Angel Baby

So she's not really a baby anymore... but she did get to play an "angel" in the school Christmas show this year.

So here's M. Sanne in her first stage performance:

The boy sitting next to her is her BFF, Payton.  Shortly before this picture was taken, we heard him tell the girl sitting next to Magdalenne, "No, she's MY best friend!" -- referring to M.  :)

And here's Juliette congratulating her sister on a great performance.  Not all angels wear halos.  :)

Ho Ho Ha!

I just discovered this little gem while cleaning up here this morning. 

Love love love!

Pettit like it's cold

(Please pardon the lame title of this post.  It hasn't just been "cold" out here these days, it's been VERY cold.  And to top it off, I've had a cold for over nine days now!  Lucky me!  Needless to say, the word "cold" is ever-present in my mind lately.)

But back to the Pettit Ice Center -- Juliette had a birthday party there on Saturday and she had her very first ice skating experience!  Woo hoo!!

Here she is, getting ready to hit the ice!

I was so proud of her.  She fell pretty hard a few times and really hurt her bum, her knee, etc., but she kept going back out there -- and now she's really excited to go again!  Super Trooper, that one.

Getting warmer

The temperatures around here haven't risen much -- so cozy morning cuddling is definitely in order around here!  And what better way to do it than with your sister??  I can't even handle this cuteness!!  They did it all on their own too.  Yup, there goes my heart, melting away....

Later that day... Magdalenne is warming up not just for Christmas, but for her very first Christmas program!  The show goes live tomorrow, so we asked her to practice a few of her songs for us last night:

I think this private showing may be even better than that real thing!

Cheers!

Christmas warm-up

As we get warmed up for the Christmas season (both literally and figuratively), we'll start out with a little ditty by Magdalenne:

'

And here she is -- all braced to try to stay warm in the bitterly cold temps that failed to deter these girls from enjoying our first big snowfall.

Thumbs up to freezing in the snow!

We heart art

My girls could probably sit and do art projects/drawing/etc all day long if left to their own devices.  They love it -- and I love seeing their creations!  Here's one of Juliette's (many) pictures -- the figure on the right is Magdalenne and the figure on the left is Juliette.

Here's another Juliette original:

This next one really impresses me -- it's a bird that Magdalenne drew.  Magdalenne!  She's TWO!  And she got no help -- this was all her:

Here's another Magdalenne original -- I'm not sure who this funky little guy is supposed to be, but I think he's utterly charming:

P.S. - Today is Juliette's last day of being FOUR!  Eek!!!!  And she chose this day to walk herself into school this morning.  As we pulled up to the parking lot, she suggested that I could just drop her off by the door.  What???  I had to ask her a couple times to be sure she was really talking about the big outside door.  This is the same child that about a month ago wanted to hold my hand as she walked in her class line until we got to the hall leading to her classroom!  It's liberating and heart-breaking all at the same time... She tottered off through that door and didn't look back once. *Sniff* 

Mid-week

Yesterday, I had parent-teacher conferences at Juliette's school.  Here we are waiting outside her classroom for our turn to go talk to Mrs. Cerbins.

And then Juliette proceeded to do what any four-year-old-with-a-camera-wielding-mother would do:

And what was Miss M up to in the meantime? Well, we put that girl to work after our first snowfall!

And there were no complaints on her part!!  

Village People

Last weekend, I migrated south for a last dose of Vitamin D before winter officially sinks in around here.  I joined my mom and Mandy in The Villages near Orlando to visit my aunt, Sharon, who just recently built a gorgeous house down there.  Here we are in her golf cart, tooling around Pinellas (one of "The Villages").

Mandy was our designated driver.  I'll console myself that it was because she was pregnant and unlikely to be drinking, but I think the truth is that they didn't trust me driving the golf cart.

Unfortunately, we only had one sunny day there and our first attempt to lounge poolside was pretty much a fail with regard to soaking in any sun.

But look at our effort!  You've got to commend that and our optimism at even trying, right?

