Side by Side

Kinley Bell in December '08

Sophie Bell in December '11

The cheeks on these two.  I'm not sure how I manage to accomplish anything but kissing them.  :)

Kinley on Santa's lap last year:

With her nervous smile and nervous hands.

This year.

Same exact nervous little hands.  Neither one of them was so sure about Santa this year.  No tears and they both went willingly.  They surely weren't smiling about it though.

Also, I thought maybe Kinley just looked so grown up to me now because we have Sophie to compare her to, but no.  These photos are insane.  My goodness, look how much growing up she's done over the last year.

Lesson(s) Learned

Lesson 1:
Do NOT show your child the Giant Toy Catalog.  It will inspire said child to circle 99% of GIANT toy catalog.  Said circling of 99% of Giant toy catalog will lead Santa to believe it's safe to get to work early and pick a few things Santa likes for the child...because after all that child did circle 99% of the catalog as possibilities.
Lesson 2:
Do NOT send your child to school on the day Santa comes to visit.  Your child may be swayed by the kiddos around them.  Without your extra wisdom to guide them back to the "purple rocket ship" they've said for the last several weeks, when it comes to that magical moment to whisper in his ear "a playground" might be what comes out instead.
Lesson 3:
Santa should not start work immediately and frantically on that playground when the child has clearly proven incapable of making up their mind.
Lesson 4:
A sigh of relief should not be breathed when a living breathing thing (no matter how small and easy to take care of it may seem at the time) gets moved to the top of the list and a formal retraction letter gets sent to Santa.  Because apparently it's pretty hard to transport fish on a sleigh.  And expect them to survive the trip.
In case you are wondering, these two were the biggest hits at our house after all that crazy stressing Santa did:

 A purple pair of scissors for Kinley and Cheese puffs for Sophie.

Priceless.

More photos here.

Caught in the Act

Photographic evidence of Sophie's devilish behavior under the tree.  Look at that face!!!

Finally

I bought these awesome stockings on clearance last year from Pottery Barn Kids.  (I can only afford, scratch that, have enough sense to only shop in the clearance section.)  Since the stockings cost a whopping $9.99, I didn't splurge and have them embroider them for me.  Then they sat.  I was terrified I'd mess them up.  And I did.  Well one of them.  It involved an upside down K and a lot of seam ripping including some ripping of more than just threads.  I managed to fix it, but still it just further proves I should NOT answer my phone while in the sweat shop or be in the sweat shop after 10:30 pm.  I should create a sweat shop rules sign...
Anyway, all that rambling to say:
I have lots to catch up on, but right now I'm too proud of my stockings to post anything else.  :)  You'll just have to wait.

Close up of individual stocking:

Their stockings really are awesome.  You should stalk their sale section too.  But don't pay $7 to get it poorly embroidered.  If you read the reviews, lots of folks complain about their monogramming.

 Crap-tastic cell phone shot of mantel.

And all together now.

 Kinley and I started wrapping presents yesterday.  Of course she's old enough to actually help just in time for Sophie to sit crying at our feet while we work.  Not to worry, she switched to devilish giggles once we placed a few under the tree and she worked on destroying them.