Christmas Joys!

This Christmas has to go down as the best one yet (I'm sure I'll be thinking that every year!). I say that because at almost 3 1/2 years old, Kalissa now has a pretty good grasp of the concept of Christmas. Between what her school teaches and what we teach her, she knows that Christmas is all about "when baby Jeejus was born". We've made a conscious decision to bring her up with the true meaning of Christmas as the focus and not toys. Therefore, Christmas started with our family tradition of attending church services on Christmas Eve.

When we got home, Daddy fried up some chicken wings and we had a very late dinner but that was kind of by design because we wanted to sleep in Christmas morning! The plan worked like a charm because we didn't wake up until after 8:00 am and Kalissa was still sleeping! We had to go wake her up and tell her it was time to open gifts. She does NOT like to be woken up and Christmas morning was no exception!

I popped in The Temptations Christmas CD and before long, Kali's frown turned upside down and the kids were ready to open their presents.  They each started with their stocking stuffers which contained silly, but useful, little things like spin toothbrushes, hand sanitizer, fuzzy socks, etc.

Then we all took turns opening our gifts. 

The funniest moment was when Qiana discovered that we actually bought her what she had wanted:  a Kindle Fire.  We had told her that they were too expensive and maybe she should play with Kalissa's LeapPad to see if she like it since they are much cheaper.  Funny thing is, she agreed to go with the LeapPad!  *lol*

Daddy made breakfast and then at about 2:00 pm, I got busy cooking Christmas dinner.  At Qiana's request, we had meatloaf (she loves my meatloaf -- because of the sweet glaze!) with mac&cheese, mashed potatoes, green beans and dressing.  I finished cooking at 6:00 and we sat down to an amazing dinner, if I do say so myself!  I incorporated a tip I had found online for my mac&cheese and it turned out to make a world of difference...and turned out to be the best batch I've ever made!

Ahhhh....Christmas Joys!

In other year-end news, I officially marked my 6-month relaxer-free semi-anniversary with a final chop of my crowning glory! I told my stylist to take off any remaining relaxer so that I could start 2013 as a natural girl with my babygirl. The result....SUPER short hair!! I like it a lot but am anxious to get going with the grow out phase. 

2013 here we come!!

2012 Christmas Program

Last night was our munchkin’s annual Christmas performance at her preschool.  I picked her up from school at 3:00 so that I’d have plenty of time to get her dressed and get us back to the auditorium for a seat up front.  After a nice warm bath, I tackled her hair which, surprisingly, didn’t need much beating into submission!  *lol*  The finished product:

Wasn’t she a DOLL BABY in that dress??  When I saw this dress online I just HAD to have it....I mean, I just had to have it for her.  *lol*  I don’t think I even looked at the price tag first.  Luckily, it didn’t hurt me that bad…40 bucks!  Granted that’s twice as much as I had intended to pay for a special occasion dress that she will probably only wear one time but hey, I guess I’ll clip some extra coupons or something to make up the difference.  However, the look on her face when she first saw the dress was priceless.  She literally jumped up and down and yelled “Mommy!  I want to wear that dress when I get married!  I’m going to be so gorgeous!”  *lol*  We watch all of the wedding shows “Say Yes to the Dress”, “David Tutera”, “Four Weddings”, etc. so she is obsessed with the pomp and circumstance of weddings….just like me.   : )

The class performances were adorable.  They performed two songs:

Kalissa was definitely less animated this year but I’m sure that’s because we told her to be sure that she behaved and to do what her teachers told her to do.  She definitely took it to heart and stayed on task!

Afterwards, there was a reception in the lobby and Kali took pictures with her buddies Meghan and Soledad. 

Awww...my Christmas Joy!!  This event definitely made things feel a bit more Merry & Bright!

2nd Time Around

Over the weekend I straightened Kalissa's hair for the 2nd time this year.  My plan was to only do it every 6 months but it's only been 4 months since her last straightening and she desperately needed it.  Her hair has been getting seriously tangled when I wash it so I knew that her ends needed to be clipped again.  The timing couldn't have been more perfect because her preschool Christmas performance is tonight and I wanted her to wear her hair straight for that.

So...Sunday afternoon we got down to business and after washing, conditioning, cutting and flat ironing...here is how she left for school on Monday morning:
                    

And here is a back view showing off my cutting skills *lol*  Her mangled ends required about a 1/2 inch of cutting.

So shiny and healthy looking! I remember when I thought her hair would NEVER grow!  *lol*  Of course she didn't come home looking anything like this!  Monday was a rainy day and her hair puffed up like pop corn by the end of the day  *LOL*  She looked like a crazy person.  I would have taken a picture but she had had a horrible behavioral day at school and I'm sure it all pointed back to how cute she knew she looked.  We've noticed that when she thinks she looks extra cute, that's when she usually has bad days at school because she's so busy trying to be the center of attention.  *sigh*  Needless to say, yesterday and today I banded up her hair into pony tails to prevent the light-socket look.

