Just the beginning...

Our Christmas tree is up!

We don't even have all the ornaments on yet and the girls were still thrilled.

We found out that Lilli knows the word "pretty", and Elizabeth was so excited she could hardly contain herself. She keeps asking where the presents are. I think we need to have a talk about what we're actually celebrating here besides Santa. I was trying to sing "Away in a Manger" to her, and all she wanted to sing was "Jingle Bells". About 50 times. Still though, the presents are coming. I did some major damage on Black Friday and had a complete and total blast doing it.

Have I mentioned how much I like this time of year?

I never fail to be amused...

The funniest moment of today was David reading the drinks menu to Elizabeth at Outback.

She was convinced that this multiple paged colorful booklet had to be a story and a pretty amazing one at that. In a completely serious tone of voice he read out the descriptions of several drinks they offer, while putting special and intrigued emphasis on certain ingredients. She listened intently, as if it was the most fascinating book she has ever heard.

And of course I found the whole thing hilarious.

It's worth it.

You know what I'm doing right now?

The thing I only do twice a year. I'm baking pies. The pumpkin is cooling, the cherry-berry is baking and the mincemeat I make for my dad is queued up to go in the oven in another 20 minutes.

At the crack of dawn tomorrow I'm going to prep my 16 pound turkey and get it roasting, set the table all Thanksgivingy, find my electric carving knife (it's probably in the abyss that is the cabinets above the refrigerator), set out my serving ware, peel potatoes and prepare the relish tray. I'll have a few hours to relax and watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and then its on to the last minute whirlwinds of stuffing prep and potato mashing, turkey carving and green bean cooking, roll baking and adding cinnamon to the applesauce. It's going to be a lot of work.

And I'm going to love every second of it.

Recap

Nothing to complain about this weekend. The girls were in fine form and, since I had such a busy week that I barely saw them, I enjoyed that fine form a lot.

Here they are all snazzied up for church:

And in this picture bearing an uncanny resemblance to Laurel and Hardy, according to their daddy:

Lilli decided to grow up overnight and started saying sentences this weekend. Just the two word kind, but I don't remember Elizabeth doing that this soon (16 months?). Lilli's first three sentences were "Bye, Bailey!", that's one of our cats, "Tickle Toes!", a request, or, should I say, a demand, and, as I innocently walked off to my bedroom, "Mama poo?"

I do not know where the time goes! The other day I tallied up the list of words that little thing uses frequently and it blew my mind. It seems like 5 minutes ago that I was congratulating her on sitting up unsupported.

Here she is at 5.5 months doing just that:

If you look closely you'll see that I'd rolled up a blanket to put around her, but that was because this was a new skill, and I was afraid I'd have a cracked open skull to deal with if I didn't take precautions. You know how when they're a new sitter and they're going along just fine for like 20 minutes and all of a sudden they get tired or something and they just pitch over? Yeah. The tile at my house and the hardwood at my in-law's place scare me equally. Oh, and yes, I'm aware that she looks exactly like I did as a baby. She's my little clone. Although thank heavens she got David's eyelashes. But I digress...as usual...

So anyway, it was a good weekend. I saw the Twilight movie twice and did my part in contributing to the 70 million dollars in sales and was just delighted to read that Summit is going ahead with New Moon. I contemplated doing an actual review post on Twilight, but I bored myself, so I'll just leave it at saying that lots of parts were better than I expected, and no parts were worse. Oh, and seeing it the second time was just as good as seeing it the first time.

I also began to plan my Black Friday shopping route and did all my Thanksgiving shopping. A painful grocery bill, but now I am reeeeally looking forward to Thanksgiving. I love this time of year. Lots of things to enjoy as they come up and lots of things to look forward to.

Ahhhhhhhhhhh.

uh huh.

This week I...

Played some WoW (World of Warcraft in case you've been visiting another planet).
Worked.
Went to the local Fall Festival.
Played some WoW.
Saw Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (that was actually pretty cool, apparently it was the first show of the National Tour, but I'm too busy playing WoW to blog about it).
Played some WoW.
Went to church.
Went back to the Fall Festival.
Played some WoW.
Worked.
Rescued a baby squirrel at said work (you will see post about that one eventually. Cutest thing EV. ER.)
Played me some WoW.
Worked.
Had a church thing.
Played some WoW.
Worked.
Went to the library.
Had another church thing.
Played some WoW.
Remembered I have a blog...

Hmmm. I can't imagine where the week has gone...

A day worth celebrating?

Let's see if we can do this in pictures.

