Not Me Monday - 15th Edition

We have a rule in our family that we do not go to any businesses on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. It was PapaBear's idea. He figures if everybody would play along then all those businesses would stay closed those two days and employees could spend time with their families instead of catering to those who don't plan ahead.
Seeing that that I'm writing my Not Me post, you can probably see where this is going...

On the 23rd I packed everything for our two stops on Christmas Eve as well as my photo equipment for my photo shoot. All I left for the morning was to set out the kids Christmas outfits.
Sam's sweater vest - check
Sam's dress shirt - check
matching socks - check
khaki pants - check

Julia's Christmas dress (same one as last year) - check
tights - ______

Hi! My name is MamaBear and I did not break the Christmas rule. I did not run into Target (with 250 other last minute shoppers - no lie!) to get Julia some black tights. She did not wear 6x tights because they didn't have anything smaller. They did not fit my two year old perfectly.

Later that day we started a new tradition by taking a big family picture. First we took one of the kids like we always do. That is not my daughter standing on her head. Nope. I have no idea who that child belongs to!


Here's the proof that we actually got everyone to cooperate for the big family photo.

Sweet huh? Except maybe for only getting Julia from the chin up. :)
There wasn't an audible gasp the second after the shutter went off because the person nobody noticed was missing from the photo (she was in the basement) walked into the room. That wasn't embarrassing! Not one bit!


After four hours of food, fun, presents, laughter, and tears (PapaBear's cousin announced his engagement) we packed up and headed home. On the way we decided to give going to late Mass a shot. From what I remember Catholic services are usually an hour.
The service did not start late and then last an hour an a half. It was not midnight when we walked out into -10 degree temps. I was not wearing my four year old in my new Kozy Carrier
to stay warm because Julia had been in it on the way in and we only had one coat.
That same four year old did not spend the entire service coloring with Color Wonder or watching intently and very quietly...in his snowman pajamas. I don't know who he belongs to either. :)

Wanna see my new Kozy in action before you go check out more Not Me Monday posts at My Charming Kids?

This is me (yes, my hair is red again), with my niece, Lily.

I didn't get this carrier for free when I purchased a ToddlerHawk from a nice lady on Ebay.
I didn't almost end up with a black one with flames on it. Phew! I wasn't relieved to have asked the seller at the last second to describe the two patterns before I chose my free one. Not me! Free is free right? I would never be so bold to ask under the pretense that black might not be the greatest color because of our white dog.
It's not going to take some convincing to get my hubby out on our ski trails with a 37 pound kid strapped on his back.
Me? I'm ready to strap the 36 pounder on as soon as we get some fresh snow!

I have a feeling most Not Me posts this week are going to be Christmas themed. If you missed my Christmas edition of Not Me Monday you can read it here.