the LOOOOONG week of christmas

this is the beginning of our long week of christmas. here we are visiting a nativity scene. we are all looking off-screen in hopes of serenity coming to us in some other way:

monica - loves doing these kinds of enriching seasonal things for her daughters and look at what ends up happening (just look at the forlorn look on her face) 

amalea - it is way too loud in here (volume setting cranked up high on the christmas music playing cd player behind that innocent looking golden winged angel)

isabel - stranger danger (this is an action shot, she is crying and struggling)

this is isabel rubbing her distended tummy after eating a TON of little smokies (itsy-bitsy hotdog things). we discovered she loved them earlier today on a trip to the local costco. she saw them being cooked up and retorted when we just passed them by. we had to return and get one for her. and then another. so we bought a package. at home we cooked up some more, and served them up with a toothpick as a utensil. the toothpick came in useful in more ways than one. isabel had been saying "boom-dee" lately about seemingly random things and we didn't know what she meant. after eating the little smokies isabel held up the toothpick and said "boom-dee". the toothpick had a bent tip (from her rapid rate of eating). mom asked if boom-dee meant broken and isabel said "boom-dee" in response. now we just need to find out what "tent" means (no, not a camping reference).

isabel threw up shortly after taking this photograph. she hasn't eaten a little smokie since.

isabel does love dress up after all. this is her dancing about on the night of our warr-waldron christmas. later this week she even dressed up with amalea in various princess dresses and then the ultimate, a fuzzy puppy dog costume.

christmas eve, amalea shrieked out, "i turned my tongue green!" indeed she did, and her cousin gabe decided to follow suit but in red instead. here are the two all decked out with their holiday tinted tongues.

now the real excitement begins. isabel has been saying "santa" all week. this year amalea snuck downstairs before all of us and scoped out the place. she zipped back up to announce what santa brought for her and for isabel.

jason predicted this. the photo explains it all.

life always turns out for the best and here is proof. 

amalea expressed deep gratitude for her tiny wiggle-heads (and continues to do so almost daily). she has a great appreciation for miniscule treasures. these things are tiny, and have already been lost repeatedly, requiring much searching on hands and knees in the deepest and darkest depths of our home by mom. 

isabel loves, loves, loves babies. she has been abducting amalea's bitty baby from its cradle right out of amalea's room. she's not very sneaky, though, and amalea ends up catching her and thrusting her quite roughly out, without the doll of course, and shutting the door, to add to isabel's complete devastation. so here she is nurturing her own bigger girl doll in its bathtub, with its own crib close by. 

ama takes on interior design

amalea proudly announced this morning that she has decorated her room. when questioned about what she had done, she simply stated "i decorated my lamp with spiders, a naked baby, a fairy, and baby Jesus." the combination was so unique...we decided to take pictures.

here's the lamp

and the naked baby...who knows where this came from

the "fairy" or angel...this one looks like it's part of the lampshade

and finally, baby Jesus...sitting atop a little tea cup.

the girls and the trees

here's the yearly under the tree shot taken today. yes, those wide-open mouths were emitting various high-pitched squeals.

here is the photo from last year (which was taken on the 30th as well, pretty nifty). both remarkably snugglyish. isabel was yikes big-eyed from the camera flash here though. 

this is amalea decorating the little tree on the day after thanksgiving. she's really wrapped up in the work as you can see. does the tree or amalea have more garland on it? speaking of trees, amalea saw a tree farm during our travels on thanksgiving where the trees were all within a fenced off area. her voice had a hint of sympathy in it as she said, "those trees are captured."

now, here is isabel and her famous "cheese" pose while lending a hand in the entire tree building process. she always says cheese when you pull out a camera. how appropriate that she has a slice of cheese in her hands. 

the fully decorated little tree. amalea wanted to see mom's doll collection, and then came across her own set of porcelain dolls for a themed christmas tree. so she immediately had to go about getting this tree to become a reality. dad took her out to pick out the perfect little tree (and the golden garland as seen above). here is amalea's masterpiece set up in her room. she ecstatically exclaimed, "now i don't need my night light!"

happy halloween (finally coming to you on veteran's day)

to celebrate halloween this year dad took the day off and spent it at home with the girls. we were all outside promptly at 4 o'clock to kick off the afternoon of trick-or-treating. the girls delayed the collection of candy for just a bit to pose next to our spider and tangled web.

since halloween was on friday, it was quite all right if the sugar, from the excessive amounts of candy both amalea and isabel consumed, continued coursing through their tiny little bodies and didn't wear off until the wee hours of the night. naturally, amalea was able to keep going strong. we tried to slow her down by diminishing her eyesight with these horrendous glasses.
our littlest morning person fell sooner than her big sister, so we had to wait until the next morning to slap the glasses onto her.

jason proudly boasted of his "this is what i do when i babysit the girls" trick. swaddle them tightly so that they are physically unable to move about and cause mischief. see, don't they look angelic, they are smiling and look quite content.

and then further incapacitate them by putting on those glasses. yet they're still all smiles!

trunk-or-treat

these 3 photos chronicle a normal schmormal day in the life of us. yesterday began where isabel left off the previous night. this time she was scantily clad, shirt on her head turban style. 

the spiders attacked our car for the trunk-or-treat. look at us...we managed a family snapshot! we're the coolest!

amalea = o.c.d.

she arranged the spiders just so. mom positioned amalea so that the spiders could march right into her open mouth single file.

our younger stranger child

(is that even possible? see photo below for further details. and yes, those are amalea's panties, of which isabel placed on her head, managed to say "cheese" for a single photo, and then streaked away.)

can i help you?

amalea sidled on over to mom, who was in the laundry room, and in her best southern belle voice amalea spoke, "mom...can i help you?". the following photo shoot ensued:

the evening, which was yesterday, concluded with a transformation of pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns (and of little girls into cackling kooks). note - amalea directed the carving efforts of which isabel didn't take much interest other than extending her pointer finger and prodding some pumpkin pulp and a seed on two different occasions.

night of the dance

friday, october 24, the night of the dance, began with a halloween ghostbusters (i ain't afraid of no ghost!) dance performed by amalea at her dance class. we all had fun watching her dance about in a choreographed manner!

the real dance surprise came when mom took amalea to see high school musical 3 senior year (more dance, more choreography). the most fun for amalea occurred pre-show as she handed out the little glow in the dark spider rings and candy (minus the candy she managed to pack into her cheeks - just look at those puffsters in the photo with mom) to kids young and old in the rows surrounding us. 

more fun eating after the show. that tub of popcorn is bigger around than amalea is!

and a shot in front of the poster outside the theatre to mark the event.

the night ended with an exhausted amalea falling asleep almost instantly in her car seat on the drive home.

it all begins with a little country style chinese

actually, last week ended with jason capturing an artistic rendition of amalea's name done by the artist herself on glass and condensation using fingertip.

then the week continued to end with the busting of isabel's lip and the assembling of chinese spring rolls all performed while johnny cash sang in the background (thus, the country style chinese).

the busting of the lip: isabel has bumped the bony parts of her noggin before, but never busted soft tissue open to cause blood to issue forth. she smacked her face good on the floor, and since she's quite toothy now, split her bottom lip open and out gushed the blood. she recovered quickly enough to manage to "incubate" a pumpkin (her new move in honor of the coming of autumn) as well as to strike a pose to point out her new wound.

the assembling of the spring roll: as modeled here by amalea...

   first you must soak the rice paper

 then fill,  then roll, and last hold the roll up in celebration

 (and admire the thing from afar by definitely NOT eating it - according to amalea).

camels, and ponies, and pigs, oh my!

the fall rite of passage - a trip to goebbert's pumpkin patch.

we must reflect on a few prior events first. 

to set the mood, it was "ditch" dark last evening according to amalea. amalea fooled mom, a true dupe. the two were eating a snack which included pepperoni (note, none were consumed by amalea). amalea pointed off to the distance quickly and exclaimed, "look! a green pepperoni!" mom fell for it and jerked her head to follow amalea's lead. mom had to ask "were you tricking me?" then the giggling began! so it was blue, yellow, and all other colors of pepperoni all over the place for a good hour later. hey, if you've got something good, just keep working it!

this morning amalea made her bed all by herself. we commended her on her accomplishment. she said it had a big lump in it though. when asked why she did this, she just said that "i didn't want you (mom) to make it", why, "i don't know."

also this morning isabel performed some of her eating on the edge stunts...

now for the pumpkin patch. we saw pigs race. amalea asked, "why do they make pigs race?" good question. amalea raced over to the pumpkin eating dinosaur everytime it's mealtimes arrived (until it squished amalea's arm against the fence - don't worry, just a tiny cut and slivers). isabel said "no" when asked if she wanted to get near it. but she did cheer it on with delight and clapped for it whenever it crushed and then chomped on a pumpkin. feeding the piglets corn was highly adorable. there was a lot of squealing, mostly from isabel. amalea demanded to ride on the camel. and both girls rode on the ponies.  

one week later...

many feats are accomplished in the matter of one week.

isabel learned how to say "no". and the next day she learned how to say "yes". she highly prefers "no" though. here's a sample of one her "no" conversations: will you share your milk with amalea? "no". will you share your milk with mommy? "no". will you share your milk with daddy? "no". will you share your milk with goliath? "no". (all of isabel's responses are intermingled with big swigs of her milk)

the other night, when we were listening to "boom-boom" (bed, bed, bed by they might be giants) and isabel was supposed to be getting drowsy and ready for bed, she decided to discover finger and toe nails instead. she thought it was hilarious that the ends of her and mom's fingers and toes were covered by these clear, hard, shell-like things. isabel giggled as she went over both those on fingers and toes of both parties involved.

isabel now alerts you to the fact that she has wet her diaper by saying "bee-bee" (that's her clean version of the "p" word) and points to the diaper region. isabel will go pee-pee in the potty once or twice a day. once this week she said "bee-bee", was asked if she had to go pee-pee on the potty, and she shook her head yes in response and zoomed off to the potty. isabel sat and promptly went both pee-pee and poo-poo. utterly amazing!

isabel likes "dum-dees" (red dye 40, high fructose corn syrup, hyrdogenated oil laden gummies - really dumdees, as she has stated). she does NOT like the organic fake gummies that daddy bought.

amalea and isabel just walked by, hand-in-hand, isabel in tow, with amalea asking "do you want to come with me?" "no".

everything that refers to a near future event is referred to as "the next day" for amalea. for example: "what do we do the next day?" or "we get to go see the pumpkin eating dinosaur the next day." (you'll hear all about that adventure soon)

amalea and isabel both like to swim like mermaids in the tub (photo above of amalea's luxurious hair, and isabel's fuzzy floaties). amalea is a lot more cautious as she approaches the water. isabel nearly floods herself just sliding in and under almost every time. it comes with the 4 years of practice! 

this is our first post

hey... it's jason and monica, we're finally - yes finally - entering the world of blogging.  .mac was way too expensive, hope you enjoy. this is a picture of the family, just before isabel's first christmas. december 2007.