But....tonight is her Christmas performance so I will be breaking back out the flat iron and hoping her hair plays dead until it's over!  *lol*

Christmas Greetings

Last week, Kalissa's dance class had their recital.  I volunteered to be the "stage mom" for the class of four dancers.  This meant that I would help the dance teacher, Miss Melinda, get the girls in their costumes and stay backstage for the performance.  I didn't really want to volunteer because that would mean I wouldn't be able to be in the audience and see the performance.  But since no one else stepped up...I did. 

The dance theme was "Christmas Greetings" and Melinda made "envelopes" for the girls to wear.  Kalissa did not like the costume and did not want to wear it.  I secretly agreed and thought they should have just worn their cute little tutus.

Being backstage turned out to be pretty fun and I'm glad I did it because I got to see Kalissa interact with the older dancers which was just too precious.  She latched on to one girl who was about 13 and proclaimed she was her friend.  The girl was carrying Kali around like she was her little sister.  So cute! The other thing was she got stage makeup! This is how she arrived to the performance:  

And here she is with her stage makeup:

When it was finally time for the little ones to dance, they were really excited.  At the last minute, Melinda decided to have one of the older dancers go on stage to lead the little ones. Daddy was in the audience video taping it for me...


...apparently the camera had technical difficulties so that's all of the performance that I got to see!  I was really bummed that I missed it so you can best believe that I will not be volunteering to be backstage ever again!  From what I did get to see, not much dancing went on but they sure were cute!!

What Ever Happened To...

the Children's Place Model Search?  Well...obviously Kalissa wasn't chosen or I would've already blasted that headline on this blog!  *lol* But she did run a very good race even though I might have blown it for her.  How might I have done that? Well, not knowing it was against the rules, I entered these two photos of her:



The close up photo of her face was doing a lot better than the other one and then HALF WAY through the competition, I received an email from the contest police saying I've violated the terms of the contest and that they deleted one of her photos.  Well....they deleted the close-up photo.  How was this even discovered when there were over 40,000 entries??  Did someone report me? Why did they even let me submit two photos in the first place?? *sigh* Oh well, it truly was an honest mistake and when the rules said you can enter up to 5 times, I didn't realize you couldn't use those 5 entries for the same child.  There were sooooo many other kids who had multiple entries though, even through to the end of the contest and their pictures weren't yanked.  And why did they have to pull the "fan favorite" of the two??

Even still, for the online voting portion, Kalissa's remaining photo earned her a spot in the top 1%.  She ended up ranking #203 out of over 49,000 entries!  Here's a screen shot of where her picture landed on the final day of voting, October 31.

A few weeks ago they announced the top 5 in Kalissa's category:



I'm biased so I suppose I'll be quiet now.  *lol*



Family Time

Having Qiana with us last weekend was great!  Candy couldn't come along because she's a working girl now!   We're very proud of how she's taking adulthood by the horns and has enrolled in college and gotten a job straight out the gate.  But that also means she's going to miss out on family time.  This visit was extra sad for her to miss because we took some updated family photos and she's noticeably absent. 

One or more of these pictures will end up on our Christmas cards this year so I'll have to get creative with including Candy.  I suppose that's what happens when they grow up and out.  Kalissa didn't quite understand why Candy wasn't there but she was definitely happy to have Qiana! ...and so were we.

So Thankful!

My favorite holiday of the year!  I'm so thankful to see another Thanksgiving and spend it with our friends and family.   Kalissa's Thanksgiving started at school with a Thanksgiving feast on Wednesday.  I wasn't able to make an appearance at the luncheon but I did supply the turkey.  I loved the plate of 'food' that the kids made.  Soooo creative!

As in years past, we spent Thanksgiving Day at the Woods' home.  We're so thankful that year after year they open their home to not only our family but our other friends' families as well.  This year, a couple of faces were noticeably absent but we are thankful for those who were there.   The food was delicious, as it always is....we had fried turkey, ham, collard greens, green beans, mac and cheese, dressing, yams, mashed potatoes, green beans, rolls, chocolate cheese cake and a yellow cake with chocolate frosting.  I made the dressing and potatoes this year and managed to not stuff myself at dinner (I didn't lose 15 pounds to turn around and put them back on!).  Kalissa is battling her first cold of the season so she didn't eat ANY of the delicious foods...instead, she asked for peanut butter and jelly!  *lol*  That's really nothing new but I did oblige only because I knew she was sick and her eating any food is better than no food.  I'm learning to pick my battles with that girl. 



We are also thankful that Qiana is here!  We picked her up yesterday and are enjoying our weekend together!