A visit with Santa

The opposite of last year... Abbye actually talked to Santa, but Annie let out not one peep. Go figure.

And it seems they both want Barbie for Christmas. This could be a problem because it wasn't in my plans. Grandma....???!

Do you just love Annie's busted head? Me, not so much. Those steri-strips are supposed to come off tomorrow night but I'm not too confident about it. It's still been oozing off and on the past two days which leads me to believe it is not yet ready. And the absorbing sutures are only supposed to last 5 to 7 days. Could be trouble. Time will tell. But I can tell you I will not be happy if that pops open! Maybe Annie should have asked Santa to knit her busted head back together!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Look what J gave me!

Isn't that sweet?!! A little too big to go in the scanner, so just ignore the flash going off in the middle! I LOVE IT.

Abbye sings

First Nutcracker ballet

Here they are, their first time to see the Nutcracker ballet live. One word: mesmerized.

Unfortunately, Abbye refused to take a nap yesterday so she spent the last 20 minutes nearly asleep. Oh well.

They did look adorable in their fancy Christmas dresses.

Simple and fun

This is Abbye's craft project from yesterday... how cute is this?! And for something so simple, she had great fun doing it. The teachers had stenciled the shapes on red and green construction paper and hole-punched the yellow dots. So the kids cut out the shapes and then glued them down to make the poinsettia.

And my scanner sucks.

waiting for the parade

Playing in the snow at Dickens

Dickens 2009

Snow (courtesy of "snow blowers" aka soap bubbles) at the parade. The girls loved this almost as much as the parade itself, I do believe. While we were waiting for the parade to start, they also enjoyed about 2 cups each of kettle corn!


Family photo (here you go, Gma Abbye!)


The annual Santa/Father Frost photo. A little less drama involved this year!


And then the best thing of all, if you ask the girls... the snow yard! They actually trucked in snow from somewhere and dumped it out a foot deep in a picket-fenced area in the street and the girls had absolutely THE BEST TIME playing in this snow!






My little artists, working on the children's Dickens mural. "Panking" as they call it.

After all the nasty weather on Friday, thank goodness Saturday dawned very chilly but clear and a good time was had by all. It was cool enough for the adults to drink glogg (an annual tradition) and the little ones to enjoy wassail and gingerbread men.

Videos coming in a bit when I have time to upload them, but off to church now.

Where does the time go these days?!

I have seriously not been a very good blogger lately. No telling how many people have given up on me! But there is so much to get done around holiday time!

We had a great Thanksgiving. I got up to start the turkey at 5AM and Mom and I started cooking in earnest probably around 7, so it was a very busy day. I didn't even really take many pics, except a couple of J entertaining the girls and keeping them out of our hair!

Today was a wonderful day too... we started our Christmas season by putting up our tree! The girls had fun doing that, although they ended up being a little overstimulated and are already in bed as a result. Here are some highlights of the tree trimming...








This last one is across the street at S&B's house. Their holiday decorations are GORGEOUS!

Next weekend... Dickens on the Strand... the next one - Nutcracker at The Grand!

In Abbye's words...

Abbye says this picture includes me, Annie, Jessica and Grandma and Poppy.

Thanksgiving

Two years ago... Mom & I received the news we would be traveling to Russia to BRING HOME ABBYE & ANNIE! Thanksgiving has always been, but even more so now, one of my very favorite holidays.

Visiting family has departed and we are winding down, the girls playing in the living room and I'm making turkey soup. I LOVE turkey soup!

What happens at YMCA after-school...

Self-portrait, age 3

How cute is this? Annie drew herself and Abbye. We went through several versions of (very similar) renditions of other members of the family but the funniest one was a version of this that had "hair" sticking out in all directions! Annie wouldn't say who that was.

See how swollen the right side of Annie's face is? I guess it's a little hard to tell from this angle, but this is significantly better than Wednesday. And as you can see, children's ibuprofen does wonders for pain and fever. And yes, I've been wrapping Christmas presents (in the background).