Christmas Dresses & Nana's Birthday

The girls actually ended up with two sets of Christmas dresses this year because I bought a set back in August, completely forgetting about the set I bought the previous year during the after Christmas sales.

I liked the black dresses the best.

Lainey wanted to take a picture all by herself so of course Ellie had to have one too 

(we've had a lot of that sort of thing lately).

The Sunday before Christmas was Nana's birthday so we had a nice dinner and let her open her present (normally we celebrate her birthday in June, but I wanted to do it on her actual birthday this year because it was a big one and because she would be with us).  We (my siblings, their spouses, the grandkids, and I) gave her a book listing 60 fun memories/things we love about her.

I compiled the book so it was pretty fun to see all the things my brothers and sister submitted, especially the ones from my youngest brothers because I was out of the house for half their childhoods and missed some of the things they reminisced about.  Some of my favs:

"I remember I always had the sweetest Valentine boxes in grade school.  It seemed whatever I thought of, you could make.  Sorry I blew one of them up with a dry ice bomb in the front yard and made a huge mess."

"I'll never forget the time when Mike and his friends set the field on fire behind our house. Mom was understandably furious. The funny part came when she started spewing out a string of obscenities in front of all the neighbors and their kids. It was very memorable."

"One of my favorite ways to earn money growing up was to either kill grasshoppers from your gardens or bring in a praying mantis from down the hill.  It was 5 cents for each grasshopper killed or 25 cents for each praying mantis.  You always believed whatever number we told you though."

Also that day, Liz learned that the Elf of the Shelf is not real, thanks to some lame boy in her Sunday School class (two days before Christmas?!  Really?!).  I was there when it happened and Lizzie looked a little sad/pensive, but that evening she excitedly asked to move it herself that last night.  

Of course, it also didn't help that throughout the month we frequently forgot to move ole Sparky for days at a time.  The first time it happened Liz stormed into our room and angrily said "The Elf isn't real! I know you move it because he's in the same place as yesterday!"  We gave her some sort of lame cover story and she seemed to buy it till her classmate spilled the beans Sunday.  Still, as with the tooth fairy, learning the truth about Sparky didn't seem to affect her belief in Santa one bit which I suppose means she still wants to believe.