Of course, Lydia still doesn't like getting her picture taken most of the time as she shouts at us to put the camera away.
Here are the Fairy Godmother and Cinderella herself. We did get a good smile out of Lydia for this one.
In preparation for Christmas, we got a gingerbread house kit. We've done this a few years now, and I think it makes a fun tradition. Karina was so excited to decorate it, and kept asking what day we would do it. When the day finally arrived, as you would expect, it was a toss-up whether the house or their mouths got more of the candies. I think they did a good job with it overall.
Karina's Pre-Kindergarten class had a party yesterday and we all got to go to her school. Lydia had a blast with the "big kids". They had asked Tanja and me to put together some gingerbread houses out of graham crackers glued on to milk cartons. I guess the girls' practice paid off since they were able to decorate their graham cracker houses with all kinds of candy at the party. We'll probably take a picture or two of them and post later. Here we are modeling the creation we decorated at home.
The local fire departments around here drive around the neighborhoods bringing Santa in the fire trucks or in a "sleigh". We got the girls bathed earlier than usual on the designated day for our neighborhood and made our way over to the meeting point. At our neighborhood stop, there were probably close to a hundred kids plus parents. Karina and Lydia ran around with the other kids. I felt bad for the family that lived at the house where everyone congregated because kids were climbing up on their trees, running around their grass, tripping over the electrical cords leading to their Christmas lights, etc. Finally, we noted the fire department's Twitter feed indicating that Santa was on his way to us, we heard the sirens, and Santa and Mrs. Claus made their appearance.
Karina had asked multiple times whether she had to tell Santa what she wanted, sit on his lap, and other things. We told her she could if she wanted to, but mostly we just wanted to take a picture of her and Lydia with Santa. When the time came, she said that she didn't want to tell Santa what she wanted for Christmas. We put the girls on the sleigh, took a few pictures, and then pulled them off so that the next kids could get on. Of course, in true Christmas Story fashion, Karina was quite upset once she got off that she didn't tell Santa what she wanted. We finally convinced her that if she would tell us, we could tell Santa for her since he makes appearances at my work, in stores, etc.
I'm impressed that Lydia didn't scream with Santa this year like she did last year. This picture turned out reasonably well.
Here we are up against the big fire engine.
Our girls are good helpers in the kitchen (at least when they aren't fighting with each other about whose turn it is to pour something in, getting batter or something all over their clothes while sneaking their fingers into the bowls, etc.) Here they are helping make mulligatawny soup one night. We've found that they eat more and more variety when they help to make it.
Karina likes to take pictures and she was our photographer for this one. Not bad.
Another picture taken by Karina - of course, Lydia will smile for Karina if she is taking the picture, but not us. Too bad the picture was out of focus. We'll have to play with the settings or have Karina use a different camera that's more user friendly than our DSLR. All five of our stockings are up by the fireplace, including the baby's (without a name yet).
Below is our girls playing together with their Legos. Snoopy is swaddled like a baby behind the girls. He had gotten a bath that morning (because he rolled in something stinky) and he was shivering, even after being dried off. Silly beagle liked the attention that being wrapped in a blanket brought.
Last Saturday, we went down to the DC Temple Visitor's Center to see all the beautiful lights and watch one of the concerts. It was a nice night weather-wise, so we got to spend a fair amount of time outside. The camel at the nativity scene is a yearly hit. This year, the Ritz crackers (like Lydia is eating) were also highly rated by the girls.
Some pictures with the temple in the background.
In other news, Lydia is now sleeping in her new twin bed in what was the guest bedroom, but is now her bedroom. This is all in preparation for the new baby in March, so we can convert Lydia's toddler bed back into a crib and reclaim the room as a nursery for him. Lydia loves the idea of sleeping in a "big girl" bed, and we are very impressed that after two nights, she still has not fallen out of bed once. If only we could appeal to the same vanity and convince her that she's a big girl and should stop wearing diapers. One step at a time, I suppose.
Merry Christmas, everyone!
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