Foodmomiac

This Santa thing is TOUGH

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Originally uploaded by Foodmomiac

Those of you who follow me on Twitter and Facebook (and my family members) know that my father-in-law was in a terrible car accident last week. It's kind of consuming my brain right now, but due to legal issues and the fact that the police report is still open, I'm going to refrain from chatting about it. The important thing is that he is going to be OK. Surgery was yesterday and went very well. We'll be back with him in Toledo early next week, if not sooner. Thanks to EVERYONE for the kind words, thoughts, and prayers, text messages and offers of help. You are amazing!!

Anyway, I have gotten very little Christmas/holiday shopping accomplished (not surprising). My parents cover Hanukkah, and Michael's family overloads the kids for Christmas, so the only things we need to get the kids are the official Santa gifts.

Last week, they went to see Santa (Jessi took them!) and made their requests. Max is easy, as always. He wants "a car that goes beep beep." And, most people wouldn't know this, but when he says, "beep beep," he doesn't mean the sound. In Max speak, "beep beep" implies that the car rolls on its wheels. So... yay easy! Dylan, on the other hand, continues her lifelong trend of being the high maintenance child. Dylan asked Santa for Samantha, the American Girl doll that is being discontinued at the end of this year. The American Girl doll that has sold out of all of the stores and the website. The American Girl doll that is now TWO HUNDRED FRICKIN' DOLLARS on eBay. I just can't spend $200 on a doll.

So, options? My plan is this speech,

"I spoke to Santa, and he said that since you ALREADY have an American Girl doll, and since Samantha is going away and he's not allowed to make that many, that it would be better if he gave the Samantha dolls to poor kids who don't have any dolls."

Thoughts?

My alternate idea is to give her a fan book of paint samples and tell her that Santa will let her pick a new paint color for her room (it's green now and makes her sad).

Another alternate idea is to give her a custom ring made out of a teeny pearl that Michael found in his raw oyster a couple of weeks ago.

Any ideas/suggestions are welcomed. I'm floundering here. I feel like it's her last Christmas believing in Santa, and I don't want to screw it up.

Resorting to photos

I have so much going on lately, and as a result, I haven't been blogging. I need to just jump back in, because I miss it, so I'm going the easy route with some photos.

We had our annual photo shoot a few weeks ago, and the photos, as usual, are AMAZING:

Sea Grandon does them for us, and I just can't recommend her highly enough. She is a friend, but I'd say that even if I didn't care for her personally. (And, I think the proof is in the photos.) As Lauren pointed out, it's pretty remarkable that she got both kids smiling so nicely in the same photo. (You can see the full set here.)

I was talking to my friend Yaelle this morning on the phone, and we got on the subject of photo albums. I don't make them. We have one from Dylan's first year, but it's kind of a mess, and just shoved onto one of her bookshelves. I'm so thankful for Flickr, because without it, I'd never have such great documentation of my kids' childhoods. I'm also loving Facebook, lately. A few months ago, I set up a group for the sleepaway camp that I went to, and the photos that people are uploading are just priceless. There are tube socks, and rainbow shirts and two-piece matchy tie dye outfits. It's just an explosion of horrible 80s fashion all in one Facebook group. I LOVE it, and I really love uploading my own old yellow-ish photos that I've dug out of my mom's closet. If I didn't have that group, I never would have found this photo that I can now compare to one of Dylan (taken by  Sea) at approximately the same age:

 

She clearly inherited the sass. Luckily, she didn't inherit the tube socks.