Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone!!! We spent a wonderful day hanging out with our family here, and although we couldn't be with ALL of our family, everyone was thought of, and loved, and missed.

I've been hearing reports.....

...that some people are actually reading this. So why isn't anyone commenting? Come on, how can I know if anyone (beyond my mom) is reading this if no-one says anything?????

Flying High

Every year, our friendly neighborhood firemen bring Santa around on one of their trucks so that all the kids can wave to him. They always, always hit our neighborhood just after we've put the girls down for the night, and this year was no exception.

I was in the guest room still wrangling with Abbie when I heard the tell-tale sirens, so I jumped up and yelled out, "Girls, Santa's coming!" They knew exactly what I meant. I opened their door just in time to see Katie, in her excitement and fear that she'd miss Santa, take a flying leap out of the top bunk, land (on her feet) on a pillow and go charging out the door. She was like a little Gummi Bear ("bouncing here and there and everywhere.")

This is the kid who never ever, ever (never ever? Never EVER!) makes a move without first analyzing every angle of the situation. This is a girl who solves puzzles before actually putting them together. But at the sound of those sirens she took a rare flight (literally) of fancy and just......let go. So unlike her. But so sweet to see!

And after all that, we still missed Santa. Why do they drive by so fast? Chris eventually picked them all up at once, and carried them (shoeless and coatless and heartbroken) down the sidewalk so that they could at least see Santa as he turned onto the next road. That seemed to satisfy them, and they happily went back to bed after that.

The funniest thing about this is that Katie has been expressing extreme scepticism about Santa this year. She recently asked me how, if Santa is a real person, he hasn't died, because of course all people eventually die. How the heck do you answer that? I just babbled on for a few minutes without really saying anything, and then changed the subject because she had me completely stumped. So not only was it surprising to see Katie so unusually impetuous and childlike, it was surprising to see this reaction to Santa, whom she may not actually fully believe in.

This year has been so cool, with all three of the older girls being so excited and so wrapped up in the magic of Christmas, and last night was just the perfect example. Once I knew Katie had not actually hurt herself, and my heart had begun beating again, I just couldn't help but laugh and laugh and laugh at the whole thing. So cute, so sweet, so innocent and excited! Oh my gosh, Christmas has never been so much fun!

A Christmas Mystery

On Tuesday, while comparing notes at the end of the day, Chris and I discovered that we had identical conversations with Beth in which she claimed to have a solo in the upcoming Christmas Show.

"There is a part of the song that only people with really good voices can sing, and I guess I'm the only one with a really good voice!" said Beth.

Chris asked, "What's the song?"

She couldn't answer. She couldn't remember the song she was apparently going to sing alone in front of the entire school in one day.

What to think? Beth is genuinely pretty gifted musically. I mean, the girl can carry a tune. However, she is not always entirely....reliable. This girl is the reason our fish are named Strawberry, Blueberry, Vanilla, Chocolate and.......Lala Salt. She once told my sister that we gave her a trampoline on her birthday. She was not exactly lying -- we took her to a place where they had trapeze-artists performing, and she watched them. Beth really does not sweat the details -- recieving a trampoline, watching trapeze perfomers -- same basic difference.

So we approached the Christmas Show with anticipation - was Beth really going to have a solo? If so, could she actually get through it, especially since she could not remember the song off-hand?

We needn't have worried, of course. The Pre-School kids filed onto the stage wearing the cutest little choir-angel costumes, and the song began. It was one I've never heard before, but Beth clearly knew the words; her voice was easily five times louder than every other kid up there. The audience was stifling giggles, and Beth breezily belted out the entire song. She did not have a solo, but in the end she was still kind of right -- she may as well have been the only one up there singing; she was definitely the center of attention.

Thanks to "The Grandma who Sews"

This picture isn't the best for showing off the dresses, but it's the best I could do. I made them pose for it before I let them eat their Sunday doughnuts, so they were a little impatient. :)

Grandma Mlinek, the day these came in the mail was a happy one around here! Claire was especially anxious to wear her "Christmas Princess" dress. (Becky will collaborate this as Claire asked, oh many, many times during the ride home from IL, where her Christmas dress was.)

The Big 1

Happy Birthday Abbie! Here are just a few pictures of her day. :) She actually said, "Cheese!" for the first time today while having her picture taken.

Our morning was taken up with ballet lessons, and in the afternoon (after a nice long birthday nap) we went to the fish store to get Abbie's "present" -- some new fish to replace the one who died last week. We've named them Vanilla, Chocolate, and -- there is some dispute over the third one. Abbie named it "Ni," (we thought she would, that is the expression she uses any time she wants something. It's pronounced exactly like the ni in The-Knights-Who-Say-Ni) but Katie insists that we should name it "Strawberry" because it has (very creepy) pink eyes. Time will tell, I guess. I'm rooting for Ni.

Note the cake: I'm pretty proud of this one! My cake decorating skills are slooooowly but surely progressing. Claire gagged while eating it, but I'm not going to take that personally......She does not exactly have a great track record when it comes to cake.

Look for a ton of post-dated updates in the next few days, as I try to catch up on posts I should have written. I just wanted to throw these pictures up in case anyone wanted to see Abbie today. :)