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Daddy helped the girls pick out the best possible Christmas present to give me. How they knew I have deeply wanted a Slip N Slide, I'll never know.
Have a fabulous (but safe) New Year's! See you in 2012...I'll be back Sunday or Monday with our NY Resolutions. The cliches will mesmerize you.
I didn't really take too many pictures on Christmas Day, just tried to soak in all the excitement from the kids and enjoy the moment. We had said goodbye to Roddle the night before.
But he left us a note on Christmas morning.
We had them both sit on the couch and open presents one by one...unless it was the same gift, then they could do it at the same time. I think one of the biggest hits this year was from Uncle Jason with the pillows that flip inside out to make a stuffed animal.
Another fave for Maya was her penguin. She looooves penguins.
One of Marley's favorites was her doctors outfit and police uniform dress up clothes (she kept arresting people all day for no apparent reason...we thought that more than qualifies her for the VIPD).
Breakfast was served on our new table. I tried to get them to look at me and say Merry Christmas but daddy had whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles on their pancakes and it was taking a huge effort for them to listen to me.
After breakfast we headed to Bolongo Bay to thank Santa for all our goodies.
We ran into our friend Cornelius who had spelled out "Happy Holidays" in the sand....kinda. Stu pointed out his spelling error. Happy HOLLAdays!
When we got home, we spent the rest of the day playing with our toys, watching The Christmas Story on TBS (Marley liked the part where Flick gets his tongue stuck on the pole) and cuddling on the couch.
Maya's chef outfit from my friend Miranda (she and Layla also got Marley the doctor outfit) - big hit!
All the girlies in the family received a tech toy.
That kept us busy on the couch for awhile.
Mikayla stopped over to exchange gifts with the girls.
Marley and Mikayla exchanged BFF necklaces...so cute.
And that pretty much wrapped up our day. Sad to see Christmas 2011 go but looking forward to the upcoming new year.
We were invited to the St. Thomas Yacht Club on Friday night...Santa was going to be there passing out early Christmas presents. Last year, I had the hardest time finding Santa. This year, he was everywhere. My girls got their fill of ol' Saint Nick.
Some of us were really excited about Santa.
Our babysitter told us that she got a puppy for Christmas and named it Maya. She said it's a gorgeous little thing, white with blue eyes and WON'T SIT STILL.
Santa came and sat in front of the tallest real Christmas tree I have ever seen on St. Thomas.
Fat man with a beard offering to give them presents? My kids are happy to sit on his lap.
It was craziness in there.
We came home and watched The Grinch.
And had hot cocoa.
Funny story about hot cocoa...last year, Maya called poop "coocoo". It was something she learned from her Montessori teacher. To this day, if you ask her if she wants hot cocoa, she says NO!! We didn't get it last year. So we'd say, do you want any warm cocoa? Cold cocoa? She finally yelled, "I don't want any coocoo - that's gross!". Hot chocolate...not a problem. Just don't call it cocoa.
Saturday morning we worked on Christmas crafts and stayed in our jammies most of the day.
Or you know...a ballet outfit if you're Maya. Or a Christmas skirt worn as a top if you are Marley.
This was the best craft project ever. All you need is markers. Easy.
Maya's:
Marley's:
Mommy's:
Daddy's:
The next project was pretty easy as well. But not everyone choose to participate fully. I'll give you a clue.
Most of us had fun with the project and were really proud of our work.
The rest of us eventually came around.
Daddy did Christmas cookies with the girls.
And the most anticipated crafts by the girls was a bust. I think they thought the little beads were candy. Regardless, Shrinky Dinks are even hard for a 27 year old like myself (it's Christmas, let me be).
That night we had our traditional Christmas Eve tacos.
For 50 cents, the girls let me get some pictures of them in front of the tree.
The one above wasn't happy with her two quarters so I gave her 10 pennies which thrilled her.
They have never gone to bed so easily as last night, knowing that it was their last effort to be good little girls for Santa. Marley couldn't wait to go to sleep because she knew going to sleep was going to be the fastest way to wake up and it would then be CHRISTMAS.
My December folder for pictures is always brimming to the top. Today alone I believe I have already taken 100 photos. It's only 12:25pm. We have 2 out of 3 Christmas projects completed, Maya & I went out and finished up her Christmas shopping (she is so last minute) and we still have cookies to bake later and we need to check the mail one last time to see if there are any last minute Christmas packages & cards. I'm sure the blog will be full of Christmas photos next week. Today, I wanted to share our Christmas card photos. I did them myself this year and I don't think I'll be doing that again. Nobody was happy by the end of the shoot and I nearly broke my ankle and could have spent the rest of the day in the ER. My ankle, a month later, is still a bit swollen and I still wake up in the middle of the night with pain in it. Next year, I'll let a pro break their neck for my kids. I'm done.
This was the photo used on the card.
Here is it in color.
And these two images on the back.
