Out of the mouths of my babes...

Almost daily something funny or touching happens, or is said, that I want to remember forever. I should write these things down.
"You should write those things down!" my mother is always saying. Noooo...really?! I keep meaning too, but life just sweeps me along.
Here are a few that pop into my mind as I'm heading off to bed.

The second day the children woke up in our home, they both gathered at the kitchen window early in the morning while I was making breakfast. They were still very quiet, and Briana piped up with, "Can we go play in the park?" "What park, Sweetie?" I asked rather distractedly. "That one." she said pointing out the window. "That's our back yard, Briana. You can certainly play there." "That belongs to you?" She asked with surprise in her voice. "Well, that belongs to all of us now, it's your back yard too, Briana." She began instantly to tell Brandon how much fun they were going to have in their new back yard, and all the games they would play. I was wiping my tears over at the sink, of course...and NOT because I was in desperate need of coffee, mind you.

One evening Briana was talking about how excited she was for Christmas. She said she couldn't wait to wake up on Christmas morning and get her stocking full of goodies and canned goods. "Canned goods?" we asked? "Yeah, like candy and stuff." Hmmmm...someone may be getting a can of creamed corn in their stocking from here on out, along with the goodies, it will be a funny new tradition.

When I took the children to shop for Matt's Christmas presents this year, we made a day of it and went to the Rockaway Mall. They've only been there once before, and are completely enthrauled by it. Since their Mama isn't a fan of shopping (I've got hobbies, thanks.), we do NOT do the mall thing. They've been begging to go for about 2 yrs.
We got there early in the morning, and had a lot of fun with our list of gift ideas we'd put together, focusing all our attention on what Papa would LOVE to recieve. They'd been talking about how they KNEW that Santa was sometimes in malls, they'd experienced this when they were really young...we have the photo to prove it. They both kept saying, "He's probably not here. He's probably busy in the North Pole." They clearly didnt' want to get their hopes up...it was quite touching to see how cautious they were. I surprised them by leading them right to the "Santa area" of the mall, and they were shrieking and jumping up and down with joy, their arms wrapped around my leg and waist. Briana had tears in her eyes she was so beside herself. There was practically no one there, so we were able to get to him in moments. Both children rushed him and threw their arms around him. He was quite surprised! Brandon scrambled right up onto his knee (uninvited, mind you), and Briana sat next to him, snuggled right up under his arm. She looked up at him with sheer bliss on her face and said, "I would like a doll bed." And Brandon said, "I'd like a train. And a reindeer. Please." "I'll, I'll do my best..." Santa answered a bit weakly.
The picture of the children with Santa is one of the best pictures I've ever seen of them. They looked totally joyful, relaxed, and full of blissful wonder. It was a precious experience for me! We gave the picture to Matt as a surprise Christmas gift.

At the end of bedtime prayers last night, Briana clearly wanted to prolong the actual going to bed part of the ritual. She quickly asked if she could say a "special prayer" for all of us. She began quite seriously, "Dear Lord, please help us to love one another... and to be more complicated (WHAT?!)", blah, blah, blah...she began throwing in BIG vocab words left and right that made no sense at all, I do believe the word obliterated was used...and finally I had to cut her off and say, "Ahhh, Bri? Do you know what any of those words mean?"
Matt and I were totally laughing at this point, and she giggled and said, "Nahhhh...not really."
Man...such a staller, no?

Briana recieved a super cute horseback riding themed computer game for Christmas, from Brandon. It's a story about a young girl who's family moved to the country from the "big city", and they buy a farm, and she gets to have a horse of her own. Did I mention it's super cute? Anyway, the graffics are great (man, am I such a geek that I was compelled to mention that?!), and after she spent an afternoon playing it, she was dying for me to join in on the fun and give it a try myself. I was happy to oblige. She quickly got bored watching me learn the ropes of the game, and went off to play with new dollies and such. Brandon was glued to my side though, still soooo obsessed with everything horses. When I FINALLY was able to successfully jump the horse in the practice ring, he threw his arms around me and said,
"Mama, that makes me want to marry you right now!"
Woah, Nellie... :)