Twas the Day Before Christmas

Henry and I hope that your Christmas was as merry as ours was! Today we'll talk about Christmas Eve. As we prepared for everyone to arrive (Uncle Ryan and Adrienne got there the night before), Henry and I constructed this year's gingerbread house.


Unfortunately, Henry had to keep being reminded that he wasn't allowed to taste the gingerbread house!



Before it was time for church, we changed into our adorable Christmas Eve outfits. Don't we look fancy?



And what do you think of my high heels?



As you probably noticed above, Henry is going through a phrase where he squints as he says "Cheese!" when it's time to take pictures. Fortunately, Dad got a bunch of cute photos where his eyes stayed open.





What a handsome brother I have! That night, we had a yummy Christmas Eve Ukrainian dinner, then it was time to go to sleep in hopes that Santa would visit that night. Did he? Stay tuned...

We wish you a Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from me and Henry!


For a little Christmas entertainment, here's a video Mom took of me dancing during the intermission at The Nutcracker when she and I went a few weeks back. As you can see, I really loved it!



One day it will be me on that stage!

Hope your Christmas was a very merry one!

Meeting Mykolaj

Happy Christmas Eve! Santa is coming tonight, but Julia and I already got a visit from St. Nicholas, or Sv. Mykolaj as he's known if you are Ukrainian.

The other week, we all went to the Ukrainian American Cultural Center, where the kids all put on skits about the story of Mykolaj and sang songs. Then Mykolaj arrived and gave out presents to all the kids there. Like me!


What could it be?


Why, it's a fancy ramp for my Matchbox cars with an elevator, a car wash and all sorts of other fun stuff!

Then it was Julia's turn to get her gift from Mykolaj.


What could it be?


Look, it's the special prince and princess puppets Julia had been eying! How did he know?


Our friends Alec and Isabella were there to get their gifts from Mykolaj as well!



And here's a quick video showing one of the skits, and Mykolaj's entrance.



Very nice to meet you, Mykolaj!

Wedding redux

It's hard to believe that it's almost been two months since Diana and Eric's amazing wedding. We posted lots of great pictures and videos from that blessed event already, but Diana passed along some spectacular photos from the wedding photographer, and we of course wanted to share those as well.

Rehearsal dinner:


Wedding day, at the church before the ceremony:








Wedding ceremony:





Official wedding photos:


Reception:







Thanks for sharing these, Diana! What a wonderful wedding.

Santa boogie

Look what Henry and I discovered the night that we watched the lighting of our town's Christmas tree: a dancing Santa!

Firefighters

People always ask how Julia and I get along. And the truth is, 90 percent of the time we get along incredibly well, like this:



Yes, there are times where Julia won't leave me alone, regardless of how many times Mom, Dad or I tell her to stop, but other than that, I couldn't be happier to have Julia for my big sister.


I love you, Julia!

Potty preparations

Notice anything different about this picture? I'm wearing underwear! After talking for months about how I was going to be using the potty, last week Mom and Dad finally took off my diaper, let me pick out some big boy underwear to put on (I've got Cars, Thomas and Toy Story to choose from), gave me all the apple juice I could drink and watched what happened. Unfortunately, the results weren't very good: I wet myself three separate times, and also went poopie once. (The worst part of it was that I wasn't really aware that I had done those things.) I did go pee-pee on the potty once, but that was after sitting there for about 30 minutes.

I cried each time I had an accident, mostly because I was worried that my underwear would be ruined forever. After that, it was back to diapers, but we're going to try again after the holidays. Oh well.

Storybook ending

Henry and I loved visting Santa so much that we wanted to see him again. And we got to do just that at a place called Storybook Land. It's a cute family theme park near Atlantic City that is inspired by various nursery rhymes and fairy tales. During the holiday season, it's all decked out for Christmas. First off, we spent more time with Santa. After that, we all went on the kiddie coaster. "It was a little scary," as Henry said. But Mom screamed louder than any of us! Then we said hi to some snowmen.



I masqueraded as one of Snow White's seven dwarfs...


As well as the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland.


I also found out what happens when you don't listen to your parents.


Uh-oh! Luckily, I was freed just in time to watch Santa light all the Christmas lights at dusk. Here's a video of that, as well as some of the other fun we had that day.



What a great day!

A Jolly old time with Saint Nick

With Christmas just a few weeks away (I wish it would get here already!), Henry and I wanted to make sure that Santa knew exactly what we wanted. So we visited him during our trip to Grandma and Grandpa's.

We had to wait a line for a really long time because his elves didn't really seem to know what they were doing, but Henry and I didn't mind because we were so excited to see him.


At long last, he arrived. We told him exactly what we wanted (I asked for the Barbie Dreamhouse and the Playmobil Grand Mansion; Henry wants "Cars stuff"), and then we got to spend 10 whole extra minutes on Santa's lap while his Elves tried to make the camera work. I told you they didn't know what they were doing! We passed the time by singing a few songs:



And afterwards, he gave us some lollipops.


Thanks Santa. We'll return the favor and leave a treat for you on Christmas Eve!