It may have looked from the above pictures that it was a "picture perfect" day with the girls being all smiley but noooooo....this was the photo shoot from hell. I had picked out two different color blues for the balloons, thinking they would be pretty mixed together but the girls wanted their own colors. I knew they wouldn't edit well this way but whatever, I let them each hold their own colors. I was willing to compromise and be a good sport. But asking a certain taller than the other sister to smile was like asking her to walk the tight rope at the circus. The temper tantrum that followed was EPIC. Screaming and crying like we were pulling out her toe nails kind of bad. Of course, the shorter of the sisters realizes that her sister is being a huge pain in the you know what, so she decides to be an angel.
The whole time, Stu is trying to calm Marley down, but also chirping in my ear "our cards last year were from the driveway, are you sure you want to do the driveway again this year? How about taking them down to the beach or something?" - which over course really means, can you do this somewhere else so I can get some peace & quiet? I realized though, in order to get Marley to snap out of it, a change of scenery would be the best call. So I threw them in the car and headed out to a secluded part of Peterborg, a peninsula off of Magen's Bay. Great rocks, great views...and it totally worked. Marley snapped right out of it.
But Maya? No, she wasn't in a bad mood...but she scared poopless out there. There are a lot of rocks, you're surrounded by ocean...there are some cliffs, yes, but OMG girl, get over it! So I had to haul around my camera, lens bag and three year old that wouldscream whenever I tried to put her down. I, being a genius, decided to take the kids even further into the rough terrain to get the best shot possible...and get Maya more acclimated to the surroundings. Now, on Peterborg point, there is a small area to park your car, but you have to walk the rest.
See how far away from my car I am in this photo? Times that by forty. My cell phone was in the car. You know because that's what people do when they are in a secluded area rarely visited by other humans. Hiking out to the point with Maya on one hip and camera on the other, that's when I went down. I could have sworn my ankle cracked in two. It was one of those pains where your stomach hurts and you loose your hearing for awhile because your ears fill up with cotton. Maya's fear of being on the point only multiplied and she started to wail. Both girls learned a few four letter words that I'm pretty sure they did not previously know (Merry Christmas kids, take those to school & be sure to share). As I laid on the dirt, writhing in pain, I had no idea how I was going to get both kids and myself back to the car. Maybe it was a Christmas miracle, but I was eventually able to pull myself together, hobble back to the car and grab one last shot of the kids smiling for the camera.
Hope you enjoyed our freakin' Christmas card.
Marley goes to the Monroe campus of the Sibilly School for kindergarten. It is literally a one room school house tucked away on the west end of the island. At first we weren't too thrilled with her going to this campus because its much further away from our house than the main campus but we couldn't be happier she is there now. It is the cutest little schoolhouse and her teacher is really the best. Stu and I went out there yesterday to have lunch with her & her classmates for their holiday party.
She was so excited when we showed up, she couldn't stay in her seat.
Handsome daddy. This is Stu's "oh good...she brought her camera" face.
Enjoying lunch with daddy.
All through lunch, we were referred to as "Marley's Dad" or "Marley's Mom". Stu is totally the kind of dad that picks up random kids, swings them around, tickles them, chases after them yelling like a monster:
I absolutely love this fact about my husband. The kids love him. Know what I don't like? The fact that whenever these kids see me, they run and jump all over me. I always have to remind them, "It's Marley's Dad that is the fun one, not me!" as they jump all around, expecting me to toss them up in the air.
Here's a look inside the classroom.
And outside - all the kids came to yell/scream at Marley & Marley's Dad as we were leaving.
He even came back for an encore.
Today is Marley's last day until the new year. They got to celebrate by wearing jeans with either a red or green shirt. The school is a bit strict on these types of things and there couldn't be a pattern or picture on the shirt. I didn't have enough notice to order anything online, so I stopped at the mall the other day and bought a cheap red dress that she would be able to wear over her jeans. It came with a big black belt - she looks a bit like Santa Claus! Maya got to wear red & green today too.
She is becoming annoyingly more opinionated on her clothing lately. This dress was Marley's from two years ago. I had to tell her this is what ballerina's wear when they perform Christmas ballets to get it on her. She still wasn't buying it but a small bribe with a piece of peppermint candy worked.
I actually got her all kinds of hopped up on sugar and then dropped her off at school. Merry Christmas teachers!!
See the new table in chairs behind her? That's our family Christmas present this year. We've been eating dinner out there every night and doing their homework at the table. They love it, we love it, best Christmas gift to ourselves ever.
I'm sure I'll be getting a note home with this one about how the shirt was supposed to be tucked in. Oh well.
I know I posted at Thanksgiving about how I love how flexible my job is and that I can go to school events for my kids. In the case of the Christmas lunch, totally true. But the day before, I got a last minute booking and my assistant was already up in the mainland enjoying the holidays with her family and my back-up assistant had gone along with her. So that left me to coordinate and I missed out on her school play. One of the moms texted me this photo:
She said they were only up there all of five minutes and I didn't miss much. But I did and I hate missing things like this. What's worse is Marley's questions, "why didn't you come to see me?". I'm going to have to make it up to her with lots of holiday cheer this weekend.
The Rotary Club hosted breakfast with Santa again this year. I learned my lesson from last year...do not get there when it starts. We waited 1.5 hours last year to see Santa. So this year we got there at 9:30 and Santa was already seated, taking requests when we showed up. Perfect.
We started off with pancakes and coloring.
Sucking on oranges.
Then the big moment...
They are getting so big. No crying on Santa's lap. After giving Santa their requests, they were allowed to pick out a toy from the table nearby. Maya grabbed a toy and ran off without a second thought. Marley...she took her sweet time, making sure to look over EVERYTHING before deciding on a light up bouncy ball - which she exhanged for something else after it bounced up and hit her in the chin.
Marley has her Christmas lunch at school today and then both girls will be in school tomorrow while I finish up wrapping presents and preparing for a three day weekend with them both home...lots of Christmas crafts and cookies to be made! Excitment is in the air...
After taking the girls to see Santa at the Chocolate Factory, I needed to kill some time before going to see "Smurfs on Ice". We found a little shop downtown that does hair braiding (or pratting if you're local).
We didn't have time to get their whole heads done.
Check out Maya showing the lady how she wants her hair done.
Stylin. My girls have some swagger.
After the pratting, we found this little fountain full of tadpoles and guppies. Slow tadpoles & guppies. Maya must have caught a dozen of them with her "bare hands".
Marley was so wildly impressed with her sisters mad fish catching skills that she went and told everyone she saw, "she's so little! she's only three years old! she can catch fish with her BARE HANDS!". I even caught a picture of her praising Maya and her skills. She kept asking Maya, "how do you DO that??". Maya was tickled pink that Marley was so proud of her.
A yearly tradition here for us. And as always, I get my picture with the girls at the event. This is much better than ones in recent years.
And this year my mom got to enjoy it with us. Marley did not want her picture taken. She was complaining that her tummy hurt but I think she was just hungry (she is looking off to the food tents).
I'm a big fan of Christmas lights and palm trees.
Me & the hubby. Looking a little jaundiced.
He's looking very happy as he just dropped the kids off at the church that offers babysitting services for parents going to Miracle on Main. Since my mom as in town, I wasn't planning to have the kids go this year but Marley kept asking us to go. I thought about going to grab them for the boat parade but am so glad we didn't. TWO boats showed up this year. Pathetic.
I underestimate my kids memories sometimes though. Last year we picked them up from the church to go see the parade so when I picked them up this year, they asked if they were going to go see the boats. Um...no. We made it up to them by taking them to the park down the street that was all light up for Christmas.
Playing in the park after you bedtime was way cooler than the boats.
It wasn't Santa (well, really, it kinda was...one of her suitcases was full of nothing but Christmas gifts).
We had a busy wedding week while she was here but managed to do some fun things like Miracle on Main Street, Breakfast with Santa, take Marley to ballet class...we even put her to work at a few weddings.
This time last year I was busy trying to keep the kids entertained the week before Christmas since their school break started the week before. I had a Christmas craft for them to do each day. This year, Marley stays in school until the 23rd and Maya is in a more tradiational daycare setting, so they do not have a Christmas break. So this week, other than two weddings, I'm planning to blog as least once a day to catch up on the last few weeks and get organized for Christmas.
I took advantage of having my mom here to get a picture of the four of us. There are never enough pictures where we are all in them.
And considering it's not often that I blow dry my hair, I had Stu get some of me and the kids.
The Belgian Chocolate Factory invited Santa down to the shop this weekend so of course, we had to go and greet him, welcome him to St. Thomas and all. Driving the girls downtown, I thought about some recent "bad Santa photos" I had seen online recently:
http://photos.ellen.warnerbros.com/galleries/bad_santa_photos
And a blog I read from California: http://thespohrsaremultiplying.com/the-amazing-annabel/just-call-me-mrs-claus/
Priceless stuff. I love pictures of kids crying on Santa's lap and Santa looking like he needs a drink. Going through this stuff in my head, I realized I really hadn't prepped the kids at all, other than tell them we were going to see Santa. So I asked Maya if she was going to sit on Santa's lap and tell him what she wanted for Christmas and she said yes...I asked her what she was going to ask him for and she said, "chocolate and candy and toys!". Marley said she was going sit on his lap and ask for a bike. Ok then...we'll see...
Once we got there, Maya bolted right in, went straight up to Santa and jumped in his lap! She told him she wanted chocolate and candy and toys!
Marley and I walked in together and I could see she was a little hesistant, but how can you wimp out when your little sister is bouncing on the big mans knee??
The pictures above were taken by Louis Lucas, a local photographer. I took this one below...
I couldn't get over how smiley and happy they were to be with Santa! Louis had sent out a link to all the photos that he took that day, so I went through them to see how the other kids did. Most were happy, but I looooved this one.
Is it weird that I find these hilarious??
