Double Happiness

New Decade, New Haircut...

I've worn my hair long for the last 18 years but as I inch closer to the big Five-Oh, I'm conscious of the fact that I can't pull off this girlish style forever.  Especially since I usually wear my long hair in a scraggly ponytail to keep it out of the way.  Really, that's not my most attractive look even though it's slowly evolved into my most common look.

I visited my favorite beauty shop for a little trim and some "me" time after a very busy holiday and surprised my beautician, Kathy, by pointing at a picture of a woman sporting a VERY short hairdo and saying "I want that!"  Luckily, she knew me well enough to not cut it that short!  Even so, it's pretty short -- about 1 inch in the back and 8 inches in the front.  And I'm not totally sure but I think I love it!

I took the kids to Kids Park while all this cutting and snipping was going on and when I returned to pick them up, Gwenny pointed at me and playfully screamed "You're not my Mommy!" then she smiled big and ran to hug me.  Pulling away to get a better look, she said I look "like a lady" (???).  Maddy saw my new hairstyle and quickly announced that she wanted her hair cut too.  So back we went to see Kathy! 

Maddy held really still while handfuls of her shiny dark brown hair fell to the floor and I looked at my baby sitting there and marveled at how much she'd changed since we met her a bit over three years ago.    Her hair was short then too but it framed a baby's face and now she's so different!  So much older!   She's a beautiful little girl now!  I really think I like her new hairstyle even more than mine!  

PS:  I clumsily edited the photo above using my new Photoshop CS4 program.   I even added the frame (woo hoo!).  Phew!  I'm pretty excited about Photoshop after years and years and years as a loyal PaintShop Pro user.   The transition is challenging but not as difficult as I feared.  Now I feel like I own a Lamborghini and I've figured out how to get it out of Park and into First and forced it to take me around the block (with the transmission screaming and begging me to shift)! My goal in 2010 is to learn to get it up to 4th gear and cruise at 110 MPH!

Hee hee... The faces of disappointment (but still a wonderful Christmas!)

The girls had some pretty specific requests for Santa and I knew they'd probably not immediately appreciate his particular slant on what they got but their reaction was priceless! 

I guided them (with their eyes squeezed tightly shut) into the family room where they stood quivering with anticipation right in front of Santa's unwrapped offering.  Then I told them they could open their eyes and this was the photo we snapped at that very instant:

I still laugh when I look at that picture!

Gwen was expecting a Star Wars light saber but the one we wanted to get her didn't work with Wii Motion Plus so we had to get the Nerf one instead.  Maddy was expecting a race car game and there was NOTHING in front of her on Christmas morning that looked even remotely like a car of any nomenclature -- race, game, or otherwise. 

They had no idea what any of this stuff was so they stood there and stared at it and tried to readjust their expectations but the disappointment and puzzlement was impossible to hide.

We would have felt really bad about the whole thing were it not for the fact that all of their Santa presents were picked out specifically to go with the new Wii we'd just purchased.  The girls didn't know what a Wii was but they do now and it's a BIG hit!

If you know Gwen, you know she's digging the Fencing competition on the Wii Resort game.  Here she is laying down some serious hurt on her virtual opponent.  You gotta appreciate that final blow...

There was a firetruck from Santa too.  This has been an annual request for the last three years.  Finally Santa got a Tonka truck so maybe this one will last a bit longer?  So far, so good (it's not broken!).

Santa also got them these totally awesome capes!

I think he must have seen them on M3's blog.  The girls put them on before breakfast and enjoyed incredible super powers all day long.

Michael got some presents too. Here he is with a much anticipated new toy...

And Mum (Nana) got a pretty necklace...

Hee hee.... Uncle Chris and Aunt Kate got a Gravy Fountain...

Cousin Paige got to examine the Christmas Tree close up...

Daddy got several new shirts and a tire pressure monitoring system and a camera strap and some other cool stuff and I got a Wii Fit and a knit hat and some ear-rings and socks and a pretty shirt.  But my favorite presents this year were these two very special cat statues that were actually purchased separately by Andrew and Michael after last month's trip to the King Tut exhibit. 

They noticed that I admired this in the gift shop so they (independently) went to great trouble to get me one.... and I ended up with two!  I LOVE that they're different while still being the same and because of all that special effort, I think they're my most favorite presents of all time!  Plus, they're incredibly beautiful! 

