Dear Santa,

So last year Payton asked for a certain gift just a few days before Christmas and Santa could not find it. And she was really sad about that... So this year we started early and she has her top 4 requests. Baby Alive goes potty (oh joy!), bendaroos (yeah right, we gave that request to Grandma), baby Cinderella (not sure what that even is), and Barbie The Diamond Castle Liana and Alexa barbies, oh and she requested the "boy Ian Barbie" from The Diamond Castle as well. She received the boy Barbie (she says that it is Jeremy) for her birthday, but in the movie he is a twin, hence she wants another one..... Addie is really easy still, she loves just about anything. This will probably be the last year she will not request anything specific. And she will not be disappointed either... We keep trying to tell Payton that Santa can't bring her every toy that she sees on TV. We hate Nick Jr. for those commercials! Addie and Payton did receive a Barbie house from us, and they got that last weekend (we are in the UP for Christmas). Brian keeps saying to me "Tina, I just really don't want to play with these girl toys!" Well hun, you had better quit doing those fun voices you do when you play with the girls! They just eat that up!

Rudolph..

so the red nosed reindeer is a major favorite in our house. We have the DVD, thank goodness! Addie will grab my hand and start jabbering (a lot of the time she just rambles away and we have no clue what she is saying!) and then will proceed to drag me over to our entertainment center. I will say "Do you want to watch Rudolph again?" Her answer is to scream with delight as I get the DVD in. The she dances around the living room clapping and jumping until it starts. Then it is silence for about 40 minutes. LOVING Rudolph! Addie is not a big TV girl, so this is quite different for her!

Trying something new...

So Payton has really been struggling to be good in school the last 2 weeks or so. This week we had not so great reports on Monday and Tuesday. She is acting defiant with her teachers, not listening and basically being naughty! We are quite concerned about it, although her teachers assure me that this is normal and that she certainly isn't the biggest handful they have. They just wanted to be sure that we were all on the same page as to where to draw the line with Payton. The Christmas program is tomorrow night and they actually have a lot of kids out of sorts with the holidays coming. I am really hoping that she is just overwhelmed with all of our holiday festivities. Last week we were busy every night! Anyway... first thing to go is TV. She loves to watch a show when she gets home from school, which is good for us to so we can make dinner! Monday and Tuseday she was TV free. You should have heard the fuss... until she realizes that she has a ton of toys she can play with. So we brainstormed and we now have a calendar in her room and are rewarding her with a sticker when she has had a good day. This reminds me of our "potty chart" we used to have before she was potty trained! Anyway on Wednesday I had called her teacher during nap time to see how she was doing, and good job girl! She was doing "excellent". So Payton ran into her room when she got home to put a sticker on her calendar. So far so good.

On a sidenote, our children have finally been initiated into the macdonald's playland... We went last night with a couple of friends. They couldn't believe that we had never set foot in our MacDonald's before! We rarely eat fast food, and if we do it is convience and we go through the drive through... How are we going to get away with that now?! Guess we had a good run anyway!