The Brown Bunch: January 2009

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Santa Secrets.....Sssshhhh!!!

Tyler's Santa Gift- Nintendo DS & a game and his special sleigh bell

Rylee's Santa gift- Wii & Mario Kart and her special Sleigh Bell

Before Christmas I just put a couple of wrapped presents for each kid under the tree. Then on Christmas Eve, after we go thru all of our traditions, and the kids go to bed, I put the rest of their presents from us under the tree and Santa leaves his "big Santa gifts" and fills their stockings. Every Christmas the kids write a letter to Santa to leave with the cookies and milk and have been asking for him to leave a half eaten cookie, etc. Well this year Rylee decided to step it up a little to see if Santa really "is real"!! She asked (the day before Christmas may I add!) for him to leave them the usual cookie and also a bell from his sleigh!! So mommy got a little creative this year- I ran up to walmart and bought 2 big bells from the ornament section and some spray glitter. I also found some cute really big gift tags. I always buy some sort of Santa wrapping paper without the kids and wrap their "Santa gifts" in it and throw it away without them seeing- wasteful I know but gotta destroy the evidence!! Well this year I wrapped their presents and sprayed them down with the glitter and did the same to the "sleigh bells". The kids went crazy- those bells def. came from Santa's sleigh...they even have glitter on them from the reindeer food we put in the yard- that's what Rylee said!! .....Well that just made all the work worth it!!

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Family Traditions

Each year, growing up my parents would always let my brother & I open 1 present on Christmas Eve and it was always PJ's. So since I have had children we have continued this tradition...of course I feel bad that they are getting just jammies so I also let them open one other small present. It is so funny because now they just expect it as I did and it has become pretty funny!! This year also my parents came over to join in on the fun. We also have a couple of other Christmas Eve traditions- we bake cookies for Santa and leave them on a special plate for him and let the kids leave their letters for him too. They have a great time baking and decorating the cookies and pouring the milk for him. They also write their letters and the last 2 years have started asking for Santa to leave them things. This year they wanted him to leave "bells from his sleigh"....DEAR LORD!! So of course- I go out to Walmart at the last minute and buy these big bells and spray them down with glitter spray to make them sparkly. ...Anyway, after we set out our cookies and open the 2 gifts we make the reindeer food. We have done this since Rylee was probably 2 years old- we take silver glitter and a couple packs of cinnamon apples oatmeal in a ziploc bag and shake it up. We then take them out to the front yard and let them sprinkle the food all over the yard! It is sooo much fun and they get the biggest kick out of it! I just love this age- they are really able to understand everything that is going on and participate but are still innocent enough to BELIEVE!! I will be soo sad to see it end that is why I go thru as much as I do to make it as fun as I can for them!! Well here are some pics of Christmas Eve- I will add more Christmas soon!