The Christmas Pajama Reindeer

This morning we got our annual visit from the Christmas Pajama Reindeer. As usual, he delivered our new pajamas under our tree, all wrapped up nicely.

 I think Vanessa and Jeff were the only ones really excited, though.

But, it is Christmas Eve, so that could explain their excitement, too.

Yay for new Christmas pajamas!

New blog header

I'm not much of a Photoshop person, but it was time to retire the previous header. That one was taken 2 years ago, so it was time. I know it's not anything spectacular, but it needed to be updated.

Plus, I'm kinda proud of how the picture turned out, lol.

Christmas Advent Calendars

Advent calendars have been a cherished tradition in our family since the Crack Monkeys were old enough to realize the fun in opening a small gift everyday until Christmas. My boys have always been Lego fans, so every year we'd get them one of those Lego advent calendars, while Vanessa settled for a Littlest Pet Shop one.

This year, with the new Star Wars movie being released right before Christmas, the advent calendar for 2015 sold out super fast. I looked everywhere, but couldn't find any at a reasonable price (a guy in China had bought several and was selling them for $250 on Amazon; no thanks!). And, the Littlest Pet Shop ones that were available were actually collectibles, so the prices for those were ridiculous as well.

So, what's a mama to do?

After a couple days of brainstorming, this is what I did....

I bought the 3 youngest ones (Ryan stopped with the advent calendars a few years ago) a separate stocking from the ones for Santa, then bought small items to put in them everyday. For the boys, I bought Halo mystery packs, Star Wars Micro Machines, Minecraft figurines, mini Star Wars Lego sets, stickers, playing cards, etc. For Vanessa, I got mini Littlest Pet Shop figurines, My Little Pony dolls, LPS mystery packs, MLP mystery packs, and candy.

It was somewhat hard to limit myself to just a few small items; there were a ton of things that I'm sure the kids would enjoy that I found in the dollar aisles. So hard, but I resisted.

Besides, it was all worth it and fun seeing them get so excited over these small toys. Some might say they're spoiled, but, I don't really mind. I spend the rest of the year couponing and saving money, and who better to splurge all of that extra cash than my kids?

Yeah, that didn't sound snotty at all. Sorry.

Sort of.

Anyway, Merry Christmas!

Christmas Ornament Tradition

When our 2 oldest kids were younger, Scott and I started the tradition of letting the boys choose a brand new Christmas ornament for our tree. I had read about it on one of the Christmas forums I was a part of: the thought was that if you bought one each year until your child leaves home, then they'll have their own set of ornaments for their own tree. I thought it was a great idea, considering Scott and I had nothing when we got married and had our first Christmas together.

So every year, after we set up our Christmas tree, we take the kids out to go shopping for their ornaments. Since Christmas stuff starts appearing in the stores around Halloween, I always take notes of any stores that have any ornaments that might interest my kids, but lately, they've always found what they wanted at Target. It's a fun tradition that the kids anticipate and they take really seriously.

Here's this year's choices....

Vanessa fell in love with Sven the moment she saw him. I guess the whole "let it go!" message doesn't apply to her love for all things Frozen!

 Jeff decided on BB-8 from the upcoming Star Wars movie, which he's really excited for!

Ethan is my Star Wars buff, so it was no surprise that he chose a stormtrooper ornament.

Ryan's choice really surprised me, although Vanessa was excited to see him pick Olaf from Frozen. I guess the magical snowman really does appeal to everyone.

Naturally, the kids' sets have grown as they've gotten older, but it's quite exciting to look over the list of ornaments they've collected so far. I'm now in the process of separating their ornaments into separate containers to make it easier to keep track of everything and of course, for storage, but it's proving to be a bit harder to do in the midst of Christmas celebrations.

In the meantime, we'll just enjoy this year's ornaments decorating our tree. :-)