the long and winding road...

Proof
of Santa's existence... the milk and cookies are gone! There could be no other explanation other than the big red man coming to our house to partake. Could there? Actually, G was a bit disappointed. After hearing for weeks that Santa was going to come to our house and bring gifts, she was a bit miffed to come down the stairs that morning to find that he wasn't there waiting for her. She looked at the plate and I could read the thoughts behind the expression "you mean he ate my cookies, drank my milk, fed my carrot to the reindeer and then took off???"

Us: "Look Georgie! Santa came to our house"
G: "Where is he?"
Us: "uhhh... He had to go but he left presents."
G: "OK!"On to the presents! This next pic cracks me up... they're just socks people!

G with her favorite people... her brothers! The look pretty awake and present for 7am. They'd been reminded (warned?? threatened??) that Christmas for little ones comes pretty early and that they'd best at least fake some early morning Christmas spirit. I'm pretty sure that Casey never even went to bed the night before but they both managed to appear enthusiastic.

G was really excited about opening her gifts. She also played family elf and passed packages to the rest of the family.

B and C showing off their Fushigi skills... its magic!!!! they're floating!!!

G opening her much awaited Rapunzel doll. She'd told every Santa she'd encountered that she wanted that doll so there was pretty much no way she wasn't going to be getting one.

After presents we moved on to breakfast. In our house --remember we don't really cook-- fancy breakfast usually consists of chorizo and eggs, tator tots and tortillas!!! But, a few weeks earlier during a solo trip to the mall I found myself inside the Williams Sonoma store. I know, I was confused too. Anyway, I had wandered through the store and was completely dumbfounded by the contents until I came across these Christmas themed pancake shaper things. All of a sudden I envisioned myself as some sort of Martha Stewart making cute little pancakes for my family Christmas morning.

All in all it went pretty well. G mixed the pancake batter

I lost the directions so I kinda had to wing it. Pointer: pancake mix really swells up. Do not fill the pancake forms to the top. Nuff said. We had to throw a few away but in the end it was all ok.

I love this picture because you can see the smirk of arrogance on my mom's face. My mom's a great cook so my meager efforts amuse her.

Maybe not as good as Martha's but G liked them!!!

The rest of the day was spent very quietly. I played candyland, break the ice, cootie, diggity dog, hi ho cherry oh, and don't monkey around until I thought I'd gone a bit crazy. It was a great Christmas!