Pictoral Holiday Review

The Holiday Blizzard of 2009 found us tucked away safe and sound at Nana's house. Maya took her first kringla-making lesson. Elliot built elaborate forts. They both galloped around with the horses Santa kindly delivered. Eventually we even dug ourselves out and plowed our way to Grandpa Lonnie's for even more holiday fun.

The quote of the weekend was Elliot's as she rushed to her (only slightly) crying cousin's side: "Oh, oh, it's okay Delainey, I'm coming." She delivered her line with all the drama of Scarlet O'Hara, stopping along the way to grab Delainey's favorite rattle.

Photo Friday: Dance Party with the Ribbon Rings

Revelry

Before hitting the road for four days of Christmas indulgence, we celebrated our own private family holiday a little early. Regardless of the calendar date, the girls had that Christmas feeling all day as we went sledding at our nearby park, wrapped the last few presents, and prepared some yummy food together.


The girls made each other gifts, ribbon rings to punch up dance party. Elliot wrapped the Princess ribbon for Maya's rings, and Maya wrapped the Tinkerbell ribbon for Elliot's rings. They crafted in secret (with me running the glue gun), and wrapped their gifts themselves. It was sweet to watch them exchange gifts with an equal measure of pride and impatience.



We ended the day sweetly too, tucking them into the car in their jammies, each armed with a sippy cup of cocoa. We drove around the neighborhood looking for the best Christmas lights display until they both fell asleep. They each have a special lights display they beg to visit. We can't get in the car without Maya begging to se the "blinking house," where some enthusiast has illuminated his entire yard and set it all to blink in time with Christmas carols. Elle then immediately shouts, "I have to see my Mickey Mouse." So we head a few blocks over to visit the towering blow-up Mickey, tucked amid several other giant, inflatable Christmas statues.


They are so easily pleased! We kicked off Christmas week with a wonderful little family celebration, and now we're off to beat the blizzard for the expanded


Happy Holidays!

The Holiday Frenzy

We're still baking. We're still assembling glittery crafts. We're still listening to the good, the bad, and the delightfully ridiculous on the all-Christmas-all-the-time radio station. Maya can now sing along with "Grandma got run over by a Reindeer" along with the usual kid classics!

Is it silly to spend weeks in this holiday mode? Most decidedly. Will I look back on these posts, laugh at my former self, and wonder if the nog had been extra spiked that (this) year? I probably will.

Then why?


The answer isn't too hard to guess. We've entered the golden years of Christmas here. Both girls are old enough to understand, enjoy, and participate in the festivities. Maya has helped wrap nearly every present (pardon the corners and excessive tape usage, consider them extra love). They have both helped bake and chocolate dip almost everything in the kitchen, especially their elbows.

They both believe in magic. And Santa. And kindness, though Maya has been taking the lead on the "how can we be kind and show our love to those around us" conversations.

And they both love the idea of presents, too, of course. Their lists are long, but they are easily impressed.



This is such a wonderful time to dote on them, to indulge in Christmas cookies, and tell stories about past Christmas's. My Great-Grandma Alice has come up so often in the past few weeks, Maya now incorporates her into some of her games (mostly bringing her baskets of goodies... I keep waiting for the wolf to show up).

My hope is that by thoroughly embracing the essential holiday feeling now, it will linger with us for the rest of the year, and in future Christmas's when we won't have so much time to revel in it.

Photo Friday: The Neverending Journey

These pictures chronicle the girls' favorite new game: "Adventure."


It involves traveling to whichever page they open in their new Children's Amazing Places Encyclopedia. Elliot flips through the book exclaiming, "We could go there, or we could go there!" Maya particularly likes trekking to volcanic Mt. Etna. She packs her backpack full of her firefighter gear, her oven mit, and an old pair of binoculars, and then leads Elliot on a long climb up the mountain (a.k.a. the stairs). Elliot then collapses dramatically, shouting, "I'm falling in the volcano," and Maya uses the gear to save her.


Occasionally their journeys require horses (a.k.a. the coffee table) or princesses or fairy dust. Cold days on the tundra pass quickly when you are armed with a magical portal!

Tiny Dancer

She was a doll! In spite of her nervousness on the way to the elementary lunchroom that was to be her stage, she danced her heart out.

Pictures of the actual event are forthcoming, because of course I forgot the memory card amid the hustle. Not the camera, just the memory card hidden away in the computer after yesterday's post.

Here is our girl, though, all dressed up to dance.


She twirled and bopped and snapped to the tunes of "All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth" (the tap ditty), "Silent Night" (for the somber ballet number), and "Jingle Bell Rock" (the peppy finale complete with jingle bracelets.

She grinned and even giggled throughout each number, adding gusto to the next move whenever she forgot one. She clearly had a good time.

That is, until each song ended. At which point, of course, the parents thunderously applauded and whistled as if we had all just lost our minds. Joe and I joined in the applause, forgetting Maya's strict instructions the previous evening: "Do not clap, guys, you'll make me nervous."

