Christmas!

I think I love Christmas again. We had a great Christmas season.

We made cookies.


And decorated them. (Joey looks like he's "on the pot," but I assure you he's not.) You should have seen the silly decorating job those two did.


They bearded my baby.


When she woke up, she wanted a "Coo! Coo! Coo!"


Another day, we stringed popcorn and cranberries for the tree.


This little maniac likes to eat raw cranberries.


And drink what she believes to be egg nog.


These activities can wear a gal out.


Many naps have been taken. This one happened on Christmas Eve.


The girls waited patiently for Christmas Eve dinner.


The family and our friend, Wayne. What you see there is a delectable meal of pomegranate-merlot leg of lamb, with blue cheese mashed parsnip-potatoes, gravy, brandy-walnut cranberry sauce, and rolls. What you don't see is the maple-walnut cheesecake with gingerbread crust. Mmmm...


Someone loved the food.


We let the girls open one present that night.


Tania opened a cool pink vest from Tutu.



Talula opened a pair of booties from Tutu and a bell necklace.


She had to put the booties on.


Then she had to rip her dress off, because she felt like it took away from the booties.


After the girls went to sleep, we stuffed their stockings.


And when they woke up in the morning they opened them in our bed.


Talula got some cute little musical toys.


And then tried to whack Tania in the head with one of them.


Then the girls came downstairs to open presents.


Tania's favorite was this cute little turquoise iPod.


Talula loves her new stroller that Tutu got for her.


And her little kitchen.


Which she transformed into a new seat.


And then just completely demolished.


And then...guess what? We woke up the next day to snow! Not a lot of snow, but still snow, nonetheless. Talula loved having me make snowballs for her and then stomping on them.



Well, it was almost a white Christmas!

Spinny-spin-spin and other cuteness

More evidence that my baby is cute:




Dude! I'm so stoked that blogger lets you upload videos now! It was such a pain in the arse to upload to another hosting site and then embed it here.

Now, back to freaking out about the holidays.

What we did since the last time

Jeeeeeeezzz...I have been SUCH a slack-ass with this thing. It's been over a month. We had Halloween. Here are my two bored cats waiting to go.


We went to the Wildlife Safari. They put on a Halloween thing every year, apparently. You can ride a train, play games, see a magic show, etc. Tania met her bff there.


The kids do get to get their sugar on. They can decorate cookies and make caramel apples. Making caramel apples is wayyy better than bobbing for apples. Imagine all the snot that gets into that water. Blech. We revisited the cookie place a few times, because there's nothing better than frosting made of pure sugar.


Talula was obsessed with these goats, but afraid of them too. Love/hate. Hard to know what to do.


I don't know why, but this photo of Tania makes me laugh every single time I look at it. I'm smiling right now. It just cracks me up. I think it makes me think about how funny it would be if Tania was actually changed into a sheep, like in one of those kid movies. She would totally still have her same face. It would be hilarious. And she'd have that look on her face too, like, "Oh crap. Now what are we going to do? I can't be a sheep forever. Baa."


We had to keep the Halloween spirit alive the next day too. Tania tried to not wash her face for like five days. Her shirt is awesome too. We made it a couple of years ago. It's a photo of my friend, and when he showed up to a party, everyone there was wearing it. Hilarious. It's a good trick. You should do it sometime. Especially if you have a friend who doesn't like to draw attention to themselves.


We blew up an entire pack of balloons, drew faces on them, and left them around the house for a few days. It was good times until I couldn't take it anymore and murdered them all.


Talula had to hold onto one while she helped me make a pie.


And then, there was the best day of the year. The day I get to eat turkey, stuffing, mashed po's, gravy, etc. Here's my turkey soaking in a brine.


Here's my spread. I have to brag and say that everything was deliciously perfect. I did screw up one thing. I tried to make little leaves and turkeys out of pie dough. You know, to decorate the pie. But I forgot about them and they burned to a crisp. It was not to be. But do you see that cranberry sauce? Well, it turns out that I'm the only one who likes cranberry sauce, so I made the leftovers of that into a cranberry-pear pie, and I got to do a reenactment of the leaves. It worked out handsomely, and everyone liked my pie.


Poor little Lu was sick on Thanksgiving. We all got the plague when we went to Portland a week before, and you know how babies stay sick for ever. So she looked adorable in he little dress, but it was impossible to get her to smile that day.



I had to get a little fancy. Do I look too Matron Bush with the necklace thing?


Gosh, they are so damn cute.


And now, we're kickin' off winter with cute hats, cute coats, and cute faces. December is here. Time for the Christmas rush.