Christmas 2011 ~ Recap and Highlights

(I also posted this at We Shall Sew, in case you go there, too)

Well, it's Tuesday now, the 27th, and we finally ate Christmas dinner tonight. :)  There is no real reason for the delay, except that I kept sleeping through my put-the-turkey-in-the-oven-NOW window.  How was I supposed to prepare a turkey and get it in the oven smack dab in the middle of my nap time?

And I sure needed my nap on Christmas day.

Dave and I were up until after 3am Christmas morning, and we were tuckered out! It was totally worth it, though.

TOTALLY!!

As referenced in my last post, we made a puppet theater for the girls. Other than the curtains and the re-build upstairs, it was done in plenty of time. But the curtains took me a while since I took my sweet time. And the re-build took a while since Dave had to hand screw everything in so as not to wake the girls up with the drill.

See, we went from having only a little tree, and no presents, in the loft area when the girls went to bed Saturday night, to having a large puppet theater and a mass of Christmas gifts in the loft area when they woke up.

That kind of transformation takes time, people. It takes time.

Every morning, Mookie has this tradition, if you will, of stumbling into our bedroom around 7:30 for a bit of a snuggle and to play games or read while we all wake up. So we weren't really worried that she would see anything out of the ordinary before we were ready for her to see it.  And Sprout has this tradition, if you will, of sleeping till about 8:30, so we were all set in that regard.  Once Sprout woke up, we all went downstairs for some breakfast...and to build the hype a bit. Since Mookie hadn't seen any presents under the tree, she didn't really expect anything out of the ordinary, but we kept talking about this BIG surprise, and how excited we were, and how excited she would be, and how much fun we were going to have, etc.

So about 9:30, I went upstairs first to set up the video camera and to hide in the puppet theater to take pictures, and then Dave brought the girls up.

Here's the before (you can see the puppet theater on the left):

Mookie was so startled by the transformation! You can see the surprise, and fear?, in her face.

She was actually so scared that she got down on the floor and started to crawl! Poor girl!

But when she figured out that it was a puppet theater and that it was all good, she jumped up and RAN for the "puppet feetar" as she calls it. :)

I love that photo! I love that face!! :)

"Look, Mama! I can do my very own puppet shows!"

Then she came around back, grabbed the few puppets we had (many more showed up soon!), and commensed to wowwing us with her mad puppetry skillz.

There were quite a few puppet shows that day...and every day since. :)

Not one to be left out, Sprout was trying to get in on the puppet show action. (LOVE the hair!)

Here's the whole family before we opened any of the presents. The loft was a WRECK by the time we were all done. Still is...

Dave gave me a pair of Christmas socks (among other things...like an Accuquilt Go! Cutter) (Score!!) and Sprout desperately wanted to wear them. How can you say no to that cute face?

Here she is with them on. These are certainly easier for her to wear than my regular slippers!

This is such a goofy shot of my goofy girl. I love it.

We got Sprout a little kitchen tools set, and both girls really loved it. Occupied them for quite a while, actually.

I found these little fairy wings at Target on clearance, and thought Sprout might like them. Well. Little did I know! She immediately said "Ningabow! Ningabow!!" (For Tinkerbell), and held out her arms. I said "Do you want to put these on? And she said "Yup" And I said "Okay." And she said "K."  I just adore this age!!

Her Tinkerbell wings stay on pretty much every moment she knows they're there. We sneak them off every now and then, but when she sees them, she wants them on again.



I love that she's wearing fairy wings and trying to build something with her Mega Blocks. Every fairy is an engineer, my love. :)

Here's Dave with his fairy baby.

Poor girl. She was just poopin' out, there! We'd only been going for about an hour and a half at this point...

She found her second wind, though, and got to playing again.

So, that's it! We took our sweet time, and very leisurely opened all of our presents. It took us about 3 hours, really, but there weren't THAT many presents. We just took. our. time. We read stories. We had puppet shows. We snacked on candy. We played with new toys. We stayed in our jammies all day.

And then we used our new sandwich press to make fancy triangle sandwiches, and then had a nice, well-deserved nap.

