All I want for Christmas

We basically got Rachel two things for Christmas. One was a set of twelve cars. We opened it up, though, and wrapped them all individually. We put six of them in her stocking and six of them under the tree.


She was a little apprehensive to start opening up her gifts because they'd been sitting under the tree for about a week before Christmas and she, naturally, kept trying to get into them. We, equally as naturally, kept telling her to "wait" and to "put that back" and to "not touch."

So when we handed her a wrapped present on Christmas morning and told her to open it she looked at us like we were from the loony bin. Then she walked over to the tree and put the present back. Sooo funny! We had to help her open the first few to help her get into the Christmas spirit.

Even when she did start unwrapping presents she was very careful about it and took forever. She would rip off a tiny little piece of paper and hand it to either Andrew or me, then she would rip off another, equally small, piece of paper and give it to one of us. It was so funny!

All of her wrapped presents, besides the puzzle that I got for both Andrew and her, were cars. She was excited every time she unwrapped one. It was great. I've never seen anyone get so excited over the same present so many times in a row.


She also got a proper chair to sit on while she colours instead of having to sit on the laundry basket. Such a lucky baby!

I got Andrew the game "Danger 13!" and he got me a necklace and a jewellery box.


Our stockings were pretty barren this year. I got some little camel bone ornaments for us. And we each got a candy bar and an orange. All Rachel got was more cars. Our stockings were so empty, in fact, that Andrew took it upon himself to open all of them, the little cheater!


We had the Schillings over to play games that evening and we all took turns talking to our families with Skype and The Gizmo Project until all hours of the morning. Carolee was having trouble getting a good connection with her family so they said that they'd call back in an hour or so. We were in the middle of a game when the computer rang and I said,

"That's probably your family, Carolee!"

So she jumped up to answer the phone. But it was my sister, Kelli, instead!

"Hello?" said Carolee.

"Nancy?" said Kelli.

"Ummmmm...yeah...." Carolee said, making her voice sound funny and motioning wildly to me.

I came and took over the call. When it was about time to hang up Kelli said,

"That's so funny. You just didn't sound like you when you answered the phone."

I was like, "That's because it wasn't me!"

It was just difficult to keep track of all the "phoning" programs that we had open on all our various laptops. We were completely wired up with headphones and webcams and everything. It was so fun to see everyone. Rachel had a heyday talking to my family--she kissed the monitor and kept pointing at everyone. She even said, "Hi!" It was so cute! She's excited for Uncle David to come and visit in just a few days!