A blessed Christmas

Christmas was awesome this year. We spent Christmas Eve at my aunt's house playing Rock Band. Then we went to my Grandad's where I have been every Christmas Eve for the past 32 years. Summer racked up on gifts: Play dough Fun Factory, moon sand (yikes!), pinball video game, a stuffed monkey, two books, a puzzle and an outfit. She wanted to play with the moon sand when we got home, but it was bedtime seeing that Santa was on his way. We quickly made some chocolate chocolate chip cookies for Santa and left him (or should I say her) a glass of milk....which was later consumed in a much more interesting beverage. :)

When she awoke around 6:00 a.m., she came into my room. I hopped out of bed seeing that I hadn't really slept all night waiting for her to get up. LOL I gave Daddy a few "gentle" reminders to get up NOW. I remember last year she had to wait on him to get up and wasn't going to let that happen this year. Especially since Santa left a CAT under the tree. I ran and cut on the video camera. When she walked into the dining room and towards the tree, the cat went "Meow." She looked at me. "Meow." She said, "Was that your camera?" Then it did it again. "Maybe it was my Zhu Zhu pet." After another meow, she decided to look and see what was under the blanket. Boy was she surprised. She didn't ask for it, but she got it anyway. She LOVES the cat and (thanks to Paw-Paw) now has what she never thought she'd get. She calls the cat Thomas and is anxious to go visit him again. We've already been once since Christmas. She loves to dance & jump with him. And, to drag and/or carry him around the house. It is cute, but you kind of start feeling sorry for the cat after a while. I must say that the cat really is dealing well with all of the attention he gets from Summer. It's not all torture and it is really all done out of pure love so he must somehow sense that.

Back to Christmas morning....so, after the cat was out of the box (hahaha), she went to the next blanket which was an electronic scooter. Then she went to the big bag of presents from Santa. She took all nine boxes out of the bag before opening any. Then she went to town. In the end, she had pretty much the whole hamster city and two new hamsters, of which she gave me one. :) We put it together and played with it for a while before heading out to my mom's for breakfast, gifts and games. There was no electricity, but it was still a fun time for all and a Christmas we will never forget. Summer left there with a few games, a Princess tent, a dress-up trunk, and a Snow White doll she can dress up. Once home, the playing continued.

That night, Amanda and Lexie came over for our Christmas with them. Summer didn't want Lexie playing with her new Zhu Zhu pets. Why is it that kids don't want to share their new stuff? Of course, she didn't really want Thomas playing with it Christmas morning either. She got some really cool letters that spell her name from her sister. We painted them yesterday and today and will have to figure out where we are going to put them. She really enjoyed the painting process, although she was a little upset that we only had pink paint. She was really wanting some variety for some reason. Speaking of letters, I have told her that we are going to start working on writing letters when her Daddy's treatment is done so she can learn how to write them. She told me she already knows how to write them. I told her that we will just practice then. Then, she told me she already knows how to practice. LOL Should be fun to tackle that, but I think we really need to since I am not planning on putting her in school until kindergarten. I just don't want to miss anytime with her. Of course, I do see a few classes in her future. I know she'll be just as excited as I am about them. Sunday she went to her first official Sunday school class without me. I think she stayed almost the whole class (they were playing games). I was in the nursery next door and when she came in, I asked her why she wasn't still playing games and she said the game was too long. LOL

Here's hoping the new year ahead is a good as this year. I know I've said it before, but despite all the cancer crap, we are blessed. I have so many great memories with Summer from the past year. She truly lights up my life, and I pray I am the mother she deserves.