This:

equals this:

And here I am reacting to the fact that my husband is going to be permanently attached to his computer for a while:
ooooooooooh. Woohoo?

I'm not really one to talk though. While millions of wives throughout the world are bemoaning the release of this new expansion, it's a lot cheaper to play with him than to go out for date nights, especially with two expensive little ones lurking around. So I have my own account and I join him occasionally.

In fact, right this very moment we are waiting in the queue to check things out, I'm just a multi-tasker.

But let me tell you that there is someone sitting a little ways off from me who is happy that today is November 13th.

Very, very happy.

You should have seen us smirk...

Tonight I learned that Elizabeth has no sense of the current fashions of the times.

Well, I guess I already knew that since she never complains about the interesting ensembles her Papa puts her in every day. But at least I was reminded of just how literal toddlers are. What they see is the way it is, right?

Tonight was, of course, library night. So we were, as usual, out for dinner, this time at Subway. Don't look at me like that, fast food is...fast. It saves us time. We have an 8pm bedtime to observe.

To make a short story long, Elizabeth had been talking to a couple of little boys while she was waiting for her food and they were waiting for theirs. Her talking mostly consisted of yelling things at them like "HEY LITTLE BOY, DO YOU WANT TO PLAY WITH ME?", but the point is she noticed them, they noticed her and there was conversation to a degree. So I brought the food to our table, their mom brought the food to their table and they went to the other side of the restaurant to join their mom and their older brother. Hee hee. Their older tween brother with a very current, very (at least in our neck of the woods in most circles) fashionable, 70's style shaggy haircut. Not crazy long, but long enough. Possibly longer than Elizabeth's hair. I'm sure, she has to have seen this haircut before, or at least long hair on a man, but maybe this is the first time she ever paid attention to some one's hair? Because we can't think of any other reason why she suddenly pointed across the restaurant and shouted "HEY! THERE'S MY FRIEND THE LITTLE GIRL!" We, smothering our inappropriate snorts, shushed her and told her that he was a boy. "NO!", she shouted, "THAT'S A GIRL!"

Poor kid. In this case I hope it's true that nobody but the mom and dad can understand a toddler.

I'm still alive...

You know what?

Good things have happened this week. Fun things, entertaining things, memorable things, crazy things. Plenty of things I could have said plenty on. But I have just felt uninspired all week long.

And I usually post at night, and instead of staying up like I normally do until well past midnight, I've been passing out almost as soon as the girls go to bed. I'm not the only one, on a couple occasions the husband has passed out that early too.

I think fall is getting to us.

I know the northern contingent has been through this already, but now that its hot one day and cold the next down here, or freezing in the morning and boiling hot in the afternoon, I just can't keep up. There are bugs going around, I've got that achy-fighting-things-off feeling, my seasonal tendinitis is acting up, and I'm kind of cranky. I pretty much glare at the computer and climb into bed. So if my slacking off becomes regular and not just an every now and then thing, sorry about that.

It's because I'd rather be hibernating.

What passes for fun at our house...

All I wanted to do was fold the girls' laundry. Really, is that too much to ask?

I freely admit they have too many clothes, otherwise there is no way I could let the "to fold" pile get so crazy because all the nudity would force me into action.

Yeah, these are just Lilli's:

Here are Elizabeth's:

Wait a minute, something is wrong with this picture. Why I do declare that someone has invaded her laundry pile!
Of course no one was content to simply let me fold the laundry in peace. Empty hampers = great hilarity:

The instigator:He even helped them make a fort.

I do have to say that I admire his patience. As I was running back and forth putting things away, I was amazed at how many times the following conversation took place:

Elizabeth: Ding Dong!

David: Who is it?

Elizabeth: It's me! I brought you a present!

David: What is it?

Elizabeth: Open it!

David: Wow! (genuine amazement and delight in his voice) It's a panda! I always wanted one!

Every single time he sounded just as excited as all the previous times. It was pretty impressive. Someone, somewhere, must be able to use that kind of acting talent. Just let us know if you want to pay big bucks to borrow a good daddy.

Still, all good things must come to an end. Here's my mini-me mocking my stern face:

You would think she'd be too young to make fun of me, but apparently not.

I have to remember that she's getting older though. Today she suddenly looked distressed and grabbed at her diaper and I asked her if she needed a change. She nodded vigorously and said "Poo!" That was the first time she ever said that, and it just so happens that she was right.

I guess I really need to stop putting off such a big girl's first haircut, huh? Eventually she won't be able to mock me through those bangs.