What we lacked in sun, we made up for in dancing later that night... (again, we are apparently trying to rock the Florida sun vibe with sunglasses even at night.  Or maybe that was the song.  Hmm... There's a fair chance your trusty camerawoman may have been just a tad bit tipsy that evening...)

And one last shot out and about in a Village -- here's Mom and Mandy, both looking quite lovely.

Thanks so much for a fun little getaway, ladies!  Love you all!!

His best friend

We can (almost officially) now call what happened just three weeks ago a blessing-in-disguise.  Though maybe we should just call it a blessing since we are no longer in doubt?  Chen lost his job.  Bam, wow, what?  We were shocked, scared, and not sure what it would mean.  One of the first things we did as we reviewed our budget and made some plans was to pull Magdalenne from daycare.  It was one of the quickest and easiest ways to cut costs, but both Chen and I had qualms about taking her out of her little social setting that she had known since she was just 3 months old.

The advantage of this new arrangement, however, was that Chen suddenly got to spend a LOT of extra time with Miss M.  He had often commented on the fact that he felt like he missed a lot of her baby-hood because of the aforementioned-job-which-no-longer-is, so this was sort of an unexpected bit of make-up time which I think was actually good for both of them.

Commenting on his situation the other day, Chen said to me, "My best friend is a two-year-old".  And as much as I know these have been long and stressful days for him, there was something about that statement that just sort of melted my heart.  I saw the two of them bonding, cuddling, and speaking Spanish to each other.  I have been coming home to oodles of art projects too: a full-size person made out of multiple pieces of paper which now hangs in M's bedroom, calaveras (for Dia de Los Muertos) and masks made out of paper plates -- like the very creepy one below! -- and many, many more....

And so Magdalenne has gotten in some alone time with her Papa, or "Papi" as she affectionately calls him (and sometimes "Papita" when she thinks she's being really funny -- to which Chen replies, "Did you just call me a potato chip?" followed by much giggling on the part of the girls.)

Chen and I do cringe a bit when she asks about her old friends at school (Payton is particularly missed!) and Chen said that the other day she even made paper versions of them and was "playing" with her paper friends... :(   But happily the end is now in sight.  In the meantime, though, Magdalenne's really not doing too badly at entertaining herself (the new large mirror in their bedroom is a real hit for singing showtunes!)

She's not quite at the level of imaginative play that Juliette is, but it's still so fun to watch her get immersed in her own little world of song, dance, princesses, kitties, etc.

And so Miss Magdalenne, you likely will not at all remember your three weeks home with Papa, but I am certain that he won't ever forget them.  And as much as you posed some challenges for him in getting things done, I also think you were just the friend he needed to keep him moving, keep him laughing, and to give him endless hugs and kisses.

JuNo

Many many many moons ago, before children, before blogging, before life-as-we-now-know-it, Chen and I had once talked about names we liked and we surprisingly found that we both liked Juno.  Fast-forward a fews years and the movie Juno came out which dampened things a bit for us.  I still liked the funky sound of the name and when we were choosing Juliette's name, I mentioned I might blend the beginning of her first name (Juliette) and the beginning of her middle name (Noelle) to concoct my old favorite:  Ju-No.  Fast-forward a few more years, and I've never once called her that.

We can't predict things like nicknames -- well, maybe you can try, but an authentic nickname just comes out.  (E.g., see Magdalenne's upteen nicknames -- she's currently going by "Super Sanne" to me, by the way).  Kind of like you can't predict much of the adventure of parenting -- your authentic children will just come out; these little independent people enter your lives with minds and hearts and names all their own.

My little JuNo has been a bit of an unpredictable adventure all her own for me lately.  The word insubordinate keeps coming to mind almost every time I need to get her to do something -- anything.  She asked me after one of her first days in K4 (when she came home with a "red light" meaning trouble), "why do I have to do what other people tell me to do???" with complete sincerity and wonder. Meanwhile, this notion of not getting perfect reports from school just baffled me -- smart girls like me her don't get in trouble at school!  

