Christmas Recap

We had a happy Christmas at our house. This year was fun because not only did Allison undersyand, but she was EXCITED... as in nearly pushing Brian down the stairs trying to get past him to see if Santa came. I don't have lots of photos (Brian was helping kids while I was mostly nursing Lindsey), but here are a few we did get.

Santa brought Allison a real camera all her own...

Carter was so excited about the firetruck from Grandma and Grandpa

Mommy made Allison 3 new princess dress-ups to go with the Barbies Santa brought

Carter + football = little boy heaven!

The kids big gifts were guitars built by Brian. They love them. Cute little story: We only wrapped the guitar bodies, so the necks were showing. After opening stockings Allison saw the necks and said to Brian: "Oh, Daddy! You're very lucky; Santa brought you TWO guitars!" She was even more excited after we checked the tags and found out that they were not for Daddy. Here's a quick little video of the kids playing with them before moving on.

Allison's dream house...

Or Barbie's, rather. The only thing Allison asked for at all this Christmas was a Barbie doll and a Barbie movie. I don't think it gets any easier than that.

She got more than she bargained for. The Barbie house that my dad built for me some 20 years ago is something that my parents hung onto. We brought it with us out to NY last January. I spent most of the December rehabing the house with fresh "carpet" (upholstery velvet and wood looking contact paper), wallpaper (scrapbook paper and wallpaper mod podged on) and paint. I think it turned out pretty cute!

Here's the before (sort of... this is after Brian ripped out the old carpet the the mice in our rental here loved so much... ick!)

And here's the after.

And here's my cute little girl...

Now... I wouldn't decorate or paint my house this way (although the green on green stripe in the kitchen is pretty nice...), but I think its okay for Barbie.

The Quiet Encyclopedia

For Christmas, Allison is getting a quiet book. I made a couple a few years ago for neices and nephews and figured it was about time for Allison to have one. She's SO busy and hopefully this will allow Brian and I to actually pay attention to part of our Sunday meetings.

Little did I know when I started that Allison would be receiving not a just a quiet book, and The HUGE Encyclopedia Britannica of quiet books. The thing is 3 inches thick! I think I got a little carried away. There were just so many good ideas that I wanted to include.

At least this way I can split the book in two in another year or so and add a page or two (since I didn't use up all of my ideas) and I'll have two quiet books to keep two kids quiet at the same time. Bright side, right? =) Here are the photos!

Front Cover. Notice how its curved? That would be becuase its so HUGE!

Alphabet page. We have all the letter in the pocket on the front cover. They velcro on & off.

Getting dressed page & closet. It's got a zipper to play with and the doll clothes velcro on & off.

Lacing and tying shoes & counting/number recognition gumball machine. The gumballs velcro on & off.

The house is "Lift the flaps". Weaving page... some of these pages she'll grow into.

The balloons are color matching. They velcro on and off. I made a buckles page becuase Allison LOVES to play with buckles on her puppy leash, her car seat, the grocery cart...

Winter and spring themed pages. Build a snowman (velcro part) and button on the flowers.

Summer and fall themed pages. The apples snap on and off and the leaves velcro on and off.

Shape matching and hanging clothes on a clothesline.

Counting with beads and a peek-a-book page. When she's older she can braid the yarn hair too.

"Whats in mommy's purse" and a notepad for drawing. Some keys, dead credit cards and play make-up will probably go in the purse.

If you want to try your hand at making your own (its a great project, but its not really any cheaper than buying one, except when you make your own you get a lot more pages for your $30), here are some resources that I found and used to make Allison's.

• Anna Fowler's Quiet Book blog ... lots of good ideas and a work in progress. You might check her family blog for her post that shows all her quiet book pages on it.
• LDS Quiet Book Packets ... for purchase, but can give you some good ideas.
• Mommy Chic: Quiet Books
• How to make an LDS Quiet Book ... this one now has patterns for quiet book pages. The author of the book by the same name as the website gave permission for them to be publish on the website.

If you want to know more about how I made mine or what I used comment here or email me. =)

PS - this was my 100th post, and I just passed my 1 year blog-o-versary! Stay tuned for some blog candy... (aka: a give-away) =)