'Tis the Season, Part 6 (The Aftermath)

Well...they (now) love their Perplexus balls.  And I mean loveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee them.   They also (now) love their watches, too!  Every 15 minutes, one calls out to the other:  What time is it?  And the other always answers...correctly!

(Note:  They JUST learned how to tell time two days ago...)
 

Taken immediately after Quincy mastered her Perplexus. 

Taken just because.

Tim loves his helicopter.  Tink doesn't.  Whenever the helicopter takes flight, Tink (our big 125-pounds-of-love dog) takes flight, too.   
Upstairs. 

'Tis the Season, Part 5 (Christmas!)

 

Evidence that Santa arrived (just in case the presents under the tree didn't give it away).

It sure is getting difficult making it down the stairs (with ready camera) before the girls do!  This just might be the last Christmas I get this photo...

 

Opening up their first gift from Santa---a Perplexus Ball.  Neither one of them were thrilled.  At all.

Gift number two:  Watches!  Again, a total let-down from Santa.

Gift numbers three and four finally scored!  A Dorothy doll for Quincy (and Toto for Ellie) and....the big one they REALLY (reallyyyyyyyyyyyyyy) wanted.....

 

Rainbow Loom twist-bands bracelet making kit!!! (They are all the rage in the schools right now...according to the girls). 

Tink and Otis just sat there staring.

For the family:  A badminton set.  Tim's idea...we'll see!

For Tim:  A remote-control helicopter.  He lovesssssssssssssssss it! 

For me:  A new set of wine glasses (yay!) and The Cake Maker's Bible (yummmmmm). 

By the next morning, the girls had each made 4 feet of "bracelet" and Ellie had mastered the Perplexus. 

'Tis the season, Part 4 (The Night Before Christmas)

'Twas the night before Christmas....so we made Gingerbread cookies for Santa!

...and, of course, left some food and water on the roof for his reindeer ....

..and then we all settled down for a long winter's nap (well, at least right after a much-deserved cocktail for mommy and daddy!).

'Tis the Season, Part 3 (Santa's in the house...)

 (I love the photo above of Matt in the background)

I'm not really sure how it happened, but somehow we agreed to host a get-together with some of our friends where Santa showed up.  Santa's visit, while greatly LOVED by the kids, opened up a lot of (totally good and justified) questions that neither Tim nor myself knew how, nor really wanted, to explain.  But at least the girls had a great (!) time and I got some great photos out of it (that they will sooo appreciate when they are grown).

The girls had a private reading with Santa of The Night Before Christmas. 

The photo above is of my friend's, Julie, youngest daughter, Remi.  Now that is a photo that will make her laugh when she grows up!

I tried to get the dogs in a photo---at least one out of two made it in!

She believes---with all her heart.

Cathy's Grad Party ('Tis the season, part 2)

We have four best friends (two couples) and we are all very close to each other.  One of the four, Cathy (Tim has been besties with Cathy and her husband, Dave, since HS!---kind of like you Britto...), just finished her PhD!  I offered to make the cake for her grad party ---for 70 people.  Stress.  Thankfully, Cathy's youngest two spent the night before the party with us and helped tremendously (they stuck all the little pearls on the cake---it would have driven me to a migraine if I did it!).  It turned out pretty well, all 40 pounds of chocolate ganache goodness!

Uncles Mike and Eric....

....and Aunt Cathy and Uncle Dave

'Tis the Season, Part 1

Everyone has an elf, right?  Our Elf's name is Snitch.  However, unlike his name implies, he really isn't a snitch.  He just shows up in a different spot each morning with a small gift for the girls during Advent.  Usually.  At least until this year.  Apparently Snitch has been a little lax in his duties this season.  Lax as in four mornings of no-show.  Oops.  We assured the girls that Snitch is most likely just tired (maybe sick?) and maybe they could do something nice for him instead.  So they wrote him a nice note hoping that he gets better soon.  He did. 

Luckily the only ball that has been dropped has been by Snitch.  We managed to bake our Christmas cookies and get them, along with the presents, out to all the teachers.  Some teachers (as in Quincy's ballet teacher) even got a special, non-Christmas note tucked into their Christmas gift.  Oh, Quincy. *heavy sigh*

The girls had their first official sleep-over at one of their BFF's, Emma Rae, house while mommy and daddy went out and played with their BFF's!  

And now that the break has officially arrived, the slow-down has finally come (*heavy exhale*).  Which means lots of reading and game-playing for the Maleys---yay!  Ellie has picked up the Nancy Drew series and Quincy will read anything that is put in front of her.  She just finished Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH.  For the second time. 

 
Our new current favorite game is The Game of Life.