Coming home from picking the girls up from school last week, Lulu gives me the latest Zach update.

Lulu: Mom? When Zach and I get married, do you know what we are going to do after we're married?

Me: No, honey, what?

Lulu: Well, after we get married, we're going to take off our clothes...

(I hold my breath at what I suspect must come next!)

Lulu: ...And then we're going to cook. Because I like to cook! I'm a good mixer.

Me: (huge sigh of relief) You'll have to keep practicing cooking then!

I hadn't expected that response, but it makes total sense. When either Eddie or I get home from work at night, we are always announcing that we have to change our clothes before we can start making dinner.

On Christmas day, Lulu was jumping on our (king) bed.

Lulu: When Zach and I are grown-ups and married, I want to sleep in this bed.

Me: Oh really?

Lulu: Yeah, you and dad can sleep downstairs.

Man, downgraded to the basement guest bed. These things happen faster than you anticipate!

Evidence Santa has been in our house: empty glass and plate, full stocking...

He even managed to bring Eddie this The Very Many Varieties of Beer poster, from PopChartLab.com, which will look stellar in the kitchen next to the planned kegerator once our kitchen remodel is complete. Someday.

Looks like someone is getting a baby doll!!!

Santa's letter to Lulu. She gets letters from him every year and they go into her memory box after Christmas.

Bean was THRILLED to receive her doll. She ran to the box as soon as she spotted it...


"Do we need these instructions???"

Lulu unwraps a Hello Kitty calendar from her Anti-Auntie Hobbs.

Oh, the drama! I asked Lulu to show me the Disney Princesses watch she got from Santa and she plays it for all its worth for the camera...

However, a terrific and genuine smile comes out upon opening the Hello Kitty umbrella from Anti-Auntie Hobbs and our favorite French Frogman, Uncle Patrice!

Dad was especially thrilled to be the recipient of his own Hello Kitty thermos from Hobbs and Patrice. Which is a good thing, as if any of us girls had gotten it, instead, he would have claimed it for his own. (That man LOVES him some Hello Kitty!)

Lulu was very excited to receive coloring books and a TinkerBell journal from her Grandma Mary and Bump-Pa. Lulu got glitter crayons in her stocking from Santa, so she was quite busy in the car to Grandma's later in the day.

Lulu also got some snazzy pajamas from Grandma Mary and Bump-Pa, and of course, had a fashion change!
Eddie got me my very own Sonic Screwdriver (in the form of a pen)! If you don't know what that is, you aren't a geek/nerd like me! It glows and makes the Sonic Screwdriver sound and has two types of ink. I can totally put this to good use at work, though it would be much handier to have recieved the original. :D

It wouldn't be Christmas morning if something didn't have instructions that required to be read before it could be assembled...

My Aunt Lottie is the most amazing quilter! This is a pillow cover but I think it will make a great centerpiece on the dining room table and will look perfect with the lavender walls in that room.

One of our favorite gifts this year, Grandma Mary sent this STUNNING holiday dress for Bean. It photographs a bit lighter than it actually is in person.

Some wonderful smelling hand soap from Mary to me. Beautiful label!

Eddie puts our resident super-girlie-girl in her new dress to go to Grandma's. Bean had the most wonderful expression on her face when he pulled the dress over her head. Pure awe and complete happiness and joy!

I told Eddie, I wish she could wear dresses like this all the time - She loves them!

This dress had stiff netting underneath so it poofed out quite a bit, almost like she had a hoop skirt on under it. Bean, enjoyed running back and forth across the room because she was so in love with her dress! She looked like a little Southern Belle...


The pretty purple princess! (BTW, Grandma Mary, my mom and I were hoping they made Grandmother/Mother/Daughter versions of that dress????)

Getting to Grandma's was quite the ordeal with two little girls. Lots of yelling, shrieking and crying prior to getting into the car. Here I am, enjoying a much needed gin and tonic.

After dinner, Eddie conveniently found his way to his favorite chair at my mom's. Here he is trying to figure out how a retro re-issue of a toy we both grew up with, now requires batteries. (The horror!)

The Christmas tree at my mom's house. That lush tinsel is pure vintage and from before I was born (nearly 40 years ago)!

Eddie made a roaring fire that kicked off the heat...And snap, crackled and popped.

And all in all, it was agreed, that everyone had a very, merry Christmas!

Our holiday tree sparkles from the color wheel and gifts from loved ones await Christmas morning.

Lulu wrote a note to Santa and tucked it under Ellie's arm so she could deliver it when she went back to the North Pole...

We've fallen into a tradition of making "Santa Cookies" (actually Spritz) on Christmas Eve so they can be left by the fireplace with a glass of milk. In the past, Santa has really appreciated those cookies as they are always gone the next morning.

Bean, super cute in Lulu's old Nick and Nora-brand kitty pajamas.

Every year we are invited (along with Grandma) to a mother-daughter tea before the holidays hosted by the Doht family (whom we've known since I was in the second grade). Lulu loves to get dressed up to go to this party, especially because they have a very neat dollhouse to play with in the guest bedroom. (Karlyn, the younger Doht daughter who is my age, has two young children of her own close in age to the Bean and the Bear).

Here is Lulu in her holiday dress next to the front door. (Evidently, I ask her to stand next to that door on a regular basis for photo ops, as she now finishes my sentences for me when I start to ask her...)
Grandma made her a cape to wear with her dress, a true labor of love. It has a red satin lining and very soft faux fur around the edges. Grandma said she must have inhaled half the fur while trying to sew it all together. It made quite a mess in her sewing room.

