The White Christmas Edition

Merry Christmas everyone!!

We're celebrating the birth of the Prince of Peace with a Nerf Longstrike here at Casa de Princess because nothing says "Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men" like a longe-range sniper rifle and a kid who knows how to use it.

Speaking of Peace on Earth, Dan bought me bass guitar lessons in the interest of keeping the peace in our household. Turns out it's not a good idea to be married to the person who is trying to teach you to play an instrument. To cut down on the number of tears during practice (mostly mine, but I'm sure he wanted to cry too), Dan is paying someone else to teach me how to play bass. Apparently I'm an impatient student. Go figure. He's also planning to get me a bass amplifier in the after-Christmas clearance sale because I think I blew out one of his speakers already. Um, oops. He's getting me some headphones for my amp so that I can go to praise band practice and play along with the band but no one will be able to hear me play except myself. That's really for the best for everyone involved at this point in my skill level.

The boys picked out each other's gifts from Dan and me, which made shopping a breeze this year. I took them shopping individually, they loaded up the cart with what the other one wanted, and I produced a credit card, no questions asked. It was the best shopping experience ever. All I had to do was hide and then wrap them. Piece of cake. Oh, and Aaron made his brother a "Black Ops Ninja Snowman" mug, ornament, and gift bag which Ryan found hilarious. The gift bag said, "Ryan, I'm pretty sure you're the only one who can stand this picture," and it showed many different snowmen engaged in battle. Disturbing, yet very creative. That's my Aaron. They got each other lots of Star Wars action figures, Halo Reach toys, Lego stuff, and Nerf guns. The Special K box in the corner of that picture was my "special" trick--I put the action figures in the cereal box before wrapping them so they wouldn't be able to figure out what I'd bought. The best part was when Aaron unwrapped the corner of the gift and saw a pink box. He said, "Uh, Mom? I think this might be YOUR gift. You wouldn't buy me anything PINK, right?"


And speaking of pink, Dan also bought me a pink Snuggie so that I can be "Snugg-tacular" during recess at school this winter. I'm thinking about embellishing it with some "Teacher of the Year" monogramming and a few pink daisies or something. It looks really awesome with the blingtastic "pink diamond" ring that Aaron bought for me with his last dollar at the flea market when Grama took them shopping. Ryan picked out a bracelet with MOM spelled in gold (the Os are "genuine faux diamonds"). When I opened the jewelry box Dan said, "He went to Jared," which had us all cracking up because everyone knows how much I hate jewelry commercials. They know they'd be dead meat if any of them actually did buy me anything from Jared.

Last night we did Christmas at Mom and Dad's house, where we all racked up the gifts. The boys got tons of toys, stocking stuffers, clothes, and MP3 players. I got a bunch of cute clothes (including a new red coat), and a gazillion other awesome things including a great pink and brown scarf that Mom made for me. The thing that made me cry though was a mug which says "a daughter is a little girl who grows up to be a friend." So sweet.

We went to the candlelight service at BBC last night. I sang three songs with the choir, which was interesting with a cold. Shame I didn't learn the baritone parts beforehand, because I sounded a bit like Foghorn Leghorn whenever I tried to talk. It was great seeing our church family last night and participating in communion by candlelight while singing Christmas carols.

Oh, and did I mention the snow? For the first time in 17 years, Tennessee is experiencing a white Christmas! We stayed up 'til midnight last night watching the snow fall and playing music together. There's only about an inch on the ground, but we'll take it!

I hope your family is having a great Christmas too. I'll leave you with the disturbing image of my oldest child "Rockin' it Brewer Style" as he put it. He was sporting my Snuggie, the hat he bought me, and the gloves and ear muffs he bought for his dad. As Ryan said, "I'm taking one for the team," because we couldn't talk his dad into posing for this shot.







This is such a proud moment for me.----------------------->

Merry Christmas to all!