Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Christmas Day 2012

So, I took pictures of the girls giving Jake his presents.
Lydia and Samantha took pictures of me getting my presents.
And then the camera grew legs and walked away.
For reals.
It was freaky, you should'a been here, it was rad.

REALLY what happened is I was just on the floor enjoying them opening and loving all their little 'things' and while they were opening and enjoying 'things' I was enjoying THEM.

But it would have been rad to see my camera grow legs...I'm just sayin'.


the last several years I have taken the girls thrift storing for Jake's presents, it's a blast and they always do so great!!!

 Jake gets fancier than me ;-)
 by the way.
if you turn all pictures of yourself black and white, no one will notice how scary you look in the mornings.

 see, I'll show ya:
scary:
not so scary:

the girls had a great morning.

before we opened jammies last night I reminded them of the ONLY THINGS you say when opening presents.
1. Thank you - if you aren't super excited about it.
2. Thank you, I LOVE it - if you are super excited about it.

and that. is. it.
NOTHING else comes out of your mouth. (unless you're elaborating on #2, then go right ahead!)

capisce?
(I totally had to look that up)

Why did we need to review this you ask?
If you have kids, you did not ask, you know
 but I'll tell ya anyway, it will make you feel good about your mothering skills.

Over Thanksgiving we did a little gift exchange with my parents.
Lenora opened up her adorable gift and her first response was, 
"Is that it?" (yes, in 'that' tone, the snotty-I'm-spoiled tone.)

Embarrassed. Mad. Shocked. Sad.
Just to name a few of the emotions that raged to the surface.

I wanted to......
Well, for safety sake I won't put what I wanted to do.

Not really.

When that stuff happens, for some reason, I take it on myself.
Like the, I didn't teach her the right way so why would she know any better, kind of taking it on.

So.
She got 'told' that day and heavily reminded last night.
heavily.

Which means today went well.

No complaining, no arguing.
Just sweetness.

Truly, it was sweet.

This little family of ours.
It's a cute one.
Needs heavy reminders, but cute.

the camera came back out eventually, it always does!
especially for
the mother of all ring pops:
 and it's sisters:
 Merry Christmas from the Panter Ladies to you:

we just hung out after this.
I went on a run, Jake shot some baskets, we cleaned a little and again, just hung out.

later on we had this crew over for Lasagna, Bread, Salad and lovin' on:
now THAT is a birthday party crew!

and I sorta promised I wouldn't post the out-takes but really, I just had too:





these people are deep in our hearts...deep.
WE LOVE YOU!!!!! and we couldn't have thought of a better crew to wrap up our Christmas day with.
People who love Jesus, people who are easy to feed (simply because they eat whatever I put in front of them!), people who love my kids almost as much as I do.
People who can still call it a Merry Christmas even if we sit around the dinner table hashing out the abuse of the welfare system and the effects it has on foster care ;-).
Perfection.

4 comments:

Missy said...

Agreed, perfection. :~) Those weird ring pops are hilarious. Love whatever twin is cross eyein' it in her photo! And, I didn't even notice your so called scary morning face, my eyes went straight to the apparent British flag on your sweater....where'd that come from?!

Missy said...

Oh, and I know you didn't get new pj's like the girls for Christmas...but did you wear your new Wonder Woman caped socks?! The cape makee your ankles extra warm in the mornings! True fact.

Courtney said...

i love when you write like that in your posts - where i can HEAR you :-)

looks like a great day!

Anonymous said...

Honestly one of my favorite days!
I wont cry, I swear I wont at the thought of being so far away from your amazing family!
Your presence will be missed greatly!
Thank you so much for the love!