Which explains why I slept right through my put-the-turkey-in-the-oven-NOW window, and we didn't eat our Christmas Turkey until 2 days later. It was good, though. :)

Frozen Easter #1

I suspect this will be a recurring theme as long as we live in this fickle-weathered state. It's the same at Halloween, though. Snows. Every year. On Halloween and on Easter. No matter when Easter is. Snows.

At least it's predictable!

Here's a slideshow of the pictures we took on Saturday before we left the house for the Easter Egg Hunt, and immediately afterwards.  I'm so glad I didn't get the girls fancy Easter dresses! I wouldn't have dressed them in them because it was too cold, and then they wouldn't have ever worn them! The outfits I got them, though, are pretty cute and totally practical.




I hope you had a wonderful Easter!

Bright Eyes

A friend pointed me to this feature on Flickr's Picnik photo editing site. It's called CinemaScope and I LOVE it!
I'm sure there are ways I can brighten Mookie's eyes a bit more, but I am pretty excited about this effect! :o)
Don't expect to see me upload tons of photos just to CinemaScope them, but I just thought this was a pretty cool way to waste some time. (like I need more ways to waste time, right?

The Note That Became A Tome

(tap, tap, tap)
I can't see out there, so I'm not too sure how many people still come to visit. I'm thinking Megan, Kelly, Tink, NZ-Jen when she's not busy lassoing the stork, Claudia hoping for pictures of grandbabies, and a few others when time allows, right?

Well, I have to apologize first. It's been a whole heckuva long time since I put any time and energy into this space. I've been trying to blog from my iPhone for a few weeks, and have been entirely unsuccessful. I know blogger has changed some settings for mobile blogging, and so I'm thinking that might be the cause, and I HOPE I can get that sorted because the time I spend in front of an actual computer is minimal at best. Mobile blogging really makes it easier for me to keep in touch, and when that's down, so is my communication. Sorry!

I can't upload any pictures right now, but when I can, man alive, you better be ready! It's been a busy month for us! We've been on dog sleds, on snow machines, to a 100 year old birthday party, had a million hugs from wonderful family and friends, had a wonderful and blessed Christmas season. We've baked, we've sewed (sewn?) (stitched?) (been sewing?), settled in a bit more, we've painted, we've celebrated...on and on the list goes.

Oh, wait. Here, try this. I copied these from Facebook.

There you go. Here's a picture of a real life musher (a.k.a. dog-sledder person)  Dave's aunt and uncle live in Alaska, and have a team of sled dogs, and his uncle ran the Iditarod. They are in Michigan for the winter (a balmy one, if you ask them!), and brought the dogs along. We spent the day with them earlier this week, and had the chance to go for a ride. Of COURSE I jumped at the offer. :o)  Mookie and I sat while Chris drove. What a fantabulous experience!

Here is a slew of other pictures from that day...

(Mookie was howling because the dogs were HOW-HOW-HOWLING with excitement and anticipation. They sure love their job!)

 Just being cute. It's easy for her. :o)

The dogs really do love to go for runs through the woods. They usually go for a 5-6 mile run a day, but they are not tired anymore, so a longer trail is being carved for them. :o)

Another action shot of us mushin' along.

Here's Dave coming in after his ride. He was pretty quick, and we didn't get very many good pictures. Sorry! You can see the dogs' area, though. And stop right there if you think these dogs must get cold at night. They're used to living in Alaska! This is toasty for them! :o)

Mookie and I were just foolin' around, waiting for Dave to return from his ride.

My beautiful, sweet, pensive daughter.

My beautiful, sweet, mischievous daughter. 

Doesn't that picture just warm your heart? She would much rather chew on the spoon itself than possibly ingest anything that might have once been ON said spoon. Silly girl.

I just look at this and laugh. We tried and tried and tried to get a picture where all of us were looking at the camera at the same time. Well, we got it! Nevermind the fact that the four of us were apparently reacting to four different scenes in a movie! Why can't we all be smiling?!?!? Into the camera?!?!?  At the same time?!?! (sigh)

And, finally, the reason we are gathered here today. The beginning of it all. 100 years ago, a sweet little baby girl was born, and we celebrated her birthday in style!

Here she is with her two youngest grandchildren (no great-grandchildren! Can you believe it? 100 years and no greats!)

The beginning and the end. Bookends on the story of life.

And that, my friends, is the end of this post. Good night. Hopefully I'll be back again, soon. Until then, have a happy New Year!

