To Nap or Not to Nap...That is the Question

For the past few months Ella has been resisting her regular afternoon nap. She used to go down easily at 12:30 and sleep until 2:30 when we would head to Atlanta to pick up Gracie. Lately, however, at 1:30 she is still having trouble going to sleep. I finally decided to let her stop napping and decided to see how she did at night. What was the result of my study? Ella would crash around 5 pm thus throwing off her sleep schedule. She wants to be a big girl like her sister, but she just doesn't have the stamina yet. Case in point...

Conclusion: Cinderella still needs her afternoon nap.

Ella's Gifts

For the week after Christmas we usually keep a lot of the opened Christmas presents under or around the tree, and Ella wanted me to take pictures of her with all of her Christmas presents. After the second picture she was done! :-)

Ella with her new pillow and sunglasses!

Behold, the mini flashlight.

Christmas in Moberly

After church today we headed to Moberly to have Christmas with my parents and Grandma. First we had lunch at Rick's Americana Grill. Yummy! Then we headed to Dad and Mom's for more presents. You'd think the girls would be tired of gifts by now, but they weren't! :-)

Gracie was lovin' the new sunglasses she got in her stocking!

Ella got some awesome new shades too. Oops...yours are upside down, Ella!

That's better. What a glamour girl!

Gracie and Ella bought everyone a present from the Dollar Store. Uncle Dana's fit him perfectly!

Looks like we should have gotten Grandpa a pair also.

Mr. Doolin looks like quite the nerdy principal, doesn't he?

The girls were very excited to give Grandpa his present from them. They had collected the sweet gumballs from our tree out front and filled a box with them. Grandpa and Nana have the same kind of tree in their front yard, and Grandpa hates those gumballs with a vengeance as they fall all over the yard. He was surprised to open his box to find MORE gumballs! They loved pulling that joke on him!

Do you think Gracie liked her new purple pillow?!

I guess glasses were the gift of the day. The girls went to the Dollar Store with Grandpa and surprised us both with presents. They gave Brent a new pair of dollar sunglasses.

Uncle Dana got a new camera, just like mine! He hinted pretty strongly that he wanted one similar to mine.

Our little cheese popcorn lover got 2 tins of popcorn, so she was mighty happy.

We had a book made of our Disney World trip to give my parents. That way they have a hardbound memory from our trip that they can look at frequently.

Seriously, this might have been Gracie's most exciting gift of the whole season. She has desperately wanted Alice in Wonderland (not the cartoon version) and finally got it!

Ella loves her buddies Max and Ruby! It's a fave around here!

Every year Mom and Dad get Brent an MU calendar with vintage MU pictures.

I think this was Gracie's only Barbie doll of the season. She loved it!!

Strawberry Shortcake runs a close second in popularity to Max and Ruby. More smiles!!

More MU stuff for the basement. This makes Brent very happy!

Ella got a new pink pillow, so the girls can relax in comfort now.

Do you sense a theme with Brent's gifts? No problem as far as he's concerned!

Hurray for a Blizzard maker! I see dessert in our near future!

Aww, I love this picture!

Gracie was busily playing with her new bead set.

Grandpa's big surprise gift from Nana was a small flat screen TV for the bedroom.

Nana Kaser gave the girls a Precious Moment's cross stitch she made of two girls. It looks like the older girl is doing the younger girl's hair. So sweet!

Christmas 2010

When you have small children in your home, Christmas morning is magical. The girls woke up after 7 a.m., which we were grateful for, and they were super excited to see what was under the Christmas tree. See those smiles?!

Stockings are always first at our house. Santa always brings things they like!

I love seeing the happy faces! :-)

Gracie loves keeping her hands/mind busy. She still enjoys Play-doh very much!

Ella went to Wal-mart with $5.00 of her own money and picked out this purple sparkly bouncy ball for her sissy. Gracie was very excited as she had her eye on these not too long ago.

Some gifts require teamwork to open.

Brent had a smile on his face as he opened up his new socks! :-) As you get older the gifts get pretty practical sometimes.

Why did Santa bring these huge inflatable balls???? What was he thinking?

We quickly got dressed and grabbed a few of their favorite new toys to take to Unionville so that we could spend the rest of the day with Mamaw.

Ella LOVED her "carmonica." She played it pretty much all day!

Ella also got a guitar. Before long our band will be complete!

Ahhh. And here's the electric drum set. Ella's band is complete! She loves her music!

Here are the Doolin grandchildren. They sure have fun when they are all together! It was a fun day and there were lots of tired children by nightfall.