It's a 4 Ring Circus!

unwrapping the goods

Dontcha HATE it when Momma uses ribbon?!?

Showing off their new stuff to Don:

                           

Aunt Nan's Christmas nail salon

Aunt Nan showed up on Christmas Eve afternoon with some nail salon goodies and a book to do cool designs.  She's so hip and happenin' like that.    She might've also been comforting herself after finding out that they're going to have Boy #3 in May.  (hee hee)  The girls had lots of fun and later that day posed with their new Christmas nails (wreaths and trees).

       

wheeeee

Taking a break from cleaning to start looking through the Christmas pictures some more.  You know I had to post this one.  Here we have Mee Mee having a really good time at Ben's house.  I think she might've had too much of that pomegranate  juice Ben gave her.

Karyna had fun, too.  :-)

Then there was the usual monkeying around.

You can't be too mad -- I didn't take those.  Delaney did.  Don't worry, she got one of me, too.  As a side note, humidity + my haircut = blech.  I didn't let it get me too down, though!  Actually, by that night (Christmas Eve's Eve), I had FINALLY gotten all of the shopping and preparations done, so I could breathe a sigh of relief.

don't let your babies grow up

quote o' the day

"Man!  I really screwed THAT up!"

--what a wife loves to hear as she's choking on the fumes from the new wall texturing.  Yes, folks, it's time for the annual Christmastime home makeover fun!

my sidewinder

(Edited AGAIN to add:  You can see the video here; it will ask for your password.  Sorry!)

(Edited to add:  Since this has all of my neighbors' license plate numbers in it, it's also "private;" the password is our last name, all lowercase.)

This morning the kids ran outside to compare Christmas tales with the neighbor kids.  One of the neighbor kids has a scooter that you can propel by going side to side rather than in a straight line forwards -- I have no idea what this thing is called, but Sadie loves it.  I couldn't stop snickering at the sight of her swingin her booty on this thing, Ava running behind her, both of them with wicked bedhead.  See for yourself!

ho ho ho, feliz navidad

We've been having lots of holiday fun the last few days, so I will be posting about that when I get a chance.  My kids are starting to want to help take pictures around here, so there are LOTS of pictures to go through.  A tradition we started last year was letting the kids open one gift on Christmas Eve, which just happens to be a new pair of jammies.  Then they went upstairs to watch the old Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer movie while Mee Mee baked cookies for Santa.  Today we will have a big Christmas dinner and read the Christmas story from the Bible.  Tomorrow morning I will be heading out to hit some holiday sales and then we'll have a leftover lunch with some friends.  Lots more but I'll fill you in later.

This picture makes me laugh.  Sadie was taking some pictures after most of the unwrapping mayhem was over.  She wanted to take picture of Ava with her new butterfly shirt, but Ava wasn't cooperating, so I volunteered to stand in.  After she snapped it, Sadie said, "Well, I got your smile but not your head!"  We all got a good laugh out of that and I wondered what in the world that would look like.  I guess it makes sense after all!

Merry Christmas everybody!!

Christmas happy box

Thank you, Grandma & Grandpa, the Christmas happy box arrived safely!

kitties love Christmas, too

holiday dancin' and prancin'

I took some video of the girls' doing a little performance at the end of their dance classes yesterday.  Delaney did a ballet number and a tap number (see above, didn't video that one) that they are working on for a couple of competitions in the spring (this is her first year being old enough for the dance team).  Sadie and Ava's classes each learned a little Christmas dance.  You can go here to see the videos.  Since they include other people's kids, they are password protected; just type in our last name (all lowercase) and you'll get in.