Christmas Carols, Aleaha Style

She's fascinated by all the songs of the season. Children's songs, "songs about the baby Jesus," and silly songs, like the dogs who bark out Jingle Bells. Par for her age, she likes to hear the same song over and over again, and she must practice singing it Just So. If interrupted, she starts all over again, at the beginning. (A bit of a bore, honestly, when it's the twelfth round of The Twelve Days of Christmas. ) But I indulge her, figuring that she wants to get it right.

Then tonight, I hear this:

"Deeeeeeeck the halls with Christmas Stuuuuuuuuuuffff, fa la la la la, la la la la."

Christmas Prep

Mommy has a few outfits for the girls to wear. It's nearly impossible to get good photos of them, but we try anyway. (And the red-eye fix in Picasa would not work on these, for some reason. So our kids look possessed.)


These are their green vests, which match the ones for their cousins for Christmas. Can't wait to see all the kids together!

Daddy put up house lights this year, for the first time since the 2006 tree-falling-on-our-house incident. Let's hope that doesn't happen again this year! (Notice how particular he is about the exact placement of each bulb....the house looks AMAZING because of this attention to detail.)

Aleaha got in a funk, and Mommy just had to take a picture. Didn't help her mood, you can be sure! But she knows that Santa is watching, so no pouting!

Aleaha has made a few gingerbread houses. These two (which are acutally made of brown sugar) are gifts for Arby and Jake. It's a good thing we snapped the photo when we did, because the next day, the little houses had completely fallen apart. The gel-goo holding them together didn't meet code, apparently. But we're sure the horses will love them just the same.