Slowing Down? Maybe?

I wanted to go see lights tonight but it didn't work out.  There's a neighborhood that does a bunch of lights every year and we haven't been yet.  But I did get to visit a long time with my dad and his wife, which was nice.  He is doing well, a bit stressed out. His wife is older and her health is not great.  She falls often and last week she broke her wrist.  So he's a bit stressed.  He usually would come to our house on Christmas day, but it was just going to be too much for him to get her out of the house at a particular time, so we did our thing today.  Except he forgot his bag of gifts....We only opened three, one for each girl and one that Karina made him.  It's a plaque to go in the playhouse that she painted herself and wrote (herself) (I helped her spell though) "2012 Built by Grampa".  He loved it.  He gave Karina a new Cinderella doll and Elena a teddy bear.  She loved the bear but then when she looked in the box later she burst into tears.  I think she wanted a doll, too!  Lucky for her she's getting one later!  It's a ballerina Cinderella and only has a skirt that comes off and a crown (which I'll take) and the rest of her clothes are molded on, so I feel like it's pretty safe for her to have.  I think she might be happy.  She did like the bear though, but it was funny she just burst into tears like that.  Both of them are tired.  We had a big family gathering yesterday at my mom's house, with a whole lot of relatives.  Elena woke up around her usual 7am and did not go to sleep til 3pm!  I think today she was still exhausted from yesterday.  Then we had my dad here today, tomorrow we are going to the Christmas Eve service at church where the kids help act out the nativity story (Karina has chosen to be a wise person), and then of course the next day is Christmas.  And the next day is Karina's birthday.  And then we have a little down time until Friday when we have yet another family gathering with some family who couldn't be here for the first one.  And this is just my mom's side of my family!  Aiee!

I tried hard to scale back Christmas this year, and I was doing great til I saw the tiny pile under the tree.  It made me so sad, so I picked up a few small things more and now with some stuff Bill got, there are plenty of presents.  Then we'll see what Santa Clause brings and it's going to be a fantastic, crazy, hectic, wonderful morning trying to keep Elena away from all of Karina's stuff, the ornaments on the tree, and then to try to get her to nap.  We are going to my mom's in the afternoon Christmas day, and my brother will be there, too.  We aren't going until around 3 because he works all Christmas Eve and will be sleeping in the morning, and it also allows us to give Elena, hopefully, a second (or first, depending on how the day goes) nap.  Frozen pizza for dinner, and we're all set. 

This year, one of Karina's friends came to church with these small toy mermaids.  I don't know if the friend wasn't sharing and Karina didn't get a turn with them, or simply that this friend had them and Karina wanted some, but she has not let up about these mermaids.  In fact, yesterday she drew a picture of them to send to Santa!  I was going to mail it to my mom (who already knows about them because she was in church that day)(Oh, and it turns out they are just from the dollar store!), but I ran out of stamps.  So I took it over and showed it to her.  Well I didn't know what to do, should I be scouring the city for them (um, no) or what?  My mom found something similar that she's going to give her, although I constantly worry that Karina is too spoiled.  I don't want her to think that she gets everything she wants, because she can't and won't, but at the same time, she's never written to/drawn a picture for Santa for anything before.  Well, I may be a bad mom, but I went out today and looked in 2 dollar stores and they didn't have them.  My mom said the dolls didn't have very pretty faces, and I did remember Karina wanting ones with prettier faces.  It turns out Target had some tiny Barbie dolls, about 3" tall and one was a fairy and one was a mermaid.  So those are going in her stocking and they will just have to be good enough.  If not, well, I guess that's when she'll learn she can't have it all. 

I can't believe tomorrow is Christmas Eve.  I'm not ready for Christmas to be over, it just started for me!  We do leave our tree up, but it's not the same after Christmas.  Oh well.  C'est la vie.  Tomorrow I'm baking a cake or cupcakes for Karina's birthday Wednesday, because I am not baking them Christmas day.  Other than that, and Christmas Eve service, I'm going to try desperately to take it easy.  I have a cold on top of everything, but I'm glad it's me who's sick and not one of the girls.  Last year Karina was sick Christmas day and it was awful.  It took us a week to open all the presents from Christmas and her birthday!  (No kidding)

I guess I was in a mood to write tonight, because this got awfully long awfully fast!  I hope that each of you spends the next few days doing something wonderful.  Merry Christmas to my Christmas celebrating readers, and to those of you who do not, I still wish you a happy time of year and a happy any holiday you might celebrate.