As the applause continued, Maya stared us down. Her former grin became a stern, pursed expression. She folded her arms across her chest while the other ballerinas bowed and curtsied. She then used both hands to mime an "X" in the air and then softly clapped them together.

Her message was clear: "I SAID NO CLAPPING."

Each song was performed that way. A gleeful dance followed by extremely dramatic scolding during the applause. She is a riot of entertainment!

Holiday Hug

Maya nervously practiced for her dance recital this morning, teaching Elliot all her moves. The girls are an inseparable duo these days.

Photo Friday: Handy Wreaths

Is the bitter cold keeping you home? Here is a way to spend the morning. The classic handprint wreath craft. We used both green construction paper and magazine pages with greenish for the hand prints, and then the girls covered their entire wreaths with glitter paint. They are another great addition to our holiday gallery.

Great White Wilderness

There is a great white wilderness in our backyard. While the massive blizzard that just grazed us is not the first snow of the year, it does feel like the first time for the girls. For them, our snowgirl building day was ages ago.

So once they reached their bundling saturation point, the girls and I raced outside to see how much play was possible before hot chocolate became a necessity. I pulled the girls in the sled, or the "snow wagon" as Elliot insists on calling it.

Then Maya pulled Elliot.


Then Maya tried to convince Elliot to pull her. That's one puppy that will not be harnassed.


We managed to fool around with the sled and play fox and hound far longer than I would have guessed. Longer, even, than the time it took to bundle and unbundled two little girls!

Unexpectedly Jolly

We had to share these pictures from our surprisingly festive weekend. We knew it would have at least some holiday cheer, as the primary goal was to score a tree from the neighborhood dealer and commence the decorating.

But then we added a quick pit stop to the community center's "Coco with Santa" event, where Maya eyed Santa with extreme suspicion and instead spent her time with the face painting crew.


Now sporting Rudolph and a Christmas Tree, the girls begrudgingly agreed to make a another stop off, this time to Home Depot for various tree trimming and window sealing accessories. This ho hum errand wound up being the highlight of the morning. A series of oddly excited staff members kept guiding us to "The Workshop in Aisle 25," because "By the look of you, that's where you want to be."


As it turns out, it was. Along with about 50 other kids crowded around benches, the girls were given Home Depot Aprons, a kit to make a tiny wooden wagon, and real tools. The project was easy enough, with its pre-drilled nail holes, that Maya could really complete it on her own, and Elliot could make progress on hers as well. For a company that has already earned much of my respect for its green initiatives in the past few years, this little family friendly holiday activity still pushed them up a notch.


Even more exciting was the purchase of our actual tree. The very same Santa from the Community Center's event, still in full Clausian regalia, was spreading his cheer around the tree lot. He recognized the girls, apparently, and told Maya he had seen her at his party earlier that day. She was shocked. He was clearly the real thing, since the same Santa was popping up all over the place!

Soon the tree was decorated, and the season's first gifts had tucked themselves beneath it... not IN it as we had feared.


On a whim, we spent a lazy Sunday afternoon rolling out cookies and listening to Bing Crosby's Christmas music. Sealing the weekend as the least planned, most successfully jolly weekend of this holiday season. So far....


Mele Kalikimaka!

We're All in the Mood for a Melody

Maya has fallen in love with Auntie's piano. We adopted it in September, and she has plunked out a song every single day since it arrived.


We try to take advantage of her interest, showing her a song or a scale when she is in the mood to learn. Often she wants to improvise, which isn't jarring as you might think. She plays softly on the high keys and asks Elliot to do a ballet dance while she plays the music.

Auntie's other gift to us was a wonderful set of piano books for preschoolers called Teaching Little Fingers to Play. They include a teacher accompaniment with almost every song, so she feels like she is really making music, especially with the Disney book. It sounds to her like she is playing "Beauty and the Beast" or "A Whole New World," although her part requires only a couple of notes. They would be a good gift for any preschooler with a piano in the house!

She is extremely proud of her "mastery" of "Twinkle, Twinkle." She prefers to use one finger to pick out the notes, given that her little hand can't really span an entire octave yet, but she is pretty consistent about finding the right keys.

Photo Friday: Decking in Progress

Homemade hand print decorations, tangled lights, garland, the hardy decorations that survived Christmas past.... These halls are being decked.


And as a bonus, Elliot is working on giving us the best Christmas present ever!

What the WHAT?!

Introducing my early Christmas present!


No, your eyes aren't playing tricks on you. Meet Chip and Whimsy, our two new kittens.

They are four months old, excel at hunting one another, and spend their days getting a rise out of poor, shocked Anakin. Though unexpected and a bit labor intensive for a gift, their wild playfulness and exhausted cuddling can't help but brighten our house and calm frayed nerves. Even Anakin has warmed up to them!