Here is Bean in her complimentary and coordinating holiday dress and shoes, too. My mom had bought this dress in a size 12 M and I could barely get the buttons buttoned at the back. She's a broad and barrel chested Bean!

For those of you who are not aware, Eddie controls the weather. Prior to our getting married, everytime he visited Portland, the weather was always gorgeous. The running joke in my family was, if you were having a party (and wanted to assure having good weather) invite Eddie.

Winter of 2008, he is to blame for the massive, two week snowstorm Portland suffered in December. He uttered the words I've never let him live down since: "When is it going to just snow in this town?!" The next day, two inches. Two weeks later, the snow in our backyard was up to above our knees in depth.

Tonight, upon returning home from the Children's Museum with the girls (he gave me the best gift ever, five hours at home alone...) it was beginning to snow outside. He confessed, he'd been hoping it would snow before Xmas. I told him, if he has done again what he did December 2008, we can't afford the bills the city would inevitably be sending us for the cost and expense of dealing with this kind of a snow storm.

Our neighbor, Bella, makes the best of the situation and preps her front yard snowman while the rest of the neighborhood waits to see how much snow we get...

12-7-2007

Lulu models her snowman sweater from Grandma.

Backview...

Nice smile!

Bean, wearing same sweater, December 2010.

Pensive...Maybe she remembers she didn't turn the iron off?

And in a flash, she's gone.

Yesterday, Bean's activity paper said the following:

"She's our new assistant. She's right behind us if we give someone a bottle. If they put it down, she brings it right to us. If someone spits out their binky, she picks it up and puts it right back in their mouth. It's too cute!"

Two days ago, her teacher told me that she is the first to finish her snack normally, no surprise there, and that she knows to throw her napkin away in the garbage. However, she went around that day and started taking all her classmates napkins to throw them away, even though they weren't finished, yet.

They also shared, that Bean has figured out how to open all the child safety locks on the lower cupboards in her room. Evidently, she is the only kid in her class who can do that. (These are the sliding locks that loop around booth door knobs.) Also, she makes it her business to open all the childproof locks and then buckle up all the high chair seat belts every day.

Our dear friend Rebecca (who follows our antics on the blog) used to have a gig a few years back where she was a nanny to a family with young children. It was around the holidays, and they had one of those Elf on the Shelf dolls that one hides in a different spot around the house each night after the kids are asleep. The story is, the elf goes back nightly to Santa at the North Pole and gives a status report on the kids behavior during the day. Rebecca would regale us with funny stories of the power of the elf and the kids being on their best behavior. If they even started getting out of line, she could tell them that she was going to tell the Elf of it, or even just tell them the Elf would report on their naughty behavior to Santa that night. She'd tell us, "You should see the kids, they'd be begging the elf not to tell Santa something and promising they'd be good...It's hilarious!"

Back then, we didn't have kids. Now we do, and I can report, the power of the Elf is very, very true.

My mom gave us an Elf. Lulu instantly named her Ellie, after the "Ellie the Elf" song some kids performed in the summer recital (Ellie the Elf is the imaginary person who is assigned all the blame for the mischief the kids do as told in the song...). Every morning Lulu puts Ellie someplace for the day before going off to school. Meanwhile, I follow behind and move Ellie to a different spot once Lulu has left for school. Then, when we come home that night, I feign complete and total surprise when Lulu discovers that Ellie had moved and trys to see where she had re-positioned herself in the house. It's also really good fun and let's me work on my acting skills on a regular basis...

If Lulu starts being stinky, we just have to remind her that Ellie will report on it to Santa and most of the time, that threat works. We had a few instances where Lulu has still been a bit defiant and we've faked our claim of seeing Ellie start to leave the house to head on back to the North Pole. This usually sends Lulu into frantic hysterics. She does NOT want Ellie to do that! The power of the Elf really is amazing...

But like Curious George has a hard time not being a naughty little monkey, it's hard for a 4 and a half year old to not be a defiant and naughty little girl with her parents. However, there are nine more days for practicing good behavior. It's more a one-step-forward, four-steps-back with her.

When I pick the girls up from school at night, we drive past a BBQ restaurant with cute pig neons in the windows (see above).

The other night, we were waiting in traffic next to the restaurant...

Lulu: That's the restaurant with the barbecue!

Me: Yep, that's right.

Lulu: I don't like barbecue. But if we go there, I'll have cheese sticks.

Me: Cheese sticks? How do you know they have cheese sticks??

Lulu: See the pig [sign]? It says 'cheese sticks' underneath him. [Very matter-of-factly to me] O-P-E-N spells Cheese Sticks.

Me: (I try to keep from laughing out loud too obviously in the car...)

Lulu at her holiday dance recital yesterday afternoon. This is after the recital was over (though she still has her tap shoes on...).

First off, we got her hair cut on Saturday. Eddie and I were both tired of the ongoing daily battle to get her to let us brush her hair so she didn't look like a ragamuffin. And then she wouldn't tolerate barrettes or ponytails to the side to get her hair out of her face. Which is why she now sports bangs...

Smiling for dad showing off the nosegay Grandma made for her for her stellar performance!

A better view of the flowers. Lulu told Grandma later that this is what she wants her flowers to look like for her wedding. I gave Grandma the cliff-notes version on Zach...

Post-recital, while waiting in line to see Santa Claus and get a candy cane, Lulu doesn't disappoint in the Christmas Ham category.

Here is a silly face...

And another version of it.

Lulu does her best unintentional Batman "Joker" face...

And this time, for the camera.

Bean, meanwhile, sees her opportunity and makes a break for it.

Gone!