"Brooming" update

All pretense of work has ceased. Now they are dancing and playing air guitar on their brooms, to the musical card that HRH got in the mail yesterday..."Rockin' around the Christmas tree" by Miley Cyrus.

This reminded Olivia that we didn't get out last year's musical cards to listen to. In protest of my lax Christmas-card-fetching, she's sitting alone in a chair, doing the sad "Do do do, do dooooo" from Charlie Brown. Which means I am off to rummage around and find last year's musical cards.

Stay tuned for more singing, dancing and air guitar, live from Casa De La Garza.

Christmas with the Princess

Yesterday was Christmas, and HRH had a great day. We opened gifts at home, then went to Nathan and Gretchen's for lunch. After we came home, we talked to all of our family in Indiana. Aunt-Cousin Tory even got a drum serenade (after which she proclaimed Olivia to be "a little Dave Grohl!")

From Santa, Olivia got a real drum set, so the she can practice her lessons at home. Mommy got a Costco-sized bottle of Motrin and some earplugs.

OK, not really, but they are now on her wish list. Olivia was so excited when she saw them, that she said, "The elves did too much! They even set it up!" Apparently, she has learned that setting up a drum set is not as easy as it looks. :)

Other favorite gifts were her Barbie townhouse (with doors tall enough for Molly to walk through the house) and a remote-controlled flying saucer.

A couple of Princess quotes:

"Santa is SO nice! He knows I have sneezes" (when she got some decorated tissues in her stocking)

"Mom, I thought you'd like gold and gold, 'cause you're worth a million bucks!" (on why she put two gold bows on my present)

Olivia's Christmas note to Max

Olivia just sneaked into my room to wrap her gift for her Daddy (which she thought of on her own and paid for with her own money) and wanted to show me what she'd written on his card: "Daddy, I hope your Christmas is better than mine!"

I was a bit concerned and asked her if she was upset about something this Christmas and she replied, "No, Mom! I really mean it! My Christmas is great and I hope Daddy's is even better!"

Christmas Pictures

Merry Christmas! Doesn't she look like a big girl? We just got home from having Christmas pictures taken. This is one of my favorites.

I will be mailing some pictures, and hopefully posting some more online so you can see the others.

Lazy Christmas-y Day

Today has been one of those lazy days that I love. We are still getting work done, but it's totally relaxed and on our own schedule. We slept late, and are enjoying the gray day outside because our Christmas tree lights look nice even in the middle of the day!

The only things we *have* to do are go for pictures of HRH at 3:40, and find a place to watch the Colts game on NFL Network tonight. For this reason (the Thursday night game) I am skipping out on my Moms' Coffee Night with the homeschool moms in my neighborhood...a girl has to have her priorities, and very few things come in ahead of PeytiePie.

Olivia is currently working on her handwriting assignment. When she was in Kindergarten, they were so picky about handwriting and made so many corrections in bright red ink that she would cry when it came time to do handwriting homework. Thanks a lot, Mrs. Allen.

After a year and a half of homeschool, I am happy to report that her handwriting is wonderful. And she doesn't cry when I ask her to do it! She actually likes to write now, and is always making cards for friends, etc. It just takes a while because she works so hard to do her best. For that, I am very thankful. We start cursive next week, and she is thrilled about that! (In the time it's taken me to type this, she has finished her assigned work and is doing extra handwriting...filling out her Hannah Montana Christmas cards)

I need to come up with some snacks, crafts, activities, etc. for the Christmas party Olivia and I are hosting Monday for her friends. I found a great Martha Stewart craft (I know...Martha Stewart does NOT live here...but I *do* read her website occasionally) to attach felt or cardstock mittens to clothes pins and put a magnet on the back. I think we might make some of those with cute Christmas cardstock & stickers, then "laminate" them with contact paper. And of course there will be wassail, or hot chocolate, even if my friends are not big fans of hot drinks. Maybe it'll be cool and dreary out so we can light the fire in the fireplace!

We're back to blogging!

Yeah, I know, I've been a lazy blogger. Very lazy. In my defense, I had some distractions over the summer, including being out of town for about a month. Then I sort of forgot that I had a blog. Whoops!

Anyway, I'm back to blogging and hope to keep up with what is going on here at Casa De La Garza.

Today, we put up our Christmas tree. It's a beauty. We have an artificial tree, but it's full and pretty, and looks amazing with all of our special ornaments on it. It's about 12 feet tall, so it's a chore to get the lights and ornaments on the top, but totally worth the effort.

Now that it's up, we'll leave it up well into January. I love sitting in the dark with the tree lights on.

Olivia had a great time unwrapping the ornaments and remembering the story behind them. She did not remember the Royal Doulton 2001 ornament from Aunt Ronya and Uncle Jim, and she made a big fuss over it. It has a picture of Mary and Baby Jesus, painted onto a china plaque.

We also added a few new ornaments to our tree: A Hannah Montana ornament that plays "The Best of Both Worlds", a Peyton Manning limited edition ornament and a bulb ornament full of Tootsie Rolls that Olivia bought for me at Target this week. I was able to have the ornament to put on the tree but can't eat my Tootsie Rolls until Christmas.

Right now, the Princess is happily occupied watching "Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer and the Island of Misfit Toys", a rather odd sequel to the original Rudolph. I have to say, it just isn't Rudolph without the stop-motion animation. Olivia doesn't seem to care. Maybe it's all the sugar running through her veins...she's working on a big mug of marshmallow-lovers hot cocoa, courtesy of her Memaw.