Our Christmas in Photos

Christmas Eve began when Aunt Mave, Grandma, Jessica, Anthony and two dogs arrived sometime in the afternoon. Baba had arrived the day before and suddenly we had a very full, festive house.

The girls were dressed in their Christmas dresses and immediately
started chasing Anthony around the house. Anthony had control of the camera and most of the photos came out like this...

Mimi and YiaYia prepared a fabulous traditional French Canadian meal
of tortierre, ragout, cole slaw and beet salad.
The SoCal relatives were suspicious at first,
but claimed to like it all.

Athena really liked the Buche de Noel.

After dinner, the girls were allowed to open one present each.

Christmas jammies, of course.

A quick bath followed and, wearing their festive PJs, the girls helped
Aunt Jessica make chocolate chip cookies for Santa.
And then some special Christmas bedtime stories with Baba.

Before you knew it, it was Christmas morning.
Santa was too generous.

Next year we need to encourage a one present per child rule!

The girls quickly got to work.

The Little Einstein laptop from Mimi was a huge hit.

And the animatronic baby animals that coo and purr.

Not to mention the "electric" guitar, great for playing Rock Star!

Zoe loved all the new accessories.

Especially the princess shoes from Gramses.

Baby's first high heels (sigh).

It took hours to open all the gifts.

Chris guarded his bacon when two previous
plates full disappeared too quickly.

Baba liked his coffee mug.

Mariana and Lisa arrived later in the day and we drank mulled wine, ate a traditional Christmas meal and played Chris' new Trivia Pursuit game until the wee hours of the morning.


This was our first time hosting Christmas and it was so much fun. Without Mimi and YiaYia cooking, however, I would not have been able to handle it!

We hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas! We certainly did.

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Christmas 2008

Hope you had a very merry Christmas!
(more to come momentarily)

Park Break

We took a break from all the shopping, shopping, shopping, and wrapping, wrapping, wrapping and cooking, cooking, cooking to go run around the park for awhile. Mimi snapped some super cute pictures I just had to share.

O' Christmas Tree

There's been so much going on lately it's difficult to sit down, let alone take pictures. YiaYia and Mimi arrived on Wednesday to many squeals and giggles. I have only seen Athena in passing since then, she has become Mimi's child. The first night she actually woke up crying for Mimi twice (separation anxiety?) and is never more than two feet from her. Mimi is lapping it all up because she knows the tides will turn when Unca Stu comes to visit.

Wednesday was also Mimi's birthday. The girls helped her celebrate with a princess birthday cake and candles (picked out by you-know-who). We did not, however, make her wear a tiara when she blew out the candles.

The next day, we had plans to escape to LA for some beauty maintenance and IKEA shopping while the girls were in school. However, Zoe's up and down fever was up and staying up. She also woke twice during the night, flushed and hot and dazed. A trip to the pediatricain revealed ear infections in both ears and bronchitis, poor baby. She was listless, feverish and quiet for one day but back to herself by the next.

Friday night we planned to decorate the tree. Originally, we wanted to do this on Mimi's birthday, but it was pouring rain outside, so we put it off until Friday, six days before Christmas. Our hunting party (consisting of Mimi, Chris and Athena) went around town for over two hours Friday evening, existing solely on M&Ms, and did not find any trees. They came home with only a pine branch that Athena found at one of the empty spaces in the Home Depot parking lot.

Over our very late dinner, the family convinced me that maybe a live 8 foot spruce was not going to happen this year. So, with head hanging low, I let them go back to Home Depot and get one of the fake firs on sale for half price. This, they say, will be our back up tree and not a commitment to non-live trees for all our future Christmases.

Although I was very suspicious at first, it doesn't look half bad and, hey, no pine needles.

We were not quite tall enough to put the star on the top of the tree.

Athena was a big help decorating on Saturday morning, but, there are alot
of ornaments hanging on the bottom branches of the tree.

Check out the preggo belly behind Zoe.

In spite of her high fever, Zoe was able to choke
down a little bit of birthday cake.

The Power of Chocolate

Featured Artist

Athena is this month's "Featured Artist" at her daycare. Considering there are over 100 students and only 12 months in the year, this is quite an honor.

The note says: Athena L. 3 years old Teacher placed orange paint on paper. The teacher gave a paint brush to the child, and the child painted this artwork on yellow paper.

It hangs in the front hallway. Juice and crackers will be served at the show's opening on Tuesday night.

Little Elf

The girls and I hosted a play date today with some of our friends from Zoe's now defunct preschool. Ten kids and five moms came to visit! This was our first time actually hosting a play date at our home, although we have attended many, because before our house was too small. The girls were very concerned about other kids playing with their toys, but other than that it was really fun (and quite exhausting).

I bought some blank cards, stickers and markers for the kids and Mom's to make their own Christmas cards as an activity. Each child did about one, maybe two, and then went on their merry way playing with their friends.

Athena was obsessed. She made a card for everyone she could think of and even after all the kids left she continued to make cards throughout the afternoon and into the evening. Two of the other Mom's who were very crafty and had burned their children out on crafts asked if they could "borrow" Athena, just for an afternoon, and do crafts with her.

Who's going to get one of these unique creations? I don't know...maybe YOU!

Holiday Portraits = Fail

Some may remember my struggles with getting a decent holiday photo last year. Well this year I seem to be having the same issue. The above photo is about as good as it got this time around.

Why oh why can't I get both my children to look at the camera at the same time while not making a face or crying because the other one is touching them?! How do other people do it?

This is how it started.

"Um, Zoe, can you scoot closer to your sister please?"

"Nooo! She's touching me!"

"Okay." *readjust*
"Let's try this again. Look at Mommy and smile!"

"Zoe try not to smile that much!
And Athena WHAT are YOU doing!"

"Please stop yelling Mommy."

"I'm outta here."

"Fine. We'll just take individual shots."

"Athena, can you please try to smile?"

And then, of course, the one time I had them both smiling and laughing and looking at the camera, I pressed "video" instead of "photo."

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*sigh*

Maybe we need to go to Walmart this year.