Christmas with the Stewarts

Christmas Eve

She wouldn't show us the
band-aid without opening her mouth.

Big Sarah came over to visit on Christmas Eve. We intended to share gifts, frost cookies for Santa, eat pizza, and watch the Empire Strikes Back.  It'd been a few days since A & X had seen Big Sarah, so there was mandatory running around and playing. In the midst of the shenanigans, Ainsley fell and busted her lip. The only thing that would soothe the whining beast was a Princess band-aid and free reign of the camera.

Ainsley has recently discovered the joys of taking pictures. I'll probably toss together a blog post about it in the future. You can behold her handiwork here though. I love this picture she took of Xander.

This is the face Xander makes
at Ainsley.

We had so much fun, we barely had time to get the presents from Big Sarah and the Christmas Eve presents opened. Big Sarah got Xander a bunch of fun animal stuff and Weebles. Ainsley got Princess Princess Princess stuff, of course.

Once we got the cookies decorated, Ainsley picked one of each cookie to put out for Santa. At the time of setting out the cookies and milk, A was into a hardcore game of puppy.

Puppies panting over
Santa's cookies and milk.

Once the children got all nestled snug in their beds, we got to work finishing up Christmas fixings...and I put together the overnight French toast casserole. The tree and presents were so lovely I snapped a few pics.

Christmas Day

Ainsley and the Princess Collective

The Chrismas melee began later than I expected; apparently shenanigans with Big Sarah tuckered them out. A and X slept in until almost 9:00--well, A slept in, X quietly played in his crib. Ainsley was really excited about presents; Xander was indifferent. Santa presents were first. 

I got her to look at me by
saying, "Is Santa on my head?"

Since the ToysRUs Big Book came out, Ainsley has been asking anyone who will listen for the princesses and their castle. Santa found an awesome sale on the Princess Collective on Target's Black Friday sale (what? Santa can outsource!). Grandma Fitzgerald and Pawpaw provided the castle. As she was opening Santa's present, Ainsley was insanely cute. "OOH! Oh my gosh! I've always been wanting this!" We mete out freeing the princesses all day today. She got Ariel straight away (walking mermaid is her favorite). Then she would get princesses for good behavior, skyping with family and cleaning up her room to make space for the castle. 

Xander and the Busy Box

The Princess Collective has already had many adventures--most of them naked. They're hanging out in Noah's ark naked. They lay around naked. The Princess Collective is kinda slutty. It's currently sleeping in a bed next to Ainsley's crib. I had her tuck them in...and she had to hug and kiss each of them goodnight. It was adorable.

Xander was cagier and didn't tell Santa what he wanted. Luckily, Santa knows that Xander loves puzzles and brought him a busy box. He found the busy box pretty exciting once we got it opened. But really, he was more interested in the DVD of How to Train Your Dragon that Grandma McGhee got him. He's been big into dragons lately.

How to Train Your Dragon
is engaging.

His favorite thing, however, ended up being the light saber candy toy that came in Sean's stocking. He loved it. So, Momma's gonna hit Meijer's after Christmas sale to see if they have any left over. Doubtful, but I'll check. Of course, the moment that X showed interest in it, A had to confiscate it. Notice the look of despair on his face when she took it...and the joy of getting it back.

After presents, we ate the casserole...and it was DELICIOUS. We then did some Skyping with family and then came naps. I cooked a ham for dinner and we ate. But mostly, the kids just played with their toys, and Sean and I rested; I'm still in my pajamas (mission accomplished, Sarah!). It was difficult to make the decision to not travel on Christmas anymore. We do enjoy being with the family on the holidays, but after the wonderful Christmas we had, I know we made the right decision.

My view of Christmas morning...lovely.

The Gingerbread House: Momma Lets It All Go!

Ainsley at work and Xander
at, well, eating.

Now that the semester is over, I can dedicate some time to serious chilling. Part of that is making some hard core memories with the chilluns.  Tonight's episode: the gingerbread house. 

For those of you unaware of my FB commentary, a friend Karly posted pictures of the gingerbread house she made with her kids. I decided that one of my rewards would be trying this with the kids. I was nervous because of my hard core perfection issues. But I decided to do it. If nothing else, I can use it as a "hey, I'm trying to work through my issues" moment with my therapist.

I had to threaten her to get
her to look at the camera.

I put the house together and made one major mistake: I cut the icing bag hole too large. This began the icing apocalypse...it was everywhere and it was nasty thick. 

I had the candies in a jar (I bought some extra M&Ms and Hershey's Kisses to supplement the nasty candy that came with the kit). In the minutes it took me to get things together, Xander assaulted the candy bowls. After a while, I had to hold him away from the dishes. Candy is awesome--no doy.

Bossing her little brother.
Yes, that's candy in his mouth.

I started just showing her how to put the candies on the icing and let her go. Of course, her first action was to follow my lead and use the same kinds of candies in the same places I had. Then she moved onto dividing the candies into their own piles. Candy segregation is important to Ainsley.

 A was pretty serious about the decorating, but X was more interested in flitting about the living room being all hopped up on sugar.

The mini-tripod Sean got me
for Christmas last year is
coming in handy.

As we worked on the house, I just kept thinking about what a hot mess it was turning out to be. Then out of nowhere, Ainsley says, "This is bad." I said, "No! It's wonderful!" Then we both laughed a while. It was one of those transcendent moments where I felt like when she's an adult A and I will have similar laughs like these. Plus, you have to give credit to A's aesthetic. The girl knows when a gingerbread house looks like a train wreck. If I'd just bought the gingerbread train kit, the metaphor would have been complete.

Deigning to decorate.

I didn't stress out as much as I thought I would. It was sticky and gooey and the candy is likely gross (save the M&Ms and Hershey's Kisses, natch), but we had fun. Sean was downstairs playing Star Wars Old Republic (or whatever the new one is called), and when he came up the first thing that Ainsley said was, "Daddy!! Look at my house!"  

Testing out her handiwork

"It's great!" says Sean.

"It's bad!" says, Ainsley. 

JUST like the one on the box!