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Our
Journey:
Journey:
| December 7, 2008 Two Christmas parties! |
Avalon's Army of Angels
Today was our official crazy Christmas day. This
afternoon, we attended the Christmas parties of
both Adventures for Wish Kids and Kids N Kamp.
It was a whirlwind day...but more fun than any 4
kids should be allowed to have!
At the AFWK party, we ate a delicious lunch,
played silly games, and the kids went "fishing" for
stuffies. They love "fishing"! Each child holds a
bamboo fishing pole with a clip attached at the
end. They tell the volunteer which stuffie they
hope to catch, and the volunteer tells the "lake"
what they are hoping to find. The clip gets tossed
over a wall into the "lake" and viola! You have
fishing for stuffies.
This year, we opted out of a few of our regular
activities, because we were short on time, to be
able to make it to the Kids N Kamp party too. The
craft this year was decorating a small glass jar
filled with candy. Franky, 2nd party or not, that
one would have been skipped. I hated having the
kids miss out on the bouncy play things, but
Avalon would have never made it to the second
party if she had even done one of them. She
loves them sooooo much, but one round of
bouncing, and she's done in for the entire day.
And finally, we couldn't wait in line for our family
picture. The family pictures have been a 50/50
proposition for us over the years. A few have
been great, a few horrifying. We had a friend of
ours that is a volunteer take a family picture of us
as we arrived at the party, so we decided to go
with her picture instead.
Avalon's wheelchair was the hit of the party. This
was its debut performance in its Christmas finery.
None of these pictures really do it justice. I'll have
to try to get some later on that really do. My dad
found LED battery-operated lights that are not
only snowman heads, but the lights change colors!
They are fantastic! After he found those, I really
wanted to make sure I had something great to put
them on. I found silver holographic wreaths. The
entire wreath is small cut paper leaves, made of
holographic paper. In a sunbeam, this thing is
blinding! In low light, the wreath reflects the
snowman lights beautifully. Yes, her chair can
truly be classified as 'crap-tacular'. She loves it!
AFWK is for any child with a life threatening
illness. While 60% of the kids are cancer kids,
there are a lot of other medical children and
diagnoses represented. Wheelchairs are
commonplace at AFWK events, so the people
there really appreciated her chair, and weren't shy
about saying it. I'm hoping we'll see lots of
decorated chairs next year. ;-) I mean, criminy, if
you have to use the dumb things, you might as
well make them pretty!
Before we left the first party, we stopped and
picked up the kids' gifts. For the second year, the
kids requested Target gift cards instead of actual
gifts. We did this last year, because we were so
late responding to the wish request. The truth is,
the kids loved it! They had so much fun going
shopping and being "grown-up" by getting to pay
for their own toys. Its also a great math lesson.
Heck, its a great Life lesson. They have a certain
amount of money, and have to make choices in
how they spend it. Watching them agonize over
their choices is so cute. You'd think they were
deciding the fate of nations, they take it so
seriously. So, three tickled girls and one clueless
little boy picked up small packages, thanked the
people profusely, and promptly bounced out the
door toward party number two.
afternoon, we attended the Christmas parties of
both Adventures for Wish Kids and Kids N Kamp.
It was a whirlwind day...but more fun than any 4
kids should be allowed to have!
At the AFWK party, we ate a delicious lunch,
played silly games, and the kids went "fishing" for
stuffies. They love "fishing"! Each child holds a
bamboo fishing pole with a clip attached at the
end. They tell the volunteer which stuffie they
hope to catch, and the volunteer tells the "lake"
what they are hoping to find. The clip gets tossed
over a wall into the "lake" and viola! You have
fishing for stuffies.
This year, we opted out of a few of our regular
activities, because we were short on time, to be
able to make it to the Kids N Kamp party too. The
craft this year was decorating a small glass jar
filled with candy. Franky, 2nd party or not, that
one would have been skipped. I hated having the
kids miss out on the bouncy play things, but
Avalon would have never made it to the second
party if she had even done one of them. She
loves them sooooo much, but one round of
bouncing, and she's done in for the entire day.
And finally, we couldn't wait in line for our family
picture. The family pictures have been a 50/50
proposition for us over the years. A few have
been great, a few horrifying. We had a friend of
ours that is a volunteer take a family picture of us
as we arrived at the party, so we decided to go
with her picture instead.
