Elizabeth's New Camera (and Photo of the Week)

If you've been around Elizabeth the last few months, you know that ALL she wanted for Christmas was a camera - more specifically, a pink Hello Kitty camera that she saw on display at Ritz. Although Santa didn't bring her that exact camera (it was a $200 Canon that would have been broken in minutes), she did get a pink and purple Fisher-Price camera outfitted with Hello Kitty stickers. And boy was she happy!!!! She spent the majority of Christmas Day taking pictures of everything in sight (us, ornaments, the dinner table, the teapot), including everything that I took a picture of! She really seems to love it - we'll post some of her pictures in a few days.

Photo of the Week, hands down

Christmas Morning

Christmas Day was everything you could expect it to be with a 4 1/2 year old and a 2 1/2 year old - exciting, amazing, wonderful!!!

Emily was the first to notice that the cookies and carrots they left for Santa and his reindeer were gone, but Elizabeth confirmed her findings....

Santa left Elizabeth a bell from his sleigh (just like in the Polar Express...)

Mommy got a Speedlite flash for her camera (it's about time!!)

Daddy got a DeWalt circular saw.

The girls compare the movies they found in their stockings.

Anything else in here?

Being silly with Grammy.

Christmas dinner with Grammy and Grandpa.

Potty Training Hell

Despite what our parents say ("you know, we had you potty trained by 18 months..."), the "experts" say that you shouldn't start potty training your child until she is ready - whatever that means. Despite the fact that Emily is 2 1/2 and regularly tells us when she is peeing or pooping, she has shown absolutely no desire to use the potty - but because we are getting pretty darn sick of her saying "change me", we thought that it was high time that she get potty trained. We decided that between Christmas and New Year's, Lee and I would do whatever possible to get her trained. Emily is none too pleased, to say the least. The first day, she screamed "no potty train, no potty train" over and over again and basically held it all day - peeing only twice. Day two started with Emily rolling around on the floor screaming "put my diaper on, put my diaper on" first thing in the morning, although she did pee on the potty about 8 times (and once on the carpet, when she found out that she couldn't go to a party because she was potty training). Every successful visit to the potty brings on new demands - 3 M&Ms, big girl underwear, a video, you name it - Lee and I, desperate to get her out of diapers, give in every time. The thing is, despite all of our efforts, she is showing no real signs of progress - if we actually put underwear on her, she promptly pees in them. Arghhhh!!

Cookies for Santa and Carrots for his Reindeer...

Before we left for New Hampshire on Christmas Eve, the girls left carrots and hay for Santa's reindeer and cookies for Santa.

(notice Rudy, licking his chops....)

Christmas Eve in New Hampshire

On Wednesday afternoon, we drove to New Hampshire to join Grammy's family for their annual Christmas Eve celebration. Elizabeth and Emily were beyond excited - they could barely contain themselves! We all had a wonderful time and thanks to our incredibly generous family, the girls returned to Connecticut with a truck-full (literally) of Christmas presents. More pictures from the family gathering here.

The girls with Grammy (above) and Elizabeth with Grampy (below).

Opening their HUGE gift from Uncle Andy and Aunt Denise.

Kisses for Aunt Denise.

Photo of the Week

"But I want it to be Christmas again tomorrow.........."

Merry Christmas

From our family to your family, from our home to your home, may you have the merriest of Christmases and the happiest of new years.

The Stockings Were Hung By the Chimney with Care....

Planes, Trains & Automobiles

On Saturday afternoon, our family got together to celebrate Christmas - but first, we celebrated just being together!  Our journey to New Hampshire and back took more than twice as long as it usually does because of the snowy conditions, but we can't really complain.  As Mike and Sandra were about to land in Boston on Friday afternoon, their plane was diverted to Maine because of the snow; there, they rented a car and started the drive to NH, only to stop due to bad weather; Saturday morning, the battery in their rental was dead and they had to get another car - and ended up arriving just in time for dinner.  Whew!  We really enjoyed spending time with everyone and Elizabeth and Emily loved playing with their cousins - they were pretty much out of control with excitement all day!!  (At one point, before we even left Connecticut, Elizabeth was jumping up and down in our kitchen yelling "I'm going to my cousins' house, I'm going to my cousins' house!"). Thanks to our generous family, the girls received an amazing amount of presents and were (and are) just so excited.  More pictures from our family Christmas (the first of many family Christmases for us) here.

