The (not so) perfect pictures with Santa

I think I have given up on getting that perfect picture of my kids with Santa. I have lots of perfect pictures of Anna with Santa, but that's where it ends. Alex has never been a fan of "characters"- Santa, Easter Bunny, etc. We try every year, and every year he refuses. He has been known to send his requests with Anna or to just mail his letters to Santa and I guess that works for him. Anna, on the other hand adores Santa. She has seen the same Santa every year and to her, this really is the Santa she knows. Sarah was extremely excited to see Santa until she got closer. Then, the only way I could get her to go any further was with bribery from Santa in the form of candy. She was, however, fascinated with Santa's reindeer and was trying to get in the cage with them. Oh well, here are our (almost) perfect pictures :)

 (proof that Alex did actually come with)

Jesus loves the little children....all the children of the world (well, hopefully even ours)...

Sometimes it's hard to have such perfect kids. I mean, they are so darn good, honest, holy and obedient, it just makes our heads spin! And, so, I would like to offer some words of advice for those who are trying to get their children to be as good....

• Encourage them to respect all holy figures. Under no circumstances let them grab the virgin Mary statue around the neck and shake her in utter frustration of being stuck among such holy figures.
• In the same manner, make sure they understand the meaning of the Nativity scene. Whatever you do, do not allow them to chew on the baby Jesus, especially until the point of nearly gnawing off the legs.
• Help them with their prayers. When they state they are "hardly sorry for their sins", make sure you correct it to "heartily sorry" instead of mumbling under your breath how the first statement actually made more sense.
• Make sure they understand and practice for their sacraments. Specifically when practicing for their first confession, calmly correct them when they pronoune penance as "penis". Under no circumstances laugh so hard that you cry and are completely unable to go any further with the "practice confession".

Like I said, it's darn hard raising such religious and well-behaved kids. But, we are trying :)

How to Sarah proof your Christmas Decorations

No judging allowed! When I mentioned to a few people that we were delaying and way scaling back our Christmas decorations this year because of Sarah, I got a few looks. Some understood. Others gave advice. "Just tell her no", "Put all the breakable ornaments up high", "Put a gate around the tree". No offense, but clearly none of these people actually know Sarah. To tell Sarah "no" for the 15 hours a day that she is awake (which is how many hours she is in trouble), is plain ridiculous. Putting the ornaments up high is really just a bigger challenge to her. She can climb, and I really do mean climb. Still waiting for the day I find her on top of the cupboards in the kitchen- it's coming, I know it is. Gates are really just a useless invention meant to keep out "normal" 2 year olds. Sarah can not only climb them, she actually knows how to unlatch and open any gate we could possibly put up, so why bother? So, instead, we decorated in our own, "Sarah-proof" way. In case you have a similar 2 year old at your house, here are the recommended steps:

Step 1-  Make sure the Nativity scene is completely unbreakable. This will mean that none of the actual animals that belong in the scene will be able to come out of the box this year. Instead, use various other animals you find around the house- turtles, elephants, deer, dogs, warthogs and hippos. A real "equal opportunity" type manger scene. (in case you are wondering the people in the nativity scene are plastic- unbreakable, but the animals we have for it are ceramic, thus why they will not visit this year)

Step 2-  Find as many stuffed animals that have the color "red" on them as you can. These can double as pillows for a soft landing under the tree and add some festive "Christmas" color to the house.

Step 3- Break the older one's hearts by letting them know that absolutely none of their cherished ornaments they have ever received will be coming out of storage this year :(

Step 4- Tell them, that instead, a whole bag of "not such a big deal if they break" wooden ornaments will don the tree this year.

 Step 5- Realize that within the first 30 seconds of said wooden ornaments being introduced, there will be casualties. Expect them and move on.
Step 6- Make sure to allow a path for Sarah to get behind the tree. If you don't do this, she will find a way anyways and likely knock over the tree.

Step 7- Quickly take a picture

 Step 8- Realize that while the tree doesn't really look the same without all of our favorite "stuff" on it and that there will be absolutely no presents under it until Christmas morning (I don't feel like re-wrapping everything), it is still beautiful and it is still Christmas, with Sarah :)



So, what has Anna been up to?

Seems I've been posting a lot about Alex and Sarah and kind of neglecting the middle child.....so, here you go :)

Anna has become quite the little gymnast. She is going twice a week now and the progress is amazing. I am incredibly proud of her :) I have to admit, I selfishly like going to gymnastics because it's so fun to watch. As a kid I used to love when gymnastics was on TV. For me, it's really great....and since Anna absolutely loves it, it makes it double fun :)

 I had the opportunity several weeks back (notice there was no snow, so this was pre-Halloween) to spend the day with Anna at the MN Zoo. It was such a fun day, just Anna and I. We visited Scarecrow Alley which I had never seen before. Pretty impressive. Anna wanted to pose with every single scarecrow (I think there were like 50). I only put my favorites on here- you get the point :) Anna is growing up so much and yet she so wants to be my little baby somedays. It's a hard age, being 6. For now I am just glad that I am still her best friend- hopefully this will last a bit longer :)

Isn't she so darn cute???