cannot believe we are six days away from Christmas. My mom was able to pick Maddy up for me today from daycare and when Maddy got home she came running to me saying, "MAMA!!!" and it just made my day. I could so use that right about now lol. We got some mommy/Maddy time tonight, which consisted of eating bite bites and playing. My grandmother came over to deliver presents, which created even more excitement for me for Christmas to get here. Christmas is actually bittersweet because I'm so anxious to see Maddy have a good time but at the same time I am so sad to see the season leave. I truly enjoy everything that Christmas brings and really hate to see it leave. Maddy is at the stage that she can fill in words to songs and it makes my heart happy. Her favorite to sing right now is "Rock-a-bye baby" I let her say the last word to each sentence and she does such a good job. She has also really seemed to pick up on Santa, which surprises me in a way. She knows he says, "ho ho ho" and "merry christmas" and I think she is semi associating him with presents. I really don't know what she associates him to because when I gave her a kiss tonight she looked at me and very excitedly said, "Santa!" She has really enjoyed seeing the lights and decorations on the way home this year. She also was able to decorate the tree more this year than she did last year. She's done a very good job of leaving the tree alone...last year she pulled the ornaments off and would try to eat the tree and all that good stuff lol. It's just another reminder of how fast and how much she is growing. I'd like to edit some of the Christmas video from last year to reminisce and then compare to this year's...when that happens of coarse. I know this post is nothing real real exciting and probably is not worth reading, but it will be to me lol. I hope to be able to post something every night this week to lead up to Christmas.

Still Smiling...I think

This week just seems to have been a really crazy week. It seems as if the devil is running rampant and he is still at it. I will spare you the boring details of my week with the exception of a few things. Before I start I want to say that last weekend while my niece's were with us, I attempted to build a gingerbread house with them so they could decorate it. I apparently do not apply enough icing because the silly house just kept falling down. I finally just had to divide the candy up and give them the candy to eat and spread some icing on the gingerbread for them to eat lol. I think I need to buy another one and practice so next year they can decorate. So if you are on my facebook you know I've been having car problems. Little did I know two days after posting about my car that my car would end up leaving me and Maddy stranded. I know my car pretty well and realized right before I was fixing to get on the interstate something was really wrong. I did say a quick prayer at the red light and as soon as I could go, my car wouldn't go which told me do NOT get on the interstate. Out of all the places to pull in, I pulled into a funeral home...kinda funny since my car died. Anyways, my step dad checked out the transmission and oil and everything seemed ok so he drove it around the parking lot. It gave him no trouble and I kinda think he didn't fully believe what I was saying. So my mom drove his truck and he was going to drive my car. He chose to get on the interstate and the minute we hit the ramp he was pulled over. When he got to the truck he said something along the lines of I see what you're saying lol. I've had the car approximately seven years and this is the first time anything major has broken on it. It's never left me stranded and has held up really well. I highly recommend Honda's...especially if you have children. I decided to wait until today to have it towed so we could figure out where the best place to look at it would be. The good news is I don't think I will need a whole new transmission, but time will soon tell. It's currently sitting at a shop and I am waiting to hear back from them to see what they find out. So far I really like the person who is diagnosing it. To diagnose the problem he only charges $37.50 and he said if they work on it it will be $65 an hour. Did I need this to happen right here at Christmas time? Not really, but at the same time I have had the determination this year to not let the devil take away my joy. He has done a fine job at trying to break me but I know God is in control and I trust Him to lead me. I still have no clue whether or not I owe money to the IRS so that's on me and then this car expense is on me. Thank goodness I already had Maddy's Christmas before this happened. I spent the day riding around with my mom and boy did we have a busy day! I had planned on trying to finish up my Christmas shopping today so we worked that in with my mom's work and personal schedule. One place we went to was the mall and I was disappointed because the Christmas pj's I was going to get Maddy were gone and nobody had anything like what I was wanting. I found some at Dillard's but they weren't on sale and cost $26. There was no way I could justify paying $26 for pj's for a two year old. I settled on a gown I found at Belk that was on sale and I think it will look really cute on Maddy...or Maddy will make IT look really cute lol.

After figuring out her PJ situation we went over to the Christmas ornament booth. We found this booth for Maddy's first Christmas and they seem to have made a hit. Every year, even before Maddy, I always get some kind of special ornament. My special ornaments now are more for Maddy but they are so fun to buy. I got two this year, one for me and Maddy and then I got Manny his own. Manny is a big part of mine and Maddy's life/family and we love him to death. He is such a sweet and loving dog and I just am so thankful I rescued him 4 years ago. Here are the pics:

It is so hard for me to believe that Christmas is next week!!! I am not at all ready for this season to end. I've really enjoyed the Christmas season this year and want it to hang on a little longer lol. In the words of Santa, "Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas!"