Ready to Go!

Ok, so maybe not actually ready to go, but mentally, we are ready to go on our first big family adventure!  Just one more day and we will be on a flight to Florida.  Yikes, it's gonna be a late night since I still have some things to check off my completely-in-my-brain list.  And by a some things, I mean pack all my stuff, finish packing the girls, print out all our documents, charge all our electronics.  You know, just a few things.

When we told the girls they were getting a cruise for Christmas (imagine the drama of Oprah announcing her favorite things episode, and that was us! "You get a cruise!  You get a cruise!  Everybody gets a CRUUUIIIIISSSSSEEE!"), there may have been a few crickets.  They were pretty pumped about their mermaid tails and all, but they weren't exactly wrapping their little minds around them getting a trip for their gift.

All that, I expected.  I prepped my mama heart that what was best and most fun for them in the long run may mean that I'd been forgoing a little Christmas magic at the present.  What I didn't expect as much was all the excitement to follow.  The past two weeks, the girls have literally talked about their looming travel nonstop.  They talk about the cruise, the plane, then back to the "big boat."  They like offering to let you sit by them on the plane, or warn you about how the water in the pools is salt water.  Did you know they even get to eat on the big boat??  (I don't know why, but that last bit of information was very intriguing for WK.)

Since units of time are still a little tricky to them ("What's a month? How many's two weeks?") and so they'd have something to actually open on Christmas morning, I made a cruise countdown for them with my Cricut, some cardstock, and some clothespins.  That way they'd be able to clip the cruise ship to the number of days we had until we leave.  Since Elfie had just left our house and he was the highlight of each of my girls mornings, I started hiding the cruise ship each morning for the girls to find and then clip to the right day.  We would sing our made up song of a "cruise on the loose," and they'd search around for it.  It has definitely added to the fun.  Every. single. morning the first words out of Harper's mouth have been "Mom!  Can you believe there are only ___ days left?!"  Totally worth staying up until 2 a.m. laminating cut out numbers on Christmas Eve.

So, the Fertitta Girls may not have gotten the big Santa gift under the tree.  In actuality, their Christmas morning piles were pretty pitiful.  But, here's what they did get. 

The lesson of delayed gratification.

The anticipation of adventure.

The excitement of a week alone with Mommy & Daddy.

And you know what, those may not be "big gift" things, but they are certainly big picture things.