Christmas 2

I forgot to post the rest of my Christmas photos! Apologies for the belated post, but behold! The last of our holiday photos from the Culver side of the fam:

Getting ready to make cookies with cousin Luna and Great Aunt Wendy looking on:

Cookies!

Setting cookies and milk out for Santa on Christmas eve:

Waking up (she slept until after 8am!) and sneaking downstairs in the grainy light to see if Santa came:

Edie got the soundtrack to the new Disney movie Frozen for Christmas from my parents and it's become the soundtrack to Edie's life. We listen to it in the car, she plays it while falling asleep every night and pretty much any time in-between. This is how it all started - with headphones on, reclining at Grandma and Grandpa's house:

Opening gifts on Christmas morning:

Trying out her new Stomp Rocket:

Opening stockings in a festive headband:

Wearing the dress Santa brought and the Rainbow Dash(!) hat that Kathleen MADE(!) Edie:

And now I will tell you a story. Ready?

Early in December I asked Edie what she wanted for Christmas from Santa and these were her 

answers (I wrote them down):

Rock Candy Mountain Toy (this is not a thing)

Pretend Christmas Tree (?)

Robot Cat (cool idea - but wtf?)

Block Builder Crystal Diamond Jewel (this is also not a thing)

A stick that shoots diamonds (SERIOUSLY - she asked for this)

Lastly, a Wood Red Diamond Jewel

For those of you wondering if you just don't know about the "Wood Red Diamond Jewel" thing because you don't have kids, think again. Because this isn't  a "kid thing". In fact, it's not a thing at all. She invented it.

I thought it was funny, but didn't take all these stupid ideas very seriously at the time. A week later, I asked again, thinking she'd have had time to think it over and provide me with some REAL THINGS that I could buy her. But this time, all she asked for was a Wood Red Diamond Jewel. Everything else from her original list was old news, but this Wood Red Diamond Jewel came up again and again. One day when Jeff dropped Edie off at school in the morning one of her teachers took him aside to let him in on what she clearly thought was a hot tip - "Edie keeps talking about how she wants something called a Wood Red Diamond Jewel. I thought you'd want to know for Christmas!" Jeff rolled his eyes and thanked her.

When she met Santa the week before Christmas she got a little shy about telling him what she wanted. He suggested some generic things like 'a doll' or 'games' and Edie nodded yes to them to be polite. In the car on the ride home, she gasped out of nowhere like something terrible had happened. I asked, "What? Is everything okay?" to which she replied, "I FORGOT TO TELL SANTA ABOUT THE WOOD RED DIAMOND JEWEL!!!!"  I assured her I would write him a letter for her and let him know and she seemed reassured. 

The problem here is … WTF is a wood red diamond jewel and how would we procure it? I enlisted the help of Jeff's Dad, who is a talented wood worker in the hopes that he could craft a diamond shaped piece of wood and paint it red. He said he'd think on it. A week or two before Christmas he called to let me know he'd found just the thing, and it didn't even require the wood shop. When Edie opened it, she gasped and exclaimed, "A Wood Red Diamond Jewel! It's what I've always wanted!!"

Here she is with it in it's special box with a smug smile on her face on Christmas morning:

It's not wood, but this seems to matter none to Edie. No bones about it though - f you try to just call it a "Red Diamond Jewel" you WILL be corrected. She showed it to our friend Paul who pretended to steal it, so now she won't take it out with her for fear that it might be hijacked. Maybe for her birthday we can buy her a little safe where she can keep her precious Wood Red Diamond Jewel.