Back to normal life - almost.

I can't believe the holidays are over already - M. is back at school again on Monday. The girls are already asking "When is summer? When is my birthday? Is winter over yet?" - they are driving me wild. THREE MORE MONTHS, at least, so get used to it!!! As far as they are concerned, after Christmas, summer is 'next' on the agenda of things to look forward to.

I have a bunch of things I want to scrap - lots of Christmas pictures need to get done because something tells me I won't feel like looking at Christmas papers and decorations for much longer. I guess I'm already waiting for summer, too. I'd kind of like to crawl into that LO of my nephew blowing bubbles at the lake this summer. *sigh*

I also did one of my dad and the baby at our family Christmas party. I wanted to see if I could make a sepia-toned picture on my own - that's my best effort. I had Laura Berger's "Shenanigans" kit to scrap for DSS - so much in that one it was hard to decide what to use. I like how it turned out, though. Full credits for both LO's are in my DST gallery.

Christmas Hits

Well, the girls have had over a week to sort through their loot and decide what they love the most. C's clear choice is "Bella Dancerella" which is driving me insane, but she loves it. She shows up in the livingroom in her pink tights, ballet slippers and tutu, and the show goes on for hours. She takes it very seriously and will not be disturbed when she's dancing. As an added bonus, the girls got "12 Dancing Princesses" movie for Christmas, and she dances to that, too.

M. loves her Jungle cat - which is this mechanical cat that purrs and growls and drinks from a bottle and (thankfully) goes to sleep. The Bilibos went outside and played in the snow the other day - they're finding all kinds of uses for them. There is also a Barbie house with 123456789 little pieces included, and a whole set of new Disney princess dolls and new Barbies who like to hang out in the house and spread all of those pieces from one end of the livingroom to the other.

We have some new games - Cranium Hullabaloo, which is great and really gets the kids moving, and Disney DVD Bingo which is also great game for us to play together. I love those two games because I don't have to constantly intervene to enforce the rules/prevent cheating/explain the concept of being a good sport, and its okay to lose, etc. But, then - there is Disney Princess Monopoly which is a whole other thing. Its very good - the girls understandd exactly how to play and its more interesting than the rest of their simple board games that they're getting tired of. HOWEVER, its also enough like real monopoly that DH was able to ignore the fact that he had to be Pocahontas and quickly got into it and had castles all over the place. M. had the worst luck I've ever seen - kept landing on his castles and spaces where she had to give money and she never got around the board even once. She only had one castle, and nobody ever landed on it. She started crying when DH won the jackpot on the loose change space (cause most of the money in it was hers and we'd been telling her if she hit that space she could win it back) - then C. didn't like that M. was crying and in true form, tried to give M. some of her money and then kept taking off to the livingroom or hiding under the table because she didn't want to be a part of anything that was making her sister cry.

DH was incredibly disappointed because he had 3 groups of castles at this time and was looking forward to bleeding us all dry. He loves Monopoly. LOVES it. Even with princesses and pink and purple castles - its still Monopoly and he was winning.

So, I had to call the whole thing off since nobody but DH was having fun. We packed it away, and M. collapsed to the floor in tears and howls. The baby came out of the livingroom to investigate and found her sister in a heap between the kitchen and livingroom, sobbing her heart out. You could tell she *wanted* to go back and watch Baby Mozart, but there was something wrong with M., and she couldn't just leave her there like that. She kept trying to move M's hands to see her face, and when that didn't work, she'd walk away a few steps. Then, came pack and patted her gently on the back. That didn't help - Oh, well, back to baby Mozart (huge racking sobs from M.) - Ok, maybe not - and she came and sat against M's belly and leaned back against her, tilting her head to see her face. So sweet, I almost cried. She also kept leaning around the corner to see if she could catch a glimpse of the tv - she was trying to be a good sister but she really just wanted to get back to her show.

C, also in a great demonstration of solidarity, announced that she doesn't like princesses anymore. After 2 1/2 years of near obsession and every princess costume/game/movie on the market, a homemade quilt and a full collection of princess dolls - she's done. She wouldn't even wear princess pjyamas to bed and said we could give away all that stuff.

Two days later, the girls actually asked to play Monopoly again - they're did a lot better with it the second time around. DH acted like a carnie the whole time in the hopes that he could make it fun and interesting enough that they'd stick around to finish the game. That seemed to work, and M. had a lot better luck so she didn't freak out. C. is even playing with her princesses again, things are back to normal.