Treasures, forever!

Of course, my best "gift" is the health and happiness of my family.  It's not perfect but we're so grateful for what we do have.  Your favorite present this year?

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!   

Just for fun, I thought I'd dig into the archives and post some of our historical Christmas Portraits.  It's fun to see how much the girls have changed from year to year!

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

Old Friends, Bacon & Ice Skating

So, here you have it!  Another multi-topic post quickly but lovingly globbed together like one of Gwen's psychedelic Play-Doh sushi rolls.

One of Andrew's college friends came to visit last weekend and brought his 5 year old son, Alec.  The Daddies get together pretty often but the mommies and kids almost never do so this was a special treat. 

After a ridiculously hearty breakfast buffet, we headed to the parking lot where the kids posed briefly for a photo before piling into nearly identical gray Honda Accord mini-vans and heading downtown to the ice rink.

It's been 11 months since we last stood on our wobbly ice skates but we've been roller-skating all year long so the girls were cool with swapping wheels for blades and concrete for ice. Gwen was a speed demon! Judging from this video, she probably doesn't have much of a future in figure skating but I bet she'd kick some serious butt in ice hockey (think Sharks Scott Nichol!)

The video isn't particularly exciting since it's just me chasing my daughter around the ice rink while trying to remain upright and not turn my S90 camera (in video mode) into a really expensive hockey puck.  I'm playing around the iMovie on my new iMac and it's really impressive but I'll be darned if I can figure out how to do anything useful with it yet.  I'm watching tutorials and I think I'll practice on Maddy's Gotcha video since I've never put a video together for her and she's starting to notice that Gwenny has one but she doesn't.  I'm uploading the video from my old Sony Camcorder (that we never used again after Maddy's 2006 adoption) and I have to upload it on my old PC then convert it from AVI to something more Mac friendly then transfer it to the Mac.  Yup, it's tedious.  Anyway, it was fun to the footage of our first minutes together.  I can't believe how little she was!  If I ever get it finished, I'll share it! 

Christmas trees, etc...

We've been busy and there's no chance that I can chunk any of what we've been doing into neat little blog posts so I have to toss it all together like a peanut butter and pickle sandwich except that our sandwich happens to also be smothered in ketchup (or "ktchepy", as Gwenny so adoringly refers to it).

The day after Thanksgiving, just a few hours before Tiger Woods hit a tree (and a bunch of ladies fell out of it), we were digging around in the attic for our Christmas stuff.  Gwen and Maddy decorated our tree almost entirely by themselves but most of the ornaments were in the lower 1/3 so we moved a few of them up.  We only found one Santa hat and Maddy wore it for a while before Gwen insisted on her turn.  If I could read the mind of the cat, I'm pretty sure I'd hear requests for more salmon skin and multiple pleas that she might be spared the humiliation of being forced to wear that hat herself.  Sorry Kitty, looks like tonight isn't your lucky night.

We went to the mall over the weekend and saw these cool animal rides.  I used our Canon S90 to take a few videos.  These things are pretty fun and we found out that we can rent a dozen of them (and a "Zoo Keeper") and have them at our house for a birthday party!   Wow!  We're up for that!  That's going to be incredibly fun and I can hardly wait until next summer!

What you can't tell from this charming video is all of the insanity that descended upon me when I tried to convert the camera's .mov video file to something readable by my PC's default video editing software.  Aaaaarrrrggghhh!!!!

I must have spent several hours searching for free software and trying to convert the files and I have a fuzzy memory of stomping into the family room like a felon on PCP with my eyes bulging and screaming a bunch of gibberish about Canon cameras and JFK assassination conspiracies and probably a bunch of other stuff.  It was so bad that Andrew took the kids for a drive to give Mommy some alone time.  Then he returned with this:

Yes, that's an iMac box so Mommy has officially moved to The Dark Side.  Owning a Mac is pretty cool but when I sit in front of it, I can't help but feel as though I'm wearing a Wonder Bra.  Sure, everything looks better (much better!) but I'm insanely uncomfortable!   

The jury is still out but I have to admit that I like the perky youthful look even if I'm squirming in my Aeron.