Christmas week is here…

"There's nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child."
-Erma Bombeck

Christmas isn’t a day, it’s a weeklong event.  Leading up to Christmas is the Santa cookie baking, ornament building, last minute shopping, wrapping, Christmas pictures, Christmas Eve dinner, and the yearly family photos.  It’s a lot of buildup for an event that, for the kids, lasts 30 minutes.  Luckily most of the things leading up to Christmas are fun, and it helps tire the kids out so they can go to sleep on Christmas Eve.

Christmas morning finally arrived at the Flinn house and it took everything we had to keep the older two kids from charging down the stairs and leaving Isla behind.  We somehow managed so all three kids were able to rush into the living room at the same time to see what Santa had brought them.  They dug into the presents with gusto and seemed to like all their gifts.  Especially James, who was incredibly excited about every present he opened.  See pictures below for proof.

Spoiled kids don’t just get one Christmas, so after we finished at our house we packed up the car and headed to Nina and Papa’s for more presents, the traditional Flinn family breakfast with enough food to feed a neighborhood, and some quality holiday time with family.  The cousins had fun playing together, and the adults enjoyed watching the kids have fun while drinking mimosas.

Incredibly spoiled kids don’t get just two Christmases, and because our kids fit into this category we took them to one more Christmas.  This time it was at Grandma and Grandpa’s, and once again the kids had fun opening their presents and sneaking bites of candy when they didn’t think they were being watched.

Another Christmas is in the books, and another year comes to a close.  This was a busy one.  Merry Christmas!

Towers, laundry, and another visit from Santa…

"Is James your boyfriend?"
"Yes, because I just love him so much".
-James' friend from school

Isla has been very excited lately about her skills with the Magna-tiles.  Not to be outdone, the older siblings built their own tower to show Isla how it’s done.  Okay okay, you caught me.  I built it to show Isla how tall you could make the tower.  It was destroyed less than 1 minute after I walked out of the room.

“Do your laundry” is something parents have been saying to their children for years, with varying degrees of success.  Some days are easier than others.  Sunday was not one of those days.  We put the laundry down, instructed them to sort and fold, and came back 2 minutes later to this:

We seem to have a birthday party every weekend, and this weekend was no different.  This time it was at a gymnastics place that smelled like feet.  They had a lot for the kids to do though, and Ashlyn and James were able to work out some energy running and bouncing everywhere.  Isla wasn’t feeling very adventurous and stayed close to us.  That was until the cake came out.  As soon as cake appeared Isla was more than happy to join the party.

Santa made his way to James and Isla’s school this week.  James did his fake smile thing, so at least he tried to play along.  Isla on the other hand wanted nothing to do with Santa.  Even with one of her teachers holding her, she gave the person taking the picture her “be glad the camera is out of reach” look.

Indoors, outdoors, and a visit to Santa…

"Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want - and their kids pay for it."
-Richard Lamm

Winter months are hard because the kids would rather be outside playing.  Truth be told, we would also like them to be outside playing.  Normally in these situations our home is filled with the sounds of loud laughing and occasionally screaming children.  We worry when it gets quiet.  Sometimes though our worry isn’t warranted.

Because we live in the great state of Texas, it can turn from jackets and hot chocolate weather to t-shirts and bikes weather overnight.  When that happens, you can bet we’re going to take advantage of it.  This time the kids ran, biked, and even skated around in our short lived mid-winter warm front.

We also had a birthday party this weekend for one of Ashlyn’s friends.  The whole family was invited, and I’m glad we took them all.  All of them had a great time.  Ashlyn found some of her old friends from kindergarten, James found his friend Bailey from Montessori, and Isla roamed around on her own playing with anything she could get her hands on.

The parenting brochure said that yearly Christmas pictures with Santa are required as part of the package (lesson learned, always read the print).  We got there an hour early and it still took us almost two hours to get out of there.  As it turns out, Isla is still not ready for Santa, and the picture below is the best one we got.  Oh well, at least I got a good picture of Ashlyn and Isla entertaining themselves in line.