Blog Exclusive

Because I have been slacking, here is a blog-exclusive photo. It's cute.

Santa

Meredith asked Santa for two things. An Easy Bake Oven and a dolly. Santa brought her both. Much to Mommy's delight, both require me to buy 'maintenance' things. The Easy Bake Oven requires special mixes that must be purchased at the store. And they aren't exactly cheap for a mix that makes the equivalent to 1 regular cookie. But she loves it so I digress.

Santa also brought Meredith a Baby Alive doll which pees and poops. This also requires special diapers and food mixes. But she loves this too. **sigh**

See the poo?

One other gift Meredith got for Christmas from Mom and Dad was this set of pop beads. I contemplated whether it was worth the price when I first got it but it has been a huge hit. I'm so glad I didn't take it back to the store. She spends hours playing with them making necklaces, bracelets and rings. She tells me every day how much she loves it.

On a totally random note, my Christmas Cactus is finally blooming! This plant rarely blooms for me and I've had it for over 10 years. It must have 15-20 blooms on it this year but what's weird is that all the blooms are on one specific side of this huge plant. They formed on the side facing the wall. I have turned the blooms to face the kitchen now.

Bug Sucker

On Christmas Day, we spent the morning with Lois Andersen (one of Greg's relatives) and they we Skyped with the Florida Carlsons as we opened gifts. After that, we headed up to Robin and Irene's house in Amery, WI. It was a great day but the highlight of the day came when Chris ate a sucker. Not just any sucker... a bug sucker.

Janis had asked me if she could give Meredith a sucker she got at the Science Museum that had a cricket in the middle of it. I told her to go ahead and that Mer probably wouldn't want anything to do with it. A few minutes later, Meredith comes running up to me all excited and asking me if she could eat her sucker. She didn't realize there was a bug in it. I asked her if she really wanted to eat a sucker with a bug in it and her smile went away and was replaced by a look of disgust. Then she was so upset she began crying.

To try to cheer her up, we told her to go give it to her uncle Chris to see if he would eat it. He started off sucking on it but nobody thought it would go as far as it did.

She was excited to see him sucking on it.

The faces she made. LOL.

Here is the video for you enjoyment. The things that an uncle will do to impress his niece. The good part is about 1:30 in.

Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas Eve at the Schwake house. We enjoyed ham, appetizers, cookies, and candy galore. A certain little blondie was super excited all day about opening presents and she took every opportunity to hand out gifts and help open them. That works out great for us adults because no one likes to get up out of their seat to go pick out a present to hand out.

This picture was taken before we headed down to the farm. Dad and all his girls.

And just because she's so darn cute in her reindeer jammies.

Did I mention how excited someone was to open presents?

She didn't miss an opportunity.

Someone got tired before the end of the night. Cheeks anyone?