"Mewy Kissmas!"

From the Vaughans and the Longs, best wishes for a very Merry Christmas/ Hannukah/ Kwanzaa/ Festivus! You know it's been a good Christmas when you've managed to stay in your pajamas all day long.



On Christmas Eve Jen and Micah joined us and we had another couple over for dinner. There were supposed to be 9 adults total, but at the last minute three had to drop out due to pink eye. You've got to have a wide social circle with kids because any time you try to plan something, folks inevitably have to bow out sick.

Anyway, it was a lovely evening. We had an Italian feast, with Jen's famous tomato bread (sounds healthy but is deliciously naughty!), penne pasta with spicy sausage tomato sauce, a lovely garden salad wtih homemade dressing, and my first ever tiramisu from scratch. We had white Russians, red wine, apple cider, gluwein (German spiced wine), and champagne. It was oh so festive. Roan wore one of her Christmas dresses and her Santa bow in her hair. Adam and Elisa, our dinner guests, are expecting a baby any day now (due Jan. 6th) and they already seem to have the magic touch when it comes to kids. Roan thoroughly enjoyed having them as an audience, er, I mean, reading them every book in her library, showing them how high she can jump, etc. We finished off the evening with a girls vs. boys game of Cranium.



Jen and Micah stayed over last night so we could open presents together first thing this morning. We had not played up the anticpation of Christmas morning to Roan beforehand, because honestly it's been tough enough lately getting her down to bed without her wanting to stay up for Santa. So this morning she was a little surprised to learn that Santa had been here and that we could finally open the enormous pile of presents that has been under our tree for weeks.

She started out opening presents with incredible enthusiasm, but before long became overwhelmed by the huge volume. And, slave drivers that we are, we felt compelled to encourage her to tear into present after present just to keep the festivities from dragging on all day. As it was it took us almost till noon to get everthing unwrapped!

We shot lots of video of the morning on our camcorder. We rarely break it out because our little digital camera is so covenient, but special occasions like today seem to warrant it. I just want to say a big thank you to all our loved ones out there who sent packages. Not a single gift went unappreciated, I can promise you. It had been quite a long while since we had updated her stash of toys. Most of them were from around her first birthday or earlier. Even her books were starting to get stale. So now she is sitting pretty. She got a new baby doll, a doctor kit, a t-ball set, some clothes and blankets for her babies, art supplies, some adorable clothes, lots and lots of terrific books - some even with audio CDs - just all kinds of terrific things.

She was literally worn out with excitement. Each single item so elated her, that the combination of them all was overwhelming. It was almost impossible to get her down for a nap. We heard her talking to herself and playing with toys over the baby monitor for quite a while. And then when we went in to get her up from her nap we laughed at how she had piled up virtually every new posession into her bed with her - even her new socks and training pants. It's a wonder she could sleep in there at all; there was no room for her.

She's been going through this "my" phase lately, feeling compelled to claim everything in her vicinity as her own. My mommy, my daddy, my Jen, my Sasha... you get the picture. With all of these new worldly posessions today it's a wonder she hasn't sprained anything claiming them all.

Santa wasn't just good to Roan. He also brought us grownups some fun things. Micah got a compressor, Arwen got a wii, Jen got a new coat, and I got everything on my list. We have spent most of the afternoon and evening playing games on the wii. It's really a blast. I'm not a video game person at all because I don't really like sitting in one spot for long. But with the wii, a lot of the games are physical. In boxing you actually punch. In tennis you swing the racket. In golf you swing your club. It's a hoot. I figured it would be something fun Arwen and I could do together this winter when it's too cold to go outside. And it's great for parties too. Oh and by the way, I kick @ss at boxing!!!

One other thing I thought I'd post photos of is the wardrobe I sewed over the past couple of weeks for Roan's doll Baby Marty. She loves this little cabbage patch kid, but the clothes it came with just do not stay on. I can't have folks scratching their heads any longer about why my kid is toting around a naked dolly! Since you can't really buy clothes for this doll line I thought I'd use some of the fabric scraps I had lying around. I had a lot of fun doing this. Probably too much fun. It was hard to make myself stop.

You can see the rest of what I made here here.

Marty got a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, two pairs of panties, two dresses, a bonnet, a hairband for her bald head, a bib, a backpack with a dolly sized book and teddy bear, and a blanket to match one I made for Roan. Normally I despise sewing and view it only as an unfortunate means to a necessary end, but this time it was a blast. Partly it was the mental exercise of figuring out the construction without patterns, and partly it was imagining Roan's excitement. It was a lot of work and there was no telling whether she'd like any of it at all. But I got the biggest thrill when I asked her if she liked it and she said, "I love it!" Aww, that's my girl!

Anyway, Merry Christmas to all our dear ones, near and far.