A Few Good Christmas Stories

I have a couple of specific Christmas stories that I didn't put into my last post, but that I believe are very worth mentioning!

Dressed to Impress -- Again...
Last year, Faith and Grace wore these adorable red velvet dresses to Christmas Mass. One was borrowed from ZZ and had been worn by all three of her girls. The other was borrowed from one of my best friends, Sheena, and had been worn by her two girls. They didn't match exactly, but complimented each other well.

As I was getting the girls' clothes out for Mass on Monday, I came across these same dresses. I looked at the tags and decided that they may be able to wear them again. Todd got the girls dressed and, sure enough, the dresses fit. They were much snugger and much shorter than last year, but they still fit! I guess there is some advantages to having kids who don't seem to want to grow very fast!

Merry Christmas, Mommy! Oops...
Weeks ago, I told Todd that I wanted him to buy and install under-counter lighting for me for Christmas. I hadn't made much mention of it since then and when he and Devin went on a covert shopping mission this weekend, I had to wonder if Home Depot was on the list of stops.

Later that day, Devin and I were standing at the kitchen counter, making cookies. In a moment of sheer evil, I told Devin that I would love to have some lights under the counter so that I could see better when I was cooking. With a face full of delight, Devin turned to me and said, "That's exactly what we're doing!"

As if this isn't funny enough, as Devin is blurting out that he and Todd just bought under-counter lighting for me, Todd comes running into the kitchen from the dining room yelling, "No no no no no!!!" in an effort to get Devin to keep his mouth shut.

I baited him, I admit it. But it was so worth it, especially to see always-calm-and-collected Todd lose it for just a moment.

Hello Devin? This is Santa!
That same day, a little while later, the five of us were playing in the front living room. A shadow was cast from the window in our two-story entry way and made a shape high up on on the wall that Devin deemed to be a sleigh on our roof. He ran outside to see if he could see Santa and his team and swore up and down that he heard jingle bells.

During all of this, I slipped away and found a Web site that allows you to place a personalized call to your child from Santa. As if that weren't enough, you got to pick the theme of the call -- the elves are wrapping presents, we're loading the sleigh, etc.

One of the themes happened to be "Flight Practice," so I chose that one, made sure they had the pronunciation of Devin's name correct and placed the order.

Sure enough, seconds later, our phone rang with Caller ID reading, "North Pole." We picked up the phone, put it on speaker and there was Santa, telling Devin all about how he was in the area, practicing landing and taking off from San Antonio rooftops. The call lasted for about two minutes and we missed parts of it because Devin kept yelling into the phone, "I love you, Santa!"

When the call was over, Devin looked at me and Todd with tears in his eyes. We recently taught him about tears of joy and I asked him, "Are you crying?" He answered, "Yes." I asked, "Are they tears of joy?" and that's when he lost it.

I'm not talking about a little bit of tears and sniffling, I'm talking utter wailing and sobbing. He just couldn't believe that Santa had placed a personal call to him and that he, Devin Pruetz, had made it to the top of Santa's "Nice" list.

It was the happiest and yet most pathetic thing I have ever witnessed. If I had known that the phone call would elicit that kind of reaction, I would have broken out the video camera!

And a Devin's Doozie for good measure
The girls gave up morning naps a couple of months ago, but often go down for "quiet time" around 10:30 a.m. if they become cranky. It's a good time for them to decompress and for me to get a few things done.

On Friday, the girls were staring to get restless upstairs, but before I could go get them, Devin volunteered to go upstairs and play with them.

Hmmmmm...

2 19-month-olds entertained
+ 1 four-year-old doing the entertaining
_________________________________________
A few moments of peace for Erin

"Sure Devin -- go on up there!"

Devin loves to play, "Boo," with the girls, where he runs down the hall and does a flying-leap into the twins' room and yells, "BOO!" making the girls laugh hysterically.

Sure enough, it didn't take too long for me to hear lots of jumping around and laughing upstairs, and I assumed that it was just another rousing game of, "Boo."

A few minutes later, Devin came downstairs, breathless. I said, "It sure sounds like you all are having fun up there!"

He responded with a question, "Do you know what game we were playing?"

Knowing fully well what the answer would be, I still asked, "What?"

His answer surprised me, "We're playing, 'I'm not the baby!' "

"How do you play that game, Dev?"

"Well, I climb into one of the the babies' cribs and say, 'Hey! I'm not the baby!' and then I jump out!"

Hold on...you mean that my kid has been climbing into the cribs and jumping out of them for the last half-hour?

A lecture ensued.