While driving up to Edina to visit Grandma and Grandpa Leckbee, Rachel watched the Grinch movie the entire drive up and back. She also wanted to watch it with Grandma while she was in Edina. In other words, she had the Grinch movie on her mind! When we got back to Kansas City she told my mom that she wanted to write a play that she could act out with her cousins. She said that she would be the director (so she could tell them what to do) and maybe have a small part in the play! Rachel then became obsessed with “the play” she wrote out each person’s part on a piece of paper and wrote the words to the songs they were suppose to sing. It was really cute to see her try to spell everything out and make their parts. She even had a fruit snack attached to each part that they could eat after the play IF they did a good job. Grandma Zymball helped her put the play together and helped get Clint, Addie, Austin, and Devon to understand their roles in the play. Addie was Cindy Lou Who, Clint was Cindy Lou’s Dad, Devon was the Mayor, Austin was the Grinch, and Rachel was Cindy Lou’s Mom. It was so cute!! Rachel did Solos for most of the songs because no one else knew all the words. My little girl is so creative and crazy!! Did I mention that she was obsessed with the play until it happened!!
Rachel and Addie singing "Where are you Christmas"
The Cast!! Austin, Clint, Devon, Rachel, and Addie
Both girls really enjoyed the time they had to spend with both of their Grandmas. Here they are posing with Grandma Zymball
Christmas morning was different this year. Santa did bring both Rachel and Sarah a little present so that they would have something to open on Christmas morning, how could he resist once he read Rachel’s Thank you note!!
Grandma Zymball and Grandma Linda helped make sure that my girls had plenty of presents to open on Christmas morning!! Thank you!! Grandma Zymball did give Rachel one of her favorite toys, the Barbie with the pooping dog, Yes you read correctly and it is the first present she tells people about!!
Later that day my sister and her family came over to spend the holiday with us. Rachel and Sarah just adore Clint and Addie. They had fun opening presents together and then playing together with all of their new toys!!
Addie and Rachel
Rachel
On Christmas eve we spent the afternoon with Todd, Jennifer, Courtney, and Sydney. Rachel and Sarah had so much fun playing with their cousins. None of the kids could wait to open their presents from each other, kids are so funny!!
Sydney, Courtney, Sarah, and Rachel
Rachel with her new game
Rachel got the game “Pretty, Pretty Princess” from Courtney and Sydney. She has enjoyed the game so much and thinks it is wonderful that you win by wearing all the jewelry. She has made all of us play with her but I really liked it when she made Josh play. Yes, he is a wonderful dad!!!
Rachel and Dad playing the game
On Christmas Eve, we went to Josh’s brother’s house for dinner and the annual Leckbee Christmas party. Rebecca and Steve made an amazingly wonderful feast!! It was a wonderful time , and so nice to have all of Josh’s family together. Mom and Dad Leckbee were even able to drive down from Edina to spend the holiday with all of us. It was such a wonderful evening, I wish we were able to spend more time with all the Leckbee siblings. There never seems to be enough time!!
Rachel did not get a chance to bake cookies for Santa before we left for Missouri. Since we didn’t know which day he was going to show up at our house (we asked him to come early) we couldn’t leave cookies out. So Rachel was very sad that she didn’t make cookies for Santa and told Grandma Zymball that they needed to make him some and leave them out Christmas eve. I told Rachel that Santa already came and that he wasn’t going to bring her anything else. She said that was ok, she still wanted to leave him cookies. While the cookies were baking she made Santa a thank you card to put out with the cookies!! She is so thoughtful and such a sweet little girl, I guess maybe she did deserve all the gifts Santa brought her.
Poor Grandma had already made cut-out cookies with her other Grandchildren and really didn’t want to make that huge mess again but Rachel insisted that they had to be cut-out cookies. Of course, Grandma is so wonderful and they did the entire thing together.
Rachel decorating cookies
We tried to let Sarah help decorate but she does not like getting messy and didn’t want to have anything to do with those things. That was until she saw one with sprinkles!! Then she wanted to eat all of them!!! So we gave her a cookie that was already decorated with green icing and lots of sprinkles and she picked off all the icing and sprinkles and ate them leaving the cookie behind. She really didn’t seem to mind the mess once she realized they taste good!!
Sarah eating her cookie
We flew into Kansas City on the morning of December 22nd. We had to wake the girls up at 5:30 am to get to the airport on time, so lets just say it was a long day for all of us. Sarah, being her normal self, would not take a nap that day. I guess she had too much to explore and didn’t want to miss anything. Anyways, she had been awake for a while and by the time dinner came she couldn’t keep her eyes open. The picture doesn’t do the situation justice. If we had a video camera I’m sure we would be winning a prize by now!! Sarah was asleep and still trying to eat. She would occasionally shove a mouth full of noodles in and they would just hang half out of her mouth while she slept. Then she would bob her head and wake herself up and the cycle would start over again. It was really funny, you can’t really tell by the picture!!
I have heard of sleep walking but never sleep eating!
Rachel and Sarah by the Tree
These are the most beautiful girls in the world!!! I love the Christmas season and having pictures taken by the tree!!
Rachel with Santa
Sarah with Santa
Santa came to our Church Christmas party!! The kids had a great time and were so surprised when Santa arrived!!
Rachel couldn’t wait to tell Santa what she wanted. She needed me to remind her of what she asked for in her letter to him so it could be the same. Sarah was a little scared of Santa, when she first saw him she kept saying “Santa, Santa” and then when we got closer to him she started to cry. Poor Santa, why are kids afraid of him??
Spirit Week at School
Crazy hair and PJs
Rachel had Spirit week at her school in December and her favorite DAY was Pajama day and Crazy Hair day!!! How fun to wear pjs to school and have fun and crazy hair. I was planning to put both sides of Rachel’s hair in a bun but she loved having one side up and one side down… it was CRAZY!!!
Rachel was so excited on our fake Christmas morning. Rachel wrote a letter to Santa asking him if he would come to our house early so that she didn’t have to worry about taking all of her presents back home to Albuquerque on the airplane. She didn’t know exactly when he would come so it was a big surprise. She woke up on Saturday morning went potty and wanted to play in her room (Josh and I just stayed in bed waiting for the correct reaction). After a minute she asked if she could play in the front room where the tree was. We told her yes and within a second we heard her “oh man, oh man look Hannah Montana paper” Santa wraps Rachel’s presents in fun paper. She quickly came to our room and told us that we had to come and see this. We asked her what we needed to see, we even asked if she broke something. She just kept on telling us, “no, you just need to come see”. She was so excited and got everything she asked for from Santa!!
Sarah was also very excited to see her presents. She actually slept about an hour longer than Rachel so we were all anxious by the time she woke up. We told Sarah that Santa came and she said “NO, NO” I think she thought he was still here. Then we told her that he brought her presents and as you can see from her expression she was very excited. She really enjoyed every part of opening presents. She liked her stocking and finding all the fun stuff inside. Santa brought her some Tigger and Pooh figures in her stocking and she thought they were great. Then when it came time to open the presents she was so happy!! Though she is a little bit of a neat freak and handed me every single piece of wrapping paper and said “Trash, Trash”. It was so cute!!!