Avalon's wheelchair was the hit of the party. This
was its debut performance in its Christmas finery.
None of these pictures really do it justice. I'll have
to try to get some later on that really do. My dad
found LED battery-operated lights that are not
only snowman heads, but the lights change colors!
They are fantastic! After he found those, I really
wanted to make sure I had something great to put
them on. I found silver holographic wreaths. The
entire wreath is small cut paper leaves, made of
holographic paper. In a sunbeam, this thing is
blinding! In low light, the wreath reflects the
snowman lights beautifully. Yes, her chair can
truly be classified as 'crap-tacular'. She loves it!
AFWK is for any child with a life threatening
illness. While 60% of the kids are cancer kids,
there are a lot of other medical children and
diagnoses represented. Wheelchairs are
commonplace at AFWK events, so the people
there really appreciated her chair, and weren't shy
about saying it. I'm hoping we'll see lots of
decorated chairs next year. ;-) I mean, criminy, if
you have to use the dumb things, you might as
well make them pretty!
Before we left the first party, we stopped and
picked up the kids' gifts. For the second year, the
kids requested Target gift cards instead of actual
gifts. We did this last year, because we were so
late responding to the wish request. The truth is,
the kids loved it! They had so much fun going
shopping and being "grown-up" by getting to pay
for their own toys. Its also a great math lesson.
Heck, its a great Life lesson. They have a certain
amount of money, and have to make choices in
how they spend it. Watching them agonize over
their choices is so cute. You'd think they were
deciding the fate of nations, they take it so
seriously. So, three tickled girls and one clueless
little boy picked up small packages, thanked the
people profusely, and promptly bounced out the
door toward party number two.
The second party was put on by Kids N Kamp, a
local pediatric cancer charity. KNK does all sorts
of family oriented activities for cancer families.
They are the ones that allow us to attend the
wonderful family camp I posted so much about.
The KNK party has the girls' absolute favorite
Christmas activity, the Secret Santa Shop. Its
the one thing they talk about all year long. Local
businesses, friends, and we the members of
KNK, all donate items to the shop. Then, the
children ages 16 and under get to go into the
shop and buy Christmas presents for their family.
The shop is absolutely SECRET! No adult family
members allowed. Each child is assigned a
helper who goes around and shops with them.
When they're done shopping, the helper escorts
them out, tells the parents where they're going,
then takes the child down to the gift wrapping
area. The first year we did this, waiting for gift
wrapping was nearly an hour. I wised up the next
year. Now, the kids each take in gift bags, with
large tags that say who the gift is for, and who it
is from. That way, the helpers can help remind
them exactly who they're shopping for, and the
gifts are ready to go to the car immediately when
they leave.
Poor Aurora, she got stuck helping little man this
year. She had hoped a big person would offer to
assist her, but apparently, Anam was being a
schmucko when they went in, and she said she
thinks the volunteers decided she was OK with
him alone. She kind of got the short end of the
stick, but she did earn major big sissy points for
it.
Some time after we come home, I get all our gift
bags out, and tissue paper, and let the kids finish
"wrapping" their gifts. If they need a smaller bag,
or a bigger one, the gift tags easily move where
they want them. Even though they started this
when Avalon was 3 and Ambrosia was 5, they've
never spilled a secret yet! They'll rat their mom
out in a hot second on anything I'd prefer to keep
private...but they're a couple of CIA agents when
it comes to their Christmas loot.
After shopping, we went to the gym to put their
cards in to try to win a bike. There is a local
big-hearted family who lost their child to cancer.
Every year, they collect bikes to give away to
kids at the party. Each child receives a ticket
when they arrive. The children then look at all
the available bikes, placing their ticket in the bag
on the handlebars of the bike they want. If the
ticket is picked - they go home with a new bike!
Our first year, Ambrosia and Aurora won bikes.
Last year, Avalon finally won a bike. This year,
we put all the tickets in one bag, to win an adult
bike, since Aurora has outgrown hers. Although
we didn't realize it at the party - she won! I got a
phone call a few days later saying Ambrosia had
won, and boy were they confused about a 7 year
old, winning a 26" bike. They liked our idea
though. I think its greedy that some families try
to win bikes for the same children year after
year. Next year, if someone has outgrown their
bike, we'll try for them, and we'll definitely try to
win Anam's first bike. Grateful is one thing,
greedy is something entirely different.
