Please see the attached for some recent pics of our little ladies. We had a wonderful Christmas with them - each year gets more and more fun with all the Santa magic. Megan has been totally into it the last couple of years - now she is just getting harder to trick. Hannah absorbed a whole lot this year as well - any person with a white beard was automatically labeled "Santa" and followed by a jolly "ho ho ho". She's got the belly to pull off quite the realistic impression, too.
We kept very busy with pre-holiday activities - a trip to the GR zoo for Christmas with the Animals (we also find they have the best Santa in town - the ones in the mall have turned into real scheisters these days), Megan's preschool Christmas program, a whole lot o' baking (Megan and I made 12 batches of cookies for 5 families in our neighborhood for our very own "12 Days of Cookies" - we delivered one cookie per family member each night for 12 nights, solidifying our Favorite Neighbor of 2011 award), and a visit to Frederick Meijer Gardens to see the Christmas trees from around the world. All these activities were made that much merrier by the fact that we've had no significant snowfall in our neck of the woods yet this winter - YAY!
On Christmas morning, each girl had a couple of gifts in front of the fireplace to open from Santa, and taped behind their stockings was a letter from the big guy himself indicating that he'd left quite a big surprise for them in their playroom downstairs. Daddy went down first in order to "check it out" (a/k/a set up the video camera) and captured some priceless footage of two shocked little girls when they saw a massive dollhouse in the middle of the room. That was their big (literally) gift this year - on Christmas morning they were down there for 20 minutes on their own playing contentedly while I enjoyed breakfast of non-soggy cereal. In my opinion, the thing paid for itself right there. Another highlight of the letter - Megan had decided that in addition to leaving out cookies and milk for Santa, we should also provide a healthy option. She chose broccoli - I could go on and on about what a hypocrite this makes her, but that is neither here nor there. Anywho, Santa's letter included a thank you for the milk and cookies, and also a note that he doesn't really like broccoli, but ate it all up because he knows it's good for him. She cannot seem to get this part out of her head. We have discussed it every day since Christmas - "remember how Santa didn't like our broccoli?"..."does Santa gets snacks after dinner if he doesn't eat his broccoli?"... etc, etc. The girl cracks us up.
The whole family suffered a round of the stomach flu between Christmas and New Years, which made for a very low-key week at home. As I happen to suck at being low-key, I was the only person in my office this morning who was enthusiastic about being there. I am sure we will look back on our downtime one day and appreciate it for what it was, but today is not that day. For their part, I believe the kids were both awfully excited to get dropped off at school this morning, too.
In other non-holiday updates, we remain convinced (and totally unbiased) that both of our little beauties are extremely talented geniuses. Megan is so, so, sooooo close to reading on her own. She is doing 3-4 pages at night of her stories where she insists on sounding out every word and putting the sentences together before she gets frustrated with our slow pace and lets me take over. Books with words that repeat over and over she can do all the way through - she is quick to pick up on these "sight words", as they call them in preschool. It's very exciting to see this process unfold. She is starting dance class (a ballet/tap combo this time) this Saturday, which will last until the recital at the beginning of June. She is very excited to be back at it and is especially thrilled about her "clicky shoes" - I'm assuming her instructor will correct the tap lingo, for now I just think it's cute. She is very into the movie "Matilda" (based on the book by Roald Dahl) and we actually picked up the chapter book at the library last weekend - she is tolerating a chapter a night of her first non-picture book very well.
Hannah is stringing together 3-4 words at a time kind of suddenly. Tonight was "Lacey bad girl bark" for instance, which was a well articulated summary of the situation. She's in rapid vocab expansion mode and is also extremely musical. She doesn't know all the words to her song, but girlfriend can keep a beat - it's generally pretty easy to tell what she's singing based on her rhythm. Pattycake and Frosty the Snowman are quite popular at the moment. At 20 months, we haven't wanted to move her to her big girl bed yet, but will likely get to work on that shortly here. She's also developing a pretty strong preference for immediate diaper changes after she's gone potty - this weekend she would come find me with a diaper in her hand when she wanted to be changed. This probably means potty training is just around the corner for us, but I think I'm less eager about that process than I am about the thought of giving her the freedom to roam in a big girl bed. We'll keep this stuff as close to her second birthday as possible, if she'll allow it.
Hope you all had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
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