Christmas Lists

I'm still here!  We had a week off of school and a fun trip to see family north of Chicago.  The girls did well on our car ride and enjoyed a visit to the Shedd Aquarium.  It was great to celebrate Thanksgiving with my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.  On our car trip home we pulled out the Christmas music and officially started the Christmas season.  Usually we go cut down a tree the weekend after Thanksgiving, but that ritual hasn't taken place yet.  (How am I going to keep Esther away from the tree this year??)

Of course I've been obsessing about Christmas lists for weeks already now.  We don't purchase many new things for the kids throughout the year, with the exception of Christmas and birthdays.  I spend quite a bit of time reading reviews, researching, plotting, and planning my lists.  Its not that my lists are long, they are just carefully thought out.  ;)  I am still in the planning stages, but I'll share a few of my ideas with you.  I am also hoping to put together a Christmas idea list containing items that I have reviewed on my blog and love.  Thank goodness the girls can't read my blog yet.... (and I can't tell you what I'm getting for my mom because she DOES read this!)

Mommy Necklaces - I got Lucy and Julia each a Mommy Necklace, an accent strand shortened to 24 inches, one pink and one plum colored.  I also got a donut bead for each.  I think the girls will love having their own necklace so they can play mommy, or just wear them as cute little girl necklaces.

Muffin Tins - Call me crazy, but the girls are going to be so excited about their new orange muffin tins.  On Amazon they are part of the buy four things for the price of three promotion.  I got three tins and my new large cookie scoop for the price of three items.  Adding some fun printed cupcake liners and making food picks with stickers and toothpicks will round out the gift.

Twilight Turtle - This one is for Julia.  She still has a hard time going to sleep at night and I think this will encourage her.  Little known fact - Diapers.com does price matching.  Well, they used to and they are phasing it out, but if you email and ask they might price match for you.  I got them to match the Amazon.com price on this ($10 cheaper).  If you are a new customer you could then use the code ONEWORD for an additional 15% off your order.

I haven't decided what to get Lucy yet, but I'm saving my Swagbucks Amazon.com gift cards to purchase it with.  If you're not signed up for Swagbucks, you should be!

Esther has Christmas and a birthday coming up.  Can you believe she's almost one year old already?  I'm considering getting her a Playmobil 123 set, but she still puts everything in her mouth.  Some of those pieces are pretty small.  I'm in love with this adorable block set (and in love with the store Julabug, review coming soon!).

My mom got Lucy a LeapFrog Tag and Julia a Tag Junior that I am excited about.  Sorry, no photos in this post, I don't want my kids getting any ideas!

How about you?  Any fun Christmas ideas this year?  Do you obsess about what to get your kids as much as I do?