The Christmas dinner table.

"Let me help you with that?" or "What did you get that I can take away from you?"

Katie, Meghan and Jillian open their joint gift from Auntie Kathy and Uncle Peter together.

Auntie Kathy and Uncle Peter scored with our girls - Elizabeth loves her purple shoes (above) and Emily couldn't have been more excited about her pink sweatshirt (below).

Here's Katie, playing Guitar Hero - she even looks like a rock star, doesn't she?!

Emily, Jillian, and Elizabeth, reading with Auntie Grail.

Dreaming of a White Christmas

Six days before Christmas and we've had our first snow fall of the season - and a good one, as it dropped about 8 inches of snow, which is more than we had all of last winter!  Late in the day, we got the girls all bundled up and headed out to shovel (or play).  It was snowing so hard that I could only snap a few pictures ("you're taking that camera out in the snow?!?!") before I made a pathetic attempt to pummel Lee with snowballs and play with the girls.  Elizabeth loved being out in the snow - Emily, not so much, although she did better than her one and only outside adventure last winter.

Thrilled to be outside in the snow!

Emily still doesn't love the snow as much as Elizabeth, but she's getting there.

Throwing snow.

Here is Elizabeth, making snow angels - it was snowing pretty hard, so she was making this great face.

Preschool Christmas Program

Elizabeth's preschool had it's Christmas Program this past Wednesday. All of the kids sang songs (no solos for our little princess yet...yet!) that they learned over the last month. Elizabeth knew all the words - this, we know, because she practiced at home ALL THE TIME. Each student was also responsible for a letter of the Christmas alphabet. Elizabeth's letter was "F" for frankincense - you know, a word we all know the meaning of and use in everyday conversation... The parents were assigned the task of "decorating" the letter and although I searched high and low, there's not a lot out there about frankincense....but Lee stepped up and did a pretty good drawing for her. Below are two videos from the program and you can click here for more pictures.

Listen closely, I think that you can hear Lee (who was running the video camera) singing along...

Christmas Cookies

In preparation for our party last Sunday, the four of us made Christmas cookies together early Saturday evening. Despite the fact that I do a lot of baking, I have actually never made Christmas cookies, so it was a new experience for all of us - indeed, the fact that the dough had to chill for a few hours was one of the reasons we made cookies in the evening, instead of the afternoon (and as a side note, shouldn't the recipe begin with that information, sort of as a warning?). Anyway, we each picked out a cookie cutter and, with Lee's help rolling out the dough, made a bunch of really yummy Christmas cookies! The girls not only enjoyed eating them, but they also enjoyed contributing to our party.

"I Help Daddy"

Emily is at an age where she really loves to help out - and one of her favorite things to help with is putting things away, especially the groceries. Apparently, Lee lets her carry in things from the car and then she puts things away in the refrigerator and cupboards for him. I was working from home this morning and could hear her saying, over and over again, "I help Daddy," so I snuck into the kitchen and captured this little gem. For some of you, this will be a welcome relief from all of the holiday coverage you've been getting of our family.

Photo of the Week

Holiday Cheer

For me, there's nothing like an Open House to get the holiday season off to a good start.  With a little help from Sarah, I was able to convince Lee that we should host just such an Open House and invite all of our neighbors and close friends and on Sunday, we had our first Holiday Open House.  All told, about fifty people made their way through our house on Sunday afternoon, enjoying food, drink and merriment.  Lee (despite all of his complaining about not wanting a party) was a great host and, from what I could tell, the life of the party.  I owe a HUGE thank you to Sarah - party planner extraordinaire - for giving us so much advice, helping out with the cooking and lending party stuff to us.  Thanks to Jen and Sal as well - for the amazing food and for letting us borrow so much stuff.  And thank you to all of our friends and neighbors for bringing more holiday cheer to our home this December!  More party pictures here. 

Miss Sarah helps Emily with her headband.

As expected, our friends' cute kids (Tavio, above and Cecilia, below) were the hit of the party.