Batteries

I know we owe you a Christmas post, but I had to document this before I forgot about it.

Lilie has been feeling under the weather for the past few days.  It was mostly a head cold until yesterday, when she added a croupy cough.  So it was no surprise when she woke us up last night, asking if she could climb into our bed.

I opted to let the girls have the bed (Lilie is not a delicate sleeper), and went to the guest bedroom.  Lilie found me there this morning, and snuggled with me while Katie was getting ready for work.  At one point she looked at me, frowned and sniffled.

"Awww....", I said, and reached over to tap the tip of her nose.

Lilie sniffled again, then reached over and touched the tip of my nose. 

"Boop."

She did it again, grinning.

"Boop."

She paused, then offered a gravelly giggle.

"I'm going to run your batteries down."

Santa!

Santa made an appearance at our local library, and since we didn't have a chance to visit him at his shed in the mall, we decided to meet him there.

Lilie's anticipation was running very high.  She insisted on wearing a dress, and spending quite a long time carefully applying 'fakeup' so she'd "look her best for Santa".  She was so excited when he arrived!  The jolly old elf was in rare form.  There was book-reading, and coloring, and candy-caning and of course Santa's lap...

At first Lils was adamant about sitting on my lap when she was that close to Santa.

Eventually, she realized he wasn't that frightening, and she went all independent on me.

Santa and Lilie really hit it off.

"A Dreamlight and a makeup kit, please."

Seal the deal with a hug!

Lilie did really well, although she did have to be reminded to put in a word with Santa for Dad's motorcycle...  We'll see how well Santa can do with that one in about a week!

Recital

Liliana has been taking ballet classes at Daughters of Grace this fall.  Her training culminated in a performance at a big recital last Friday night.

We weren't certain Lilie would choose to participate, mostly because of the costume: a leotard with a tutu... made out of tulle.  Any of our regular readers will recognize that on the Liliana 'roughy scale', tulle ranks a ten out of ten.  Fortunately, with a little bit of coaxing and some help from another Lily in her class, our Lilie managed to muscle through her flavor of OCD and into the whole outfit.

Liliana was especially excited to hear that her favorite Gretchen would be able to watch her recital!  If you turn the volume waaaay up, and listen waaaay carefully, you'll hear Lilie do an honest-to-gosh 'stage whisper' into the live microphones at about 0:26: "GRETCHEN!"

The video is grainy (sorry!).  Liliana is basically in the middle, and does a wonderful job.  What you won't see because of the graininess (sorry!) is that she spent a good deal of time scanning the audience in search of her Gretchen.  I think she found her around the time the girls gathered around the crib...

Liliana was very excited to participate - and gather flowers from her admirers after her performance.  I made sure to buy some, since she had explained to me earlier, "You know, Daddy, sometimes daddies buy flowers for their daughters after their recital."  Noted!  

Gretchen?!

Is she on the left?

Or maybe the right?

Kicks require pretty intense focus...

Tiny dancer....

Getting in the Christmas spirit

Christmas angel

Last year, Liliana was WAY into Christmas - when it finally arrived.  This year she is beyond excited about preparing for Christmas as well.  She loves Christmas lights, especially the ones at a house in our neighborhood that play music.  We cannot enter or leave the subdivision without her begging us to drive past the "singing house".  It has become a fun (mostly) routine to stop in front of their house, roll down the windows, and catch at least one song each time.  Obviously, this is not fun is when we are late and/or in a hurry.  For some reason, preschoolers just don't understand what the rush is all about.  Actually, come to think of it...I wish I could live like that. 

On another note, earlier this week I decided to surprise Liliana with a pajama-clad, Christmas light excursion after bathtime.  I told her that she and I needed to go put gas in the car.  Once we got to the gas station and filled up, I took her inside and bought each of us a hot chocolate.  Then, on our way home we got "terribly lost" (in three subdivisions) and enjoyed the beautiful decorations while sipping on our cups of hot chocolate.  Liliana informed me that she thought my idea was "the best, best, best, best, best, best, best, BEST idea ever!" and that she would like to do that every night.  I don't think we will do it that often but I'm definitely feeling a tradition coming on.  