I Elfed Us

In honor of my 500th blog post, I decided to Elf us.

Did you do it this year, too?

Cracks.
Me.
Up.

What's your favorite part? 

Mine are at 22, 30, and 37 seconds. Ahahahahahaha!!!

Nibble Nibble

Old Navy, I heart you. You make what I want for cheaper than I can make it myself.

And it looks adorable on my child.

Thank you.

Introducing, Mookie Cupcake...

(Some people thought she was an ice cream cone.) 

(They were wrong!)

Do you know any ice cream cones with attitude? :o)

Sprout went as a Mummy. I didn't get any pictures of her, though. (Mummy because she was all wrapped up in my white Moby.)  :o) 

Must Read: I'm Sharing A Secret...and couldn't come up with a better title.

I have a an important secret to share with you here today.

Are you sitting down?

I've been meaning to do it for a while, now, but couldn't muster up the courage.

I have twins. Twin daughters. They are a marvel of science, and just to be clear, they are fraternal twins.

Here are their Halloween pictures:

Fraternal "twins" who just happen to have been concieved and born two years apart.

They are a marvel of science, my copy-cat babies.

(P.S. You know I'm kidding, right? I had you going, though, didn't I?)

Happy Easter!

Love,
Mookie



(sorry for the poor quality - when I converted it, quality got compromised)

Which One, Which One??

I need input.

I can't decide which to use for Mookie's Easter basket.

Elmo is, of course, her first love. So an Elmo basket filled with goodies will be, like, the gift that keeps on giving, right?

But then, that purple one was just too darling!  It's actually a "wearable tutu" basket!  On Easter Monday, we can untie the tutu from the basket and wrap it around Mookie's "tubby".  And, HELLO...what little girlie doesn't love a tutu around her tubby?  And she loves baskets in general, so she'd love and use and carry the purple basket darn near everywhere!

So, what say you? Elmo or Tutu?  Even if you don't want to leave a comment, you can email me with what you think.

(Dave is NO help whatsoever in this department!)  :o)

Christmas 2009 - The Festival of Family

I'm hoping I can write a quick Christmas wrap-up. I have no clue how "quick" it will be however!

We're home now, and don't plan to travel for a VERY VERY long time. I would like to kindly request that none of my loved ones decide to get married or pass away this year so I don't have to go anywhere. Thank you. Forgive me, I just don't feel like seeing another airplane bathroom.

We got to Atlanta (After another overnight delay in Chicago. Just like last year. Why do I fly through there???), and got to spend one quality day with Dave's dad and his other half, Nancy. Even though we've looked at pictures and talked about it for a while, Mookie had never said "Grandma" or "Grandpa" before. But there we were, and there was a grandma and a grandpa hugging her and loving her and just soaking her in...so Mookie decided to bless us all with her version of Grandma -- "Baga" -- and Grandpa -- "Baka". It's hard to tell the difference between the two, but it was sure sweet to hear! Then Bob and Nancy went to Virginia to see her family.

We spent some time the next couple of days with Dave's mom and husband and Dave's brother and family. I was a bit curious about how Mookie would do meeting two new people that look different, but we call by the names Grandma and Grandpa. Why does it surprise me, really, that she took it all in stride and loved on them just as much as Bob and Nancy. :o)  We had a little gift-exchange, and Grandma gave Mookie a doll, and a tea set.

And then we drove to Birmingham and got to spend Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and a few days after with my step-brother and his family. My dad and step-mom drove up and spent the time there, too, so the Festival of Family continued. Again, not surprisingly, Mookie picked up that yet another set of people get called Grandma and Grandpa. I know some people have different names for all the sets of grandparents, but all these grandparents have other grandkids, so we're just going to go with the names they already get called.

Anyway, Santa brought my niece Rock Band (and accessories) for Christmas, and we had a concert all day Christmas Day. :o)  Pretty much every time someone was singing, Mookie was dancing. It was hilarious and precious and oh-so-memorable. I didn't get the best video of the fancy dancing, but we couldn't get the video from my dad's camera to upload to YouTube or to Blogger. That really is a travesty because it was adorable! :o)

This one is pretty cute, however. And only about 20 seconds long, so you can suffer through. :o)  


(Side note: she saw me posting this today, and kept saying "diss", "diss"...I had no clue! Then later on, I was singing something, and she was dancing to it. Then it was time for bed, and she started saying "diss", "diss" again. I figured it out - she wanted to dance some more! So I used the tune for Pink's So What, and sang lyrics about how wonderful Mookie is...and she dissed like a champion!)

