christmas come early

Are you all in the holiday spirit?  We are in a Christmas craze today, and I am absolutely antsy to get on the road to my parents' house tomorrow morning and start the "real" festivities.  I've been baking up a storm, Mikey has been doing a deep clean of the house, and miss Natalie has been enjoying a couple of early Christmas presents that we decided not to pack up and bring north for the weekend.

Miss Nat is such a fickle pickle, we had to really struggle and convince her to come downstairs and see the amazing Christmas gift her godmother sent to her--a gorgeous wooden play kitchen!  It was miss Lindsay's when she was a little girl, and we have promised to keep it safe & loved & constantly used until she's ready to hand it down to a little one of her own.  Accompanying the kitchen are tons of dishes and pieces of play food that Jay and Amelia also passed along to us second-hand, and Natals doesn't know it yet but there will be some other kitchen accessories coming her way from Nana and Poppy on Christmas morning!  It was absolutely magical to see Natalie's face light up as she began exploring her toy. 

We also had an early gift-exchange for just the three of us today.  I gave Mikey a couple of little gifts and he presented me with the item tops on my wish list to Santa--a sewing machine!  I can't wait to bust it out of the box and revisit my rusty seamstress skills over this vacation.  I have lofty hopes of making clothes and stuffed toys for Natalie, but I should probably just start with reminding myself how the heck to get the thing threaded and set up with a full bobbin.

We gave Natalie one of her gifts from us--a play doctor's kit.  The kid has spent enough time at the doctor's office that she knew immediately how to use all of the little pieces.  She went into doctor mode and began testing her baby doll's reflexes, listening to her own heart, and spent plenty of time peeking in Mommy's ears.

In random cute news, Natalie called after me when I had to duck out to run a few last-minute Christmas errands this morning (time to pick of Natalie's "big" Christmas gift... a fish!):  "Be careful, Mommy!  Be careful 'n da car!"

I nearly died.

I can't wait for more Christmas cuteness throughout this weekend.  We're headed out tomorrow morning and will be back sometime on Monday.  Hope you all have wonderful holiday weekends!