Christmas in 3 Days! Already?!

I don't know about anyone else, but I feel like Christmas has sneaked up on me this year. Not that I haven't thought about it since Thanksgiving, and I did start decorating before the first of December. All the days in between just seem to have gone by really fast! That never happened when I was little.

We just had a whirlwind weekend of awesome family Christmas get-togethers, and I hate to admit it but Lane and I just started our Christmas shopping last night (not including the gifts bought for all 30 of the little cousins for the party; yep, I said 30, and that's all on my side of the family). That shopping was done a few days before; said with pride since it wasn't the day of! We can procrastinate with the best of them!

And thank you to everyone for all the awesome gifts McKenzie received yesterday and Saturday! She loves them.

Why did we start the official gift-buying last night? Well, because we are loving and caring parents of an only child; that's why. No spoiling here! Yeah right! Oh, and that procrastination thing too.

The real reason with some back-story:

Even though McKenzie was running around the party with a pretty cool light-up princess wand of her very own, we soon learned that the most fun toys are the ones that someone else is playing with. She locked in on a Leapfrog phone that one of her little cousins had and that was it. 

Now, it would seem that 2-year-olds don't really have that whole sharing thing down yet. Who would have thought? 

So, as to avoid potential meltdowns and a possible throw-down between the two kiddos, we did what any responsible parents would do. We did a temporary toy swap. Yeah, McKenzie may have been a little happier with this deal than her cousin. That worked for a minute then we came to our senses and hid the toys. Out of sight, out of mind!

We had been thinking of getting McKenzie something Leapfrog for Christmas, and since she seemed to like that phone so much we thought, "Why not?" 

When we got home I messaged my cousin for the name of the phone, because apparently just searching for a Leapfrog phone online doesn't work. We located a Walmart that had it in stock. There are two Walmarts closer to us that were out of stock. :-( Then, because we wanted to make sure we didn't miss getting it by Christmas off we went. 

We ended up not even getting the Leapfrog phone after all that, but we did get her a similar Fisher Price phone. So began our Christmas shopping adventure for this year!

Not only did we buy it right in front of her (minimal sneakiness required) but I can also post this before Christmas because she can't read yet. 

I'm definitely looking forward to carrying on the tradition of hiding presents and taking parental shifts in buying presents as McKenzie gets older, but I am appreciating the fact that she hasn't caught onto any of this yet. This is pretty much the only reason we can get away with this last minute Christmas shopping right under her nose.

Sorry for the absolute lack of pictures, but I suck at taking pictures and chasing an almost 2-year-old around all at the same time. There will be Christmas pictures up at some point, hopefully before next year starts. Like I said, I am great at procrastinating!