Christmas Excitement: Emeline

I couldn't keep myself from posting about Christmas today.  It snowed--first of the season--and my kids and I went bananas over the gloriousness of it all.  We also happened to finish listening to the audio version of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever which I absolutely love.  Yes, I cried.  I always cry.  Then I felt all warm and fuzzy and when we got home I immediately went inside and put on Christmas music.  Then we laughed and danced and sang, and I felt the happiest I've felt in ages.  Christmas does that for me.  Helps me relax a little.  

Here are the presents hubs and I selected for our darling Emeline, who just turned 6.  She is a charming lady, with bright orange hair and a 100 kilowatt smile.  She loves to draw and checks out copious numbers of how to draw books at the library.  She is in kindergarten this year but is already a fairly good reader and she loves stories.  She also loves imaginative play and anything that is small.  She's always preferred small toys to large.  Calico Critters are a favorite of hers but she usually buys them with her own money because I'm cheap.

So, if you have any lovely young ladies to shop for this season, here are a few ideas.

 All of our kids get a book (or two, or three, or, in this case, six) for Christmas.  I knew Emeline would be almost ready to read the Mercy Watson series independently by Christmas, and we love the books, so it was an obvious choice. I couldn't resist getting all six and I wanted the hardbacks so I bought them all used from Abebooks.  You can buy the complete paperback series but with a little more effort I have all the hard backs for the same price.  Yay!  Of course, I wasn't too pleased when one seller listed a book as "like new" condition and then when it arrived it was not up to Christmas standards.  Such is life.  I was still pleased, overall.

If you are unfamiliar with the series rush right out and get them from the library!  I read all the books to my kids a few years ago but we haven't read them in long enough that it will be like the first time again.  The books are by Kate DiCamillo of The Tale of Despereaux fame.  I love all her books.

 The Mercy Watson series includes six titles: Mercy Watson to the Rescue 

Mercy Watson Goes for a Ride

Mercy Watson Fights Crime

Mercy Watson:  Princess in Disguise

Mercy Watson Thinks Like a Pig 

Mercy Watson:  Something Wonky This Way Comes

 The illustrations are amazing with a retro feel.  I love everything about them.  Especially Mercy eating toast.  Love it.

I just found out you can buy this Mercy plush.  Argh!  I was almost all done shopping and my kids have enough, but the temptation is strong.  I think it might kill me not to get this for Emeline.  For one thing, the girl is already in love with Poppleton (read those books too--our very favorite early readers) and chose to be Poppleton the Pig for Halloween so in the tutu she's Mercy and without the tutu she's Poppleton.  It would be awesome.  I'll run it by my hubby.  He's much better at resisting temptation than I am.

 These Papo figurines were Emeline's 6th birthday present.  I'm adding them to the Christmas list because these posts are to help give people present ideas and these are a great idea!  I used to be a Schleich snob, but Papo has put out some really excellent figurines lately.  I'm in love with their ancient history line and I'm fairly certain I'll find an excuse to buy Cleopatra and Caesar eventually.

In the meantime, Emeline asked for a princess, a prince, a king and a queen for her birthday.  I picked out these.

For her stocking stuffer, I bought this fabric panel that I am sewing into a doll.  I am currently working on Harriet's and then, when I see how challenging it is, I will let Emeline and Miriam make some of it themselves.  By that I mean that I will put everything they need in a ziploc bag and put that in their stocking.  The panel comes with a doll, one dress, one apron, and one headband thing.  I'll post pictures when I get one done.  I bought mine from here.  

Emeline's Santa present is art supplies.  Hubs and I went back and forth debating the merits of getting one child art supplies.  The problem, of course, is that all my children enjoy art and they will all want the supplies as soon as they see them.  We finally decided that we'd deal with the jealousy because art supplies are what Emeline would most want.

Emeline goes through about 60 trees worth of paper a day (I'm only exaggerating slightly) and she always begs for my fancy paper (left over from when I gave up scrapbooking about five years ago--no, I didn't have that much paper but I never craft so it lasts a long time).  I don't share my fancy paper.  I use it almost exclusively for family home evening needs.  So the first thing I picked out was a nice 1/2 off pad of scrapbook paper that also has several pages of stickers and scrapbooking stuff.  Emeline will be ecstatic.

Then I bought some air-dry clay, those weird little bead things that you iron (we've never tried them but they contain small parts guaranteed to get all over so I'm sure it will be a hit), a watercolor set, and the granddaddy present of them all, her own tape.  The girl will be giddy with glee over the tape, I kid you not.

The one advantage of being cheap and stingy and keeping my tape under lock and key is that it makes a splendid Christmas present.

There you have it, all the ideas I have this year for a little girl around 6 years old.  Although, my 9 year old girl would love every single one of the presents I got Emeline, so we'll say this post has ideas for little girls aged 4-9.

Merry Christmas!!!