Another neat thing they do when you arrive, is to
place your family's name in a drawing for a door
prize. On the stage in the auditorium (the party
is held at a school), there are dozens upon
dozens of Christmas decorations. There is
everything from table runners, to cookie jars, to
wall hangings. The items are beautiful! When
your name is drawn, they write it on a huge
eraso-board and you earn to the right to go up
on stage and choose something. Every family in
attendance wins - the drawing is merely to decide
when you get to go pick.
We were headed down the hall towards our next
activity, when someone stopped me and said
she'd seen our name on the board. Nick and the
kids said they trusted me, so I headed off to pick
our treasure. Oh...there were 50 things I would
have liked. But, this was a family door prize, so I
had to think of kid appeal. I settled on a fiber
optic 36" Christmas tree. Its so awful its
fantastic! Its the new centerpiece of our kitchen
table. I picked well, all the kids are crazy about it.
One of the things we've never done at the party
is Cake Bingo. We've never wanted to take the
time to play, but from what we've seen other
people carrying, you can win some nifty looking
confections.
There is no lunch at this party, just cookies. Its
basically a little kid's dream come true. They fill
up the cafeteria's food line, with thousands of
cookies of every type imaginable. Its incredible!
Each family is asked to bring some to donate, so
there are store bought, home made, bakery
made...you name it. The kids are always in
heaven.
Actually, the individual pictures you see on the
right, were taken while we sat around the
cafeteria table eating our snack. So no,
Ambroisa's not bleeding, that's red icing from a
cookie. While we were snacking, the girls saw
that there was a face painter in the cafeteria too.
They couldn't resist a good painting, so off they
went. As you can see, this was one talented
painter! The camera doesn't do them justice.
Their creations were covered in glitter, and they
twinkled. Pretty neat.
KNK also gives our children Christmas gifts. We
also repeated what they had requested last year,
and asked for gift cards to Claire's and Icing -
two accessory stores where the girls can pick
jewelry, hair accessories, and cute little extras.
Anam got a real present here. We told them
what he's crazy about and they did a really good
job finding something he loves. As for the gift
cards, the girls and I will leave Anam with Daddy
some evening, and go have a "girlie girl"
shopping trip. Its so much fun! As with the
Target gift cards, it teaches the girls to pay
attention to money, and only choose the items
they really like. You have to love a fun time
that's educational too!
I love how KNK gives their gifts. At AFWK, you
go into a gym (their party is at a school too) and
pick up a trash bag with the gifts in it. At the KNK
party, they set up two gift "machines". (huge
boxes that cover the doors of two classrooms)
Children put tickets that have their names on
them, in a slot, wait a minute or two, and then
sloop! their gift slides down a chute. The kids
love it! Anam was obsessed with peeking in the
little slot. I think that may have been one of his
favorite activities!
The girls love visiting with Mr. Tree each year
too. As you can see in the picture, Mr. Tree is
adorable. He chats with passersby, and tells
everyone how he loves to "pose" for pictures. He
always says sweet things about a child's outfit, or
hat...something to personally engage them. As
everyone else had, he made a huge fuss over
Avalon's wheelchair. At first, Anam was a bit
unsure, but finally decided Mr. Tree wasn't going
to eat him. By the end of the day, he was pretty
enthralled with him. We had to remind him that
Mr. Tree wasn't allowed to come home with us...
There are also fun carnival-type games that the
kids can play. Every child always wins, and they
win a small piece of candy. It makes it all about
the fun of playing, no worries about having hurt
feelings. Because Avalon is the most paranoid
about losing me, I'm generally the one that takes
her to do this kind of thing, so she doesn't get
sad. Its here, that I noticed just how bad her
right hand control really is.
One of the first games she played was a ring
toss. Remember the carnival game we all played
as kids? There were hundreds of dowel rods,
and you tossed what looked like large curtain
rings into the sea of sticks. If you landed your
ring on a stick of a certain color, you took home
some poor bedraggled goldfish that was sure to
croak in a week. Well, this was a smaller, table
top version of that. (sans fish) Most of the kids
were hitting rings with one, maybe two tries.
Avalon couldn't even get the ring near the board
with the pegs. When she threw it, she kind of
looked like a 12 or 18 month old child does when
they try to throw. Her arm just shoots out and
her hand kind of splays open and turns funny. If
you've ever seen a young toddler trying to throw
something to a certain place....then you've seen
what she was doing. It was heartbreaking!
The young girl running the game was wonderful.
She kept moving the game closer to Avalon, and
encouraging her to try again. Eventually, when
the game was about a foot away from Avalon's
hand, she was finally able to make a ring. The
game girl and I both cheered like lunatics. Its
amazing how a teenager can obviously recognize
Avalon's struggles, but most of her doctors have
missed them this Summer. I guess I need to take
a ring toss with me to appointments.
Because she worked so hard, the games soon
lost their luster for Avalon, so she wanted to go
do a craft. Unfortunately, the craft required
some really intricate hand dexterity to be able to
balance it and get it all together. It was difficult
enough, even Aurora and Ambrosia opted to
bring it home to finish. You can imagine how
frustrated Avalon was.
Later in the day, as we happened past the game
tables again, Avalon asked me if she could go
back and do a game she had passed up before.
I agreed, and off we went. The game in question
was a bean bag toss - kind of like a tabletop
cornhole game. This was another event to note.
This time, Avalon picked up the bean bags with
her Left hand, her non-dominant one. Sure
enough, she made two out of three throws. I
don't think she had any idea that she switched
hands. If she did - I know she doesn't
comprehend why. Its hard to explain, but all I
wanted to do was cry. Part of me was intrigued
that she "knew" she had a better chance of
making it work with her left hand. But a larger
part of me was heartsick. Avalon is very right
hand dominant, always has been. If you're right
handed - imagine trying to anything complicated
with your left hand. It's nearly
impossible!Avalon's "preferred" hand, is so
damaged now - her left hand is a better choice.
It was such a small thing, but it put such a huge
lump in my throat and stone in my chest.... Its
just so, so wrong...
Luckily for my mental state, we ended the day on
a happy note. As you can see in the pictures, we
ended with a visit with Santa. At first, Anam
would have nothing to do with him. Poor little
guy, it was waaaay past nap time, and that
doesn't make for a happy little man on any day.
Add in a guy in a big red suit - and no wonder
Anam was less-than-impressed. However, the
"me too" stage he's in worked to our advantage.
As soon as he saw his sisters talking to Santa,
he surely wasn't going to be outdone! Bing,
bang, boom - he conquered his fears and the
sleepies - to make sure to keep up with the
bigguns. Hah! I'll take it how I can get it. It's
most likely the only Santa picture I'll get from him
this year.
So, with Santa squeezes, lots of goodies, and
tired little people - we hugged our friends, and
headed out. Party number two was done - and
we'd had a Glorious Time! Thank you Kids N
Kamp!!!
local pediatric cancer charity. KNK does all sorts
of family oriented activities for cancer families.
They are the ones that allow us to attend the
wonderful family camp I posted so much about.
The KNK party has the girls' absolute favorite
Christmas activity, the Secret Santa Shop. Its
the one thing they talk about all year long. Local
businesses, friends, and we the members of
KNK, all donate items to the shop. Then, the
children ages 16 and under get to go into the
shop and buy Christmas presents for their family.
The shop is absolutely SECRET! No adult family
members allowed. Each child is assigned a
helper who goes around and shops with them.
When they're done shopping, the helper escorts
them out, tells the parents where they're going,
then takes the child down to the gift wrapping
area. The first year we did this, waiting for gift
wrapping was nearly an hour. I wised up the next
year. Now, the kids each take in gift bags, with
large tags that say who the gift is for, and who it
is from. That way, the helpers can help remind
them exactly who they're shopping for, and the
gifts are ready to go to the car immediately when
they leave.
Poor Aurora, she got stuck helping little man this
year. She had hoped a big person would offer to
assist her, but apparently, Anam was being a
schmucko when they went in, and she said she
thinks the volunteers decided she was OK with
him alone. She kind of got the short end of the
stick, but she did earn major big sissy points for
it.
Some time after we come home, I get all our gift
bags out, and tissue paper, and let the kids finish
"wrapping" their gifts. If they need a smaller bag,
or a bigger one, the gift tags easily move where
they want them. Even though they started this
when Avalon was 3 and Ambrosia was 5, they've
never spilled a secret yet! They'll rat their mom
out in a hot second on anything I'd prefer to keep
private...but they're a couple of CIA agents when
it comes to their Christmas loot.
After shopping, we went to the gym to put their
cards in to try to win a bike. There is a local
big-hearted family who lost their child to cancer.
Every year, they collect bikes to give away to
kids at the party. Each child receives a ticket
when they arrive. The children then look at all
the available bikes, placing their ticket in the bag
on the handlebars of the bike they want. If the
ticket is picked - they go home with a new bike!
Our first year, Ambrosia and Aurora won bikes.
Last year, Avalon finally won a bike. This year,
we put all the tickets in one bag, to win an adult
bike, since Aurora has outgrown hers. Although
we didn't realize it at the party - she won! I got a
phone call a few days later saying Ambrosia had
won, and boy were they confused about a 7 year
old, winning a 26" bike. They liked our idea
though. I think its greedy that some families try
to win bikes for the same children year after
year. Next year, if someone has outgrown their
bike, we'll try for them, and we'll definitely try to
win Anam's first bike. Grateful is one thing,
greedy is something entirely different.
Another neat thing they do when you arrive, is to
place your family's name in a drawing for a door
prize. On the stage in the auditorium (the party
is held at a school), there are dozens upon
dozens of Christmas decorations. There is
everything from table runners, to cookie jars, to
wall hangings. The items are beautiful! When
your name is drawn, they write it on a huge
eraso-board and you earn to the right to go up
on stage and choose something. Every family in
attendance wins - the drawing is merely to decide
when you get to go pick.
We were headed down the hall towards our next
activity, when someone stopped me and said
she'd seen our name on the board. Nick and the
kids said they trusted me, so I headed off to pick
our treasure. Oh...there were 50 things I would
have liked. But, this was a family door prize, so I
had to think of kid appeal. I settled on a fiber
optic 36" Christmas tree. Its so awful its
fantastic! Its the new centerpiece of our kitchen
table. I picked well, all the kids are crazy about it.
One of the things we've never done at the party
is Cake Bingo. We've never wanted to take the
time to play, but from what we've seen other
people carrying, you can win some nifty looking
confections.
There is no lunch at this party, just cookies. Its
basically a little kid's dream come true. They fill
up the cafeteria's food line, with thousands of
cookies of every type imaginable. Its incredible!
Each family is asked to bring some to donate, so
there are store bought, home made, bakery
made...you name it. The kids are always in
heaven.
Actually, the individual pictures you see on the
right, were taken while we sat around the
cafeteria table eating our snack. So no,
Ambroisa's not bleeding, that's red icing from a
cookie. While we were snacking, the girls saw
that there was a face painter in the cafeteria too.
They couldn't resist a good painting, so off they
went. As you can see, this was one talented
painter! The camera doesn't do them justice.
Their creations were covered in glitter, and they
twinkled. Pretty neat.
KNK also gives our children Christmas gifts. We
also repeated what they had requested last year,
and asked for gift cards to Claire's and Icing -
two accessory stores where the girls can pick
jewelry, hair accessories, and cute little extras.
Anam got a real present here. We told them
what he's crazy about and they did a really good
job finding something he loves. As for the gift
cards, the girls and I will leave Anam with Daddy
some evening, and go have a "girlie girl"
shopping trip. Its so much fun! As with the
Target gift cards, it teaches the girls to pay
attention to money, and only choose the items
they really like. You have to love a fun time
that's educational too!
I love how KNK gives their gifts. At AFWK, you
go into a gym (their party is at a school too) and
pick up a trash bag with the gifts in it. At the KNK
party, they set up two gift "machines". (huge
boxes that cover the doors of two classrooms)
Children put tickets that have their names on
them, in a slot, wait a minute or two, and then
sloop! their gift slides down a chute. The kids
love it! Anam was obsessed with peeking in the
little slot. I think that may have been one of his
favorite activities!
The girls love visiting with Mr. Tree each year
too. As you can see in the picture, Mr. Tree is
adorable. He chats with passersby, and tells
everyone how he loves to "pose" for pictures. He
always says sweet things about a child's outfit, or
hat...something to personally engage them. As
everyone else had, he made a huge fuss over
Avalon's wheelchair. At first, Anam was a bit
unsure, but finally decided Mr. Tree wasn't going
to eat him. By the end of the day, he was pretty
enthralled with him. We had to remind him that
Mr. Tree wasn't allowed to come home with us...
