all i want for christmas is . . . .

. . . . a car that works.

. . . and my bills paid off.

. . . . and a house without my mother-in-law drama.

. . . and my extended family, near.

. . . and all of my fertility issues to go away.

. . . and a job I don't hate.

Other than those few, very minor things, my life is wonderful.

But, in all seriousness things are going well here. I think we are about done Christmas shopping for the kids this year. It's proven to be quite a bit harder to shop for them this year though. Tim and I had our annual "Shop till You (meaning him) Drop Day" this past Friday and we must have looked in a million different stores before we bought a single thing. We're really trying to simplify things this year. Only buy them toys we know will last. Toys we know they'll love. Believe it or not, it's very hard d to find toys that fall under BOTH of those catagories.

More importantly though, it really helped us to realize that our children really don't want for anything. When we were reviewing their lists this year, we noticed that they were literally just writing down anything and everything they came across. They really didn't want any of it. For example, Bob had a GPS on his list. When I asked him if he even knew what a GPS was, he had no clue. In the past, Tim and I have both seriously overdone Christmas. We love watching the kids open their gifts come the big day. We never really paid much attention to the fact that most of the gifts that we had just spent hundreds of dollars on, went unnoticed, not played with, the whole year through.

This year will be different. There won't be as many gifts under the tree. But the gifts that will be there, were well thought out, well planned, and I know they will walk away with many more hours of play in those fewer toys than they ever have in Christmases past.