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.