Juliette has always needed her alone time, her "me" time.  That part, I can relate to - and we try to give it to her.  But while I might be able to relate with not always being a people person, I am a people pleaser.  I don't tend to rock the boat, or look for confrontation, or disobey orders; I get along, play nice, over-achieve.  So this new insight into Juliette's personality has been so hard for me to relate to, to comprehend, and to know how to react to.      

And maybe that's the challenge.  One of the lessons I'm always trying to instill in both of our girls is that everyone is different, and that's what makes the world so interesting, so beautiful, so surprising.  Maybe she's grasping that concept more readily than her mother/teacher...

And then I make myself stop and step back and see all the interesting, beautiful, and surprising things that Juliette is -- like an artist, or an engineer.

Or an animal lover and a brave adventurer.  

And then there are times she surprises me with how good she is -- without me even cajoling her!  For example -- at the dentist.   I've never heard a complaint out of her about what's done to her in that chair... and they pretty much give her the works -- flossing, polishing, "counting", flouride-ing, etc.  (By the way, you gotta love the mega boots she's rocking here.) 

So I know she's capable of being compliant, patient, and -- let's face it, when you're in the dentist chair, you are pretty darn subservient!  It's just us parents and teachers whose buttons she loves to press... which is completely expected -- I get that.  It just doesn't make it a whole lot easier mid-button-pressing!

But on we plunder through this parenting adventure:  learning who our daughters are, what buttons we all should and should not be pressing, and of course, what surprises they hold in store for us.  And as much as Juliette has been a bit of a challenge for us these days, it's only made me think more of her once potential eponymous moniker, Juno.  She is strong, she is mighty, she is determined, she is a leader.  My little Juno...  my goddess, my warrior, my daughter...  

Picture of the goddess Juno from here.

Spooky Spooky

This past weekend we partook in several Halloween activities.  First up, carving pumpkins!  We let each girl choose what they wanted on their pumpkin.  Juliette wanted Frankenstein, and Magdalenne got real original and asked for a cat (again).

Chen took on the task of Frankenstein, while I carved the cat.... And the girls were quite pleased with the results (as were the grown-ups who had serious moments of doubt mid-carve...)  :)

Friday night we got ready for a Trick-or-Treat party in Enderis Park.  Here we are prepping M's bumble bee makeup.

They turned out adorable, if I do say so myself!

And well, I just had to get in on the act this year too (mostly at the request of my two little ladies!)  So I dug out my box of old Halloween costumes from days of yore, and dusted off my tried-and-true Gypsy getup:

A couple closeups of M's makeup.  (Juliette had some "sparkles" too just because, you know, angels sparkle.  But you can't really see it in the pictures.  Kind of like you can't really see the gaudy eye-makeup I have on which makes me realize how much makeup celebrities must actually have on when they look super done up...)

The girls were so cute trick-or-treating together.  They would hold hands as they walked up to the doors, they each had scarves on to keep them warm which really only added to the cuteness.

Here's a wing shot.  This was actually the trigger for both costumes -- they found the wings first and the costumes just followed suit.

At this house, the woman handing out candy saw the girls and ran off to get the other adults in the house to come see them.

We only did about two blocks, but that was perfect for us.  Not too many scary incidents:  one guy handing out candy had a mask on which the girls didn't notice until they got up closer, but when they did they just quietly turned around and walked away without getting any candy.  Also, Juliette took one tumble (insisting it was the sidewalk and not her long dress) and Chen quipped that we had a fallen angel on our hands... She came around quickly and was smiling again as we headed home:

As was this little buzzer:

Back at home they sorted and traded their loot during the few moments before bedtime...

Now we just have to survive Wauwatosa's Trick-or-Treat on Thursday, the actual day of Halloween!

Note:  the title of the post is from a song we've been playing quite a bit lately.  Here it is for your enjoyment: