New Year's Eve

The highlight of our New Year's Eve was Grandma coming to visit. Yea!! It was way too long since we saw each other last.

Vivian immediately engaged her in a long-lasting game of "Where is Vivian?"

I also got some on video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDn0MGgrrag


Later we got out the cool stamps from Mommy Janel:



My New Year's kiss came more like around 7pm instead of midnight, but I did get one.

Sweet Caroline

Phil has been working on Sweet Caroline with Pip and and sometimes Vivian for a few weeks now. Here I asked Pip to sing it to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjoNE7gdkbA

Be patient and you'll be rewarded by Vivie's "oh, oh, oh" at the end. Priceless.

Cheeseburgers in Paradise

Vivian HATES the sun in her eyes. Or any glar at all in her eyes. Countless times a perfectly happy scene is interrupted by wails form her direction "Sunny!!! My eyes, my eyes!!!" Up until this point sunglasses were lost on her; she'd throw them off, double annoyed.

We had to stop at CVS this day for pull-ups (very bad night before, Pip up twice with a wet bed b/c we had run out!) and Pip spotted sunglasses. Inspired by his interest, Vivie asked for a pair herself. This time she actually got the point and LOVED them.

She now enjoys wearing them whenever possible. Her she is eating a BK cheeseburger in her own little paradise.





Not to be outdone, Pip looked so cool in his glasses that Daddy asked (and was granted) for an autograph.

Thumbs Up

This year we held an impressive Mac N' Cheese Throwdown the Saturday after Christmas at the Balas residence. There were 4 entries: Matt, Jen, Phil, and Big Phil. Each submitted a glorious version for judging. We had ten judges, plus some very happy kids who sampled happily.






The winning entry was Phil's ... which was felt to be the creamiest, cheesiest, most authentic of the bunch.

Vivie's Sink

We nearly asked the Thanksgiving Turkey to bring this gift for Vivie when we saw it in the catalog. Her own sink!!! This is just what the doctor ordered. (I usually have to navigate the kitchen with her grabbing on my leg, begging and pleading to be lifted up to the sink. This girl better love washing my dishes one day.)

Thankfully, Santa picked up where the turkey dropped the ball and brought it for her.

They were actually content to use it as a car for a while during assembly, but the real thing was even more fun!

Pennsylvania Railroad Museum

The day after Christmas, Pip, Grammie, Vivie, and I went to Strasburg, PA to the Railroad Museum. It was great fun. They had a whole building set up with complete displays of every train set you can imagine. Pip was in heaven.


Even Vivie got in on the action and attempted to make a Kinex train with me, bust mostly she enjoyed having Grammie read her books.


Finally we decided to check out the real trains. They had essentially a hanger full of parked trains. Some you could even climb aboard and walk through. At first this seemed scary -- because what if the train pulled out fo the station!!! Pip got over this quickly and had fun running up and down the platform, in and out of trains yelling "All Aboard!!!" and "Have a good trip! Bye bye!!". Vivian was happy to wave bonvoyage to her traveling brother, but no way you were getting her on those things thank-you very much. She was content to have me hold her strictly on the platform.

Christmas Day

Actually, this pic of from Christmas Eve. Vivie woke from her nap very upset but we persevered, intent on making it to church for Christmas Eve service. I don't think we were feeling confident in the least. Once I got her into her cute dress, she perked up and stopped crying. After that it was smooth sailing. We had fun admiring the Christmas lights on the way to and from church. Pip was in awe of the singing and processionals during the service. And Vivian had fun smiling -- and even kissing -- the people around her. By the end they were ultra-squirmy, but it was an overall success.


The next morning we were all relieved to find that Santa deemed us all good little boys and girls. Very good, if you were to gauge by the toys. Pip handed out gifts and was thrilled to find several dragons ... and even a very cool dragon puppet waiting for him. Vivian loved the dolls she got the most, I think.


When the dust settled I commented that Santa must have forgotten Pip's pirate boat (which was all he asked for over and over again for the last month). Pip sighed smiling, and said "Well, I have enough!". Too cute. I suggested maybe he pull back the sheet (which he completely missed) .... wow! What a pirate boat!


Even Aunt Jenny knew the pirate ropes and played along with Pip. So cool!!


(Thank goodness Santa assembled this before-hand. Or, Santa's helper ... who spent a very long time the night before. :)

Christmas Miracle

We got to visit with George, Jen, Al, Rhiannon, and Ever this Christmas. Phil disappeared with Al for a two-day long game of Monopoly which I hear took many twists and turns before Phil finally landed one too many times on Al's Boardwalk and went bankrupt. Meanwhile, there was lots of running, yelling and playing amongst the littler ones. There was a brief slow in activity when the train was spied under the tree.



I figured I might as well go for a Christmas Miracle and try to get all four of them to hold hands and smile. Close ... so close but no cigar!!

Snow Man and Christmas Trees

Grammie Balas had a few tricks up her sleeves this visit. First up was a fun craft project to make Christmas Trees. Very nice turnout! (Pip's is on top, Vivie's is below):



Later we took advantage of the Christmas Eve snow to make a snow man outside. Complete with stick arms, stone eyes and mouth, and a carrot nose.

Cookie Decorating

I think it was our 4th annual cookie decorating party this year. We invited friends from all over and despite a pretty hefty snow storm (our street was still not plowed at party time and there was about 10 inches of snow) most everyone showed up. Making cookies this year were: Annika, Morgan & Allison, Natan, and Drew from Pip's school; Jameson V. from mom's group;Liam & Jack of rugby lore; Tasha & Rob; Chase and the Currans; and Molly and the Yi's. Pip and I had made 3 batches of sugar cookies and one batch of gingerbread ahead of time (Pip is very good at putting stuff in the mixer and turning it on ... I am better at the rolling and cutting and baking parts).

Everyone made cookies and had a blast. Pip and his friends also did a lot of jumping and running -- but that is a requisite at all parties, isn't it?

Here Joe shows off his candy came while Jack eats a cookie and Nicole is hard at work:


Me and Vivian were supposed to be working on our cookies, but she was more interested in reading books. She kept bringing book after book over to the table!


Natan was great at cookie decorating ... employing the special light for precision work.


Pip and one of his many cookies.

Pip and Jameson scaling the mountain:

Wallet swiper

Vivian loves to play with my wallet. This is very dangerous for obvious reasons, but sometimes I relent simply because I need to get stuff done. This time, she found it herself without me knowing. Whenever it is too quiet, you know you are in for it.



Later, I found a ten dollar bill crumpled in the trash.

Here's video of me sneaking up on her ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIqJbxQBh2w

Competitive Spirit

Turns out Pip inherited the Bresler Competitor Gene. We've started playing cards ... first of all, can you believe that!!! It's amazing. Lately the game of choice is a modified Crazy 8's. Pip likes to start out with a nice "I'm gonna win you!" to taunt me. Yesterday I let him beat me twice in a row and then I was really trying the third game but he still beat me. Vivian wanted more in on the action than was possible (she prefers to fold the cards in half and smush the discards into the draw pile, generally wreaking havoc on the game) so we put the game away.

Today he asked if I'd play and began taunting me again (he since learned proper grammar: "I'm gonna beat you Mommy!") but this time I wasn't playing the fool anymore. I returned a few light taunts which he did not take seriously. Unwise, grasshopper.

It was a tight match; he was nearly about to beat me but he couldn't play his final card and had to draw a bunch. That was all I needed to squeak in a victory. Then my Bresler Gene kicked in and I did a little victory dance. Poor Pip burst into tears. "But I wanted to win Mommy! You can't beat me! I wanted to win!!"

Poor sweet pea. Phil tried to be the voice of reason (and I stopped my victory dance to offer sincere condolences and talk about how wasn't it nice just to play together??) Pip was not soothed at all by our efforts and sulked away in defeat.

I don't think parents are supposed to let their kids win all the time anyway, so perhaps this will be good parenting in the long run, but I do think next time I'll skip the victory dance.

Pip the Spelunking Bard reads to Vivian

The necklace, worn as so, indicates he is a Bard. The rest speaks for itself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_9o0_ab8c4

Ella's Birthday

We got a decent dusting of snow mid-December. Seemed to line up just right with Ella's third birthday party. We were excited to go and catch up with the Hoffenberg's and their two new twins (in addition to Ella, of course!). Pip was very excited to see Liam as well.

Here are the two Musketeers in action.


Later they got Ella to join them as they attacked Brillo, who was too tired to bother fighting.


There were several other sweet little kids in attendance, too ... but here are the real party animals who lasted the longest and thus got a cute photo to commemorate their festivities.

Quotes

Pip and Viv have been full of precious quotes lately. Some of Pip's:

"Mommy, the snow is lonely outside" -- attempting to convince me we should go outside and play in the snow

"Mommy, I was quiet as a goldfish" -- boasting about how quietly he woke as he crawled into bed with me one morning

Vivian's quotes aren't quite so complicated. She basically just acts completely amazed, astonished, impressed at even the slightest thing. She'll drop a pea on the floor and it's : "UH-OOOOHHHH!" with these guge wide eyes and big smile. She'll open a flap in one of her books and be surprised ... "Whoaaa!" I can't really translate it here, but maybe we'll happen upon it on video.

Mom's Group Christmas Party

We had a smashing Mom's Group Christmas party this year. Even Phil and some of the other Dad's showed up for the festivities.