There are also fun carnival-type games that the
kids can play. Every child always wins, and they
win a small piece of candy. It makes it all about
the fun of playing, no worries about having hurt
feelings. Because Avalon is the most paranoid
about losing me, I'm generally the one that takes
her to do this kind of thing, so she doesn't get
sad. Its here, that I noticed just how bad her
right hand control really is.
One of the first games she played was a ring
toss. Remember the carnival game we all played
as kids? There were hundreds of dowel rods,
and you tossed what looked like large curtain
rings into the sea of sticks. If you landed your
ring on a stick of a certain color, you took home
some poor bedraggled goldfish that was sure to
croak in a week. Well, this was a smaller, table
top version of that. (sans fish) Most of the kids
were hitting rings with one, maybe two tries.
Avalon couldn't even get the ring near the board
with the pegs. When she threw it, she kind of
looked like a 12 or 18 month old child does when
they try to throw. Her arm just shoots out and
her hand kind of splays open and turns funny. If
you've ever seen a young toddler trying to throw
something to a certain place....then you've seen
what she was doing. It was heartbreaking!
The young girl running the game was wonderful.
She kept moving the game closer to Avalon, and
encouraging her to try again. Eventually, when
the game was about a foot away from Avalon's
hand, she was finally able to make a ring. The
game girl and I both cheered like lunatics. Its
amazing how a teenager can obviously recognize
Avalon's struggles, but most of her doctors have
missed them this Summer. I guess I need to take
a ring toss with me to appointments.
Because she worked so hard, the games soon
lost their luster for Avalon, so she wanted to go
do a craft. Unfortunately, the craft required
some really intricate hand dexterity to be able to
balance it and get it all together. It was difficult
enough, even Aurora and Ambrosia opted to
bring it home to finish. You can imagine how
frustrated Avalon was.
Later in the day, as we happened past the game
tables again, Avalon asked me if she could go
back and do a game she had passed up before.
I agreed, and off we went. The game in question
was a bean bag toss - kind of like a tabletop
cornhole game. This was another event to note.
This time, Avalon picked up the bean bags with
her Left hand, her non-dominant one. Sure
enough, she made two out of three throws. I
don't think she had any idea that she switched
hands. If she did - I know she doesn't
comprehend why. Its hard to explain, but all I
wanted to do was cry. Part of me was intrigued
that she "knew" she had a better chance of
making it work with her left hand. But a larger
part of me was heartsick. Avalon is very right
hand dominant, always has been. If you're right
handed - imagine trying to anything complicated
with your left hand. It's nearly
impossible!Avalon's "preferred" hand, is so
damaged now - her left hand is a better choice.
It was such a small thing, but it put such a huge
lump in my throat and stone in my chest.... Its
just so, so wrong...
Luckily for my mental state, we ended the day on
a happy note. As you can see in the pictures, we
ended with a visit with Santa. At first, Anam
would have nothing to do with him. Poor little
guy, it was waaaay past nap time, and that
doesn't make for a happy little man on any day.
Add in a guy in a big red suit - and no wonder
Anam was less-than-impressed. However, the
"me too" stage he's in worked to our advantage.
As soon as he saw his sisters talking to Santa,
he surely wasn't going to be outdone! Bing,
bang, boom - he conquered his fears and the
sleepies - to make sure to keep up with the
bigguns. Hah! I'll take it how I can get it. It's
most likely the only Santa picture I'll get from him
this year.
So, with Santa squeezes, lots of goodies, and
tired little people - we hugged our friends, and
headed out. Party number two was done - and
we'd had a Glorious Time! Thank you Kids N
Kamp!!!
We left the party, thinking we were headed home. Ambrosia and Avalon had completely
different ideas. Their Target gift cards were burning volcanic holes in their hypothetical
pockets. They were desperate to get to the Bratz section to buy up all their gift cards would
allow them. After the devastating news that Bratz will likely be pulled from the shelves in early
January, they were convinced that each second we waited could mean a Bratz doll they missed
out on. Aurora wanted to go too - to check out her future purchase. She had been hoarding
(and requesting) Target gift cards since her birthday, to save up to get an Ipod. Since her
hoarded cards were at home, she wasn't able to purchase it today, but she still wanted to gawk
at the wonderful item that was about to be hers.