It is pretty obvious that a certain shorter member of the family is a little more enthusiastic than other taller members about decorating the tree.  I am tempted to leave it this way.

Proud of her Christmas cookies in the oven.  This was followed by delivery of said cookies to all of our cul-de-sac neighbors.  (I had to get those babies OUT of the house!)

Bad Dog

I'm standing at the counter, resting on one leg with my knee locked out. Our dog Chewbacca jumps up and perfectly taps the back of my leg, popping it out and nearly making me fall.

"MAN that makes me mad when you do that!" I grumbled.

"Chewie! Tari! Come here *right now*!" Liliana called the dogs to the back door. "You're both outside now... so you can think about how you jumped up on Daddy."

She put them both out in the cold and climbed back up on her stool to continue coloring. Sometimes I worry for her classmates at preschool...

We somehow talked our family into converging on our house for Thanksgiving this year.  That leaves us with a lot of driving to do for the next set of holidays, but meant that this year we could focus on hospitality.

Seth and his family took the long, boring drive from Denver to St. Louis.  My parents came from Dallas.  I've been on both drives, and they're not much fun - but the destination was worth it in both cases.

Everyone arrived on Wednesday, which left us a couple of days to enjoy our family.  We pretty much hung out around the house.  Between basic lolling, lots of eating, Thanksgiving Olympics and creek activities, we kept pretty 'busy'.

Liliana thoroughly enjoyed having many of her favorite people in one place.  She was excited to have her grandparents here, and was thrilled when Seth and Aunt Jennifer arrived.  She frequently offered to 'stare out the front window to be sure nobody was here yet'.

"AUNT JENNIFER IS HERE!" Liliana belted it out so loud that they heard it outside...

Here are far too many pics.  We all lamented the fact that Jonas and Lucas were unavailable this year.

Ryan focused my green laser pointer on this dandelion that Liliana had picked.  This picture doesn't do it justice - it looked like fiber-optic fakery!

"HEY! WAIT UP!"

It's called Dry Branch Creek, and it usually has some good pools of water...

It's a rainwater detention pond drain, not a sewer...

This is my 'X-Files' pic.  "Don't go to the light, Ma!"

Liliana is soooo pleased with her waterproof boots.

Dad did some serious coaching with James on rock skipping.

I know it looks random, but there's something neat about it.

The beginning of a tradition: Buxton Thanksgiving Olympics.

The 'Popcorn Bucket on Your Shoe Relay'.

The first victims contestants in the 'Cheese Puff Toss Onto Hats Loaded with Shaving Cream' event.

Seth and James were victorious, with something like a million cheese puffs on Seth's head.

Painful to watch, the 'Move the Cookie from Your Forehead to Your Mouth' event was difficult - but yours truly persevered and emerged as the sole victor.

This marks the beginning of the surreal but artistic journey into the realm of Liliana's photographic endeavors.

It starts out well enough - looks almost genuine, doesn't it?

The subject is well-framed; the perspective is from about thirty-six inches...

...then it starts to look a bit... uh, avant-garde?

Why does this make me feel a bit queasy?

Here is where we begin our descent into the toddler mind...

Does this remind anyone else of 'Memento'?

This is actually pretty good work.  We claim copyright! 

Katie: "She took a picture of the ceiling fan."
Jason: "Gee... I've always wanted a picture of the ceiling fan."
Lilie: (stopping in the middle of tickling Daddy) "Well.. today's your day!"

Obviously, she didn't take this lovely picture...

...but now we're back on Lilie's hand at the camera.

Ryan was finished at this point....

Emma was such a good dog!

I think a good time was had by all.  We were sad to see our family leave, but so glad for the visit.  We're looking forward to next year!