Christmas, already.

I bought my first Christmas presents last week. Oiy. And so it begins. It was actually fun to get, but I need to give just a tad bit of background.

I do not care for character type clothing/shoes. Leah and Logan never really had that stuff when they were little. No Dora backpacks or Barney t-shirts around here. This still holds pretty true even with the little kids. Well, until now. For some reason Disney (which I have not always "loved") is really getting to the kids (and me too I guess). I think it is because we pretty much go to Walt Disney World every year now and the kids are growing up with it. Gee is really loving the movie "Cars." He watched it for the first time about a month ago, he doesn't even know a new one is coming out. The girls though just LOVE princess stuff. Last year at Disney World it was so fun to see their little eyes pop when they actually got to meet a couple princesses. Anna loves Cinderella and Madeline adores Ariel (is she even a princess?). Since I love my kids and I like for birthdays and Christmas's to be more about what they want, cheaply made, but unusually expensive Disney paraphernalia is making it's way to the Cole house.

The Disney store was having some good sales and free shipping. So Maddie and Anna are getting a princess and prince doll (with clothes), a t-shirt, and a personalized jacket (so fun!). All in their favorite character. Madeline will get hers for her birthday next month and poor Anna will have to wait until Christmas for hers. I like getting Christmas early to some extent. I do quite a bit of my shopping on line these days (except for Black Friday of course). Last year I hesitated to buy for the kids too early because I was worried that they would really want something closer to Christmas, but my budget would have been already blown. That wasn't the case. This year I feel more comfortable buying ahead some because I think what the kids are really liking right now will hold true a month or so from now also.

I am hoping to make some Christmas again this year, but no where near as much as last year. It got to be a little out of control. Each of the kids will get a little something made by me, but nothing too major probably. I am definitely going to make Asher his mama made quilt this year. I have all the fabric and I even know the pattern I am going to use. All the kids have a quilt made by me but him.

Since we are talking about Christmas gifts, I know what I am getting from Ryan already and I am so excited! I am getting a new laptop. I have been using Ryan's Macbook Air for 2 years now. It is a very cool lightweight laptop and even though using an "Apple" takes a bit of learning, I really like it. It is dying though and we took it to the Genius Bar Saturday night and they said it would cost almost $800 to fix. Um, nope. Not paying that. I have been wanting an ipad for a while so we considered moving to one of those. I am sorry to say though that I do not think I would be happy with that long term. I have an iphone and really the ipad is just a big iphone. I want more than that, which it hard because the ipad is sooo cute! I think we have decided to stick with Dell. They make a good solid product and it is what Ryan has been using and happy with for a while now. Over the weekend I created my Dell and Ryan is going to e-mail the specs to his contact at our local Dell and see if we can get a better price. I am super excited!!

There was one aspect of ordering my Dell that was frustrating to me. Have you all ever heard of project (RED)? Here's a link: http://www.joinred.com/red/ It is a neat idea. Businesses can partner with project (RED) and part of the proceeds made from that product goes to help AIDS victims in Africa. I have bought a few products already. A Gap t-shirt and outfit for Asher and a coffee mug from Starbucks. Some big names partner with (RED). Dell is one of those big names. I was extremely stoked when I saw that Dell had (RED) products. They even had them available in the computer type I was looking at. There were like 12 or so designs to choose from and I picked my favorite. Well, it was an additional $170 to get a computer with a (RED) design. Very high and not something we would normally pay for, but we are pretty committed to giving back with what we have been blessed with, so we looked into to further. After more research we realized that only $20 of that $170 actually went to AIDS relief. Only $20!! I am sure the designer had to get his/her cut and Dell had to get theirs, but $20?? No thank you. Our money would be much better spent to send that $170 to World Vision. Nuts though, there were some cool designs......

Until next time!

Julie