OK, Daddy and I are easy targets. (ha ha! I didn't even mean to do that - but I'm kinda funny!)
It took about 30 seconds for us to agree to go. Easy for Daddy, he knew he'd get to stay in the
car. The thirty seconds we took discussing it, was all Anam needed to pass out cold. So it was
decided, Daddy and Anam wait it out in the car, and the Girls all head into Target wonderland.
Normally, a mom and 3 girls wouldn't be much of an oddity in Target. That is, normally they
wouldn't. However, glance back up at the pictures on this page...we weren't exactly normal
looking. Oh yeah, we did it. We went into Target with them in Christmas dresses (not that big
of a deal), Avalon's glowing and jingling wheelchair (VERY big deal), and me in my full
head-to-toe Mrs. Claus get-up (giganto deal). People were taking cell phone pictures of us and
calling each other in the store to make sure they came and saw us. We caused quite the
ruckus. And oddly enough, it hadn't occurred to any of us that anyone would notice. Too funny!
Ambrosia and Avalon spent an eternity agonizing over their purchases. They went back and
forth, painfully deciding whom they would take home, and whom would be abandoned to the
arms of another little girl (horrors!). Eventually, Mommy got bamboozled into tossing another
$10 into the mix for each of them, so they could have the "Bestest best dolls ever!" Add that
extra $20, to the taxes I pay on their purchases (OK, I think its mean to make them think about
sales tax at this age) - and our "free" shopping trip wasn't so cheap. But no matter, Aurora
needed slightly over $10 to be able to get her Ipod - so all's fair. Besides, their bouncy,
walking-on-clouds, ear-to-ear grins were worth every cent.
Finally, after much funning, many pictures, and much-to-much sugar scarfing...the Havan clan
headed home. We were tired...but boy-oh-boy was it allllllll worth it! This was definitely a
PERFECT Day!!!
different ideas. Their Target gift cards were burning volcanic holes in their hypothetical
pockets. They were desperate to get to the Bratz section to buy up all their gift cards would
allow them. After the devastating news that Bratz will likely be pulled from the shelves in early
January, they were convinced that each second we waited could mean a Bratz doll they missed
out on. Aurora wanted to go too - to check out her future purchase. She had been hoarding
(and requesting) Target gift cards since her birthday, to save up to get an Ipod. Since her
hoarded cards were at home, she wasn't able to purchase it today, but she still wanted to gawk
at the wonderful item that was about to be hers.
OK, Daddy and I are easy targets. (ha ha! I didn't even mean to do that - but I'm kinda funny!)
It took about 30 seconds for us to agree to go. Easy for Daddy, he knew he'd get to stay in the
car. The thirty seconds we took discussing it, was all Anam needed to pass out cold. So it was
decided, Daddy and Anam wait it out in the car, and the Girls all head into Target wonderland.
Normally, a mom and 3 girls wouldn't be much of an oddity in Target. That is, normally they
wouldn't. However, glance back up at the pictures on this page...we weren't exactly normal
looking. Oh yeah, we did it. We went into Target with them in Christmas dresses (not that big
of a deal), Avalon's glowing and jingling wheelchair (VERY big deal), and me in my full
head-to-toe Mrs. Claus get-up (giganto deal). People were taking cell phone pictures of us and
calling each other in the store to make sure they came and saw us. We caused quite the
ruckus. And oddly enough, it hadn't occurred to any of us that anyone would notice. Too funny!
Ambrosia and Avalon spent an eternity agonizing over their purchases. They went back and
forth, painfully deciding whom they would take home, and whom would be abandoned to the
arms of another little girl (horrors!). Eventually, Mommy got bamboozled into tossing another
$10 into the mix for each of them, so they could have the "Bestest best dolls ever!" Add that
extra $20, to the taxes I pay on their purchases (OK, I think its mean to make them think about
sales tax at this age) - and our "free" shopping trip wasn't so cheap. But no matter, Aurora
needed slightly over $10 to be able to get her Ipod - so all's fair. Besides, their bouncy,
walking-on-clouds, ear-to-ear grins were worth every cent.
Finally, after much funning, many pictures, and much-to-much sugar scarfing...the Havan clan
headed home. We were tired...but boy-oh-boy was it allllllll worth it! This was definitely a
PERFECT Day!!!