Here's a different picture of her in her jammies, you can see the front of the kimono-style top better.

We stayed a few more days in Birmingham, and had tons of fun shopping, and eating, and painting with my niece, but then it was time to pack everything up (a-gain!) and head back to Atlanta to spend a couple more days with Bob and Nancy.  More eating. More shopping. No painting, but lots of trivia!

And Mookie found the dog's crate to be more fascinating than anything else.

Which brings us to New Year's Eve, and one uneventful plane ride followed by a far-too-eventful plane ride. One where I accumulated milk, juice, puke, poop, and pee on my person. It's stuff like that that makes me not ever want to get on an airplane again.

It's stuff like that that make me glad to be HOME HOME HOME!!! I hope you have a great weekend, and a wonderful, blessed 2010.

Merry Christmas from Mookie and Mommy!

Mookie and I worked together to create this special greeting for you:

We hope you have a wonderful day, celebrating one VERY special gift from God, enjoying it with many gifts from God.

And may He bless you richly today, and always.

Merry Christmas!

~M

Meeting Santa, V.1

Friday night Mookie and I went to a tree lighting and got to see Santa. I was afraid for the tears and fit that might happen, so I started talking to Mookie about how nice Santa is, and how the big kids aren't crying, promising her some cookies if she is good...you know, pulling out all the stops!

She was great standing in line. Fabulous walking up the steps. Fine when I took off her coat. But the instant I moved her off my hip to put her on Santa's lap, the hysterics started.

You'd think his red velvet pants were made of shards of glass!

So, we tried again...

I guess it's a rite of passage.

Unfortunately, my dreams of a beautiful Christmas photo are shattered into a million pieces like Santa's glass velvet pants. sigh

Gross Anatomy

We live in an awesome neighborhood that celebrates Halloween safely and respectfully and with tummies full of real food.

We have a neighborhood potluck dinner before trick-or-treating starts, and this year I am very excited about the contribution I'll be making.

Severed fingertips and zombie eyeballs.

I know they'll be popular. :o)

Severed fingertips

(found at ourbestbites.com)

(I'll be adding blood to mine, though.)

Zombie eyeballs

(found at gone-ta-pott.com)

Are you making anything fun and unique this weekend?

Hope you enjoy your festivites...whatever they may be!

Holy Quack Quack, Batman!

(this is my 400th blog post! Crazy, right? 400 posts of meaningless drivel! All 9 of you readers are so sweet to come back here. I know you're just looking for pictures of Mookie, but it still makes me feel loved. :o) )

So, Saturday, there was a Fall Festival...and do you think I would pass up this great opportunity to show off my favorite little duckling?? Heck, No! What kind of a mother do you think I am?

And she got all ducked out, and she had fun. We were only there for about 45 minutes, but she. had. fun.

First, I have evidence that she knows how to be a true duckling. I apologize that I'm a video-idiot...a vidiot. I tried to edit the video, but then it was distorted, and just not as cute...so, I'm sorry, but to get the full effect, you'll have to cock your head to the left for 12 seconds.  Oh, and be sure to turn the volume up. :o)



She got to pet a goat. (the others seemed a bit frightened by this huge duck approaching them.)

She got to ride the train. (and held on very very very tightly to Mama's hand the entire time)

She played in the toddler-friendly bouncy area...for about 2 seconds, then wanted out.

Then she tackled me. (and got up first)

(but isn't that the cutest duckie rumpus ever to be had?) (No need to answer that, I know it already!)

She spied some friends from up the street.

As we were leaving (read: Mama took off the costume), we noticed more animals at the petting cages, so we went back.

She got to pet the super-soft bunny rabbit.

And she got to pet the donkey (again, with the death-grip on Mama's finger...)

And, then she got confident, and had to let go of Mama's hand to offer the donkey a blade of grass. Which, thank you Miss Donkey, she ate.

And, she fell asleep in the 4 minute ride home. Duckered out, she was.

Happy Costume-wearing Week!