To: Harper, From: Marielle

As a parent, you know that those moments when everything has gotten quiet in your house typically mean that your child, or children, are up to something. We had one of those this week. We were all in the living room and had just finished up a session of gift wrapping. Marielle was running around entertaining herself, Harper was playing in the exersaucer, and we had just flipped on a Tivo'd episode of The Soup. Then, the silence came, or, should I say, the realization of the silence. We looked over to our two girls and found Ellie gift tagging Harper. Harper thought it was hilarious.

One Part Dance, One Part Stage Fright

Several weeks ago we had enrolled Marielle in a pre-dance dance class at our local rec center. You may recall the post about her initial apprehension about going it alone in class. Well, after many lessons as well as practicing the routine with Mom, all of Ellie's hard work led up to last weekend's dance recital. 80's was the theme and Uptown Girl was the song. We've been looking forward to her rocking a side ponytail for weeks! She looked awesome.

Viv went back stage with Marielle to get ready before the routine, while the rest of us anxiously waited in the front rows - thanks to Jossie for getting there early and fending off other parents in order to hold seats for all of us. Marielle's class was the opening act and watching the huge curtains open to reveal such tiny dancers was a sight for sure. Marielle was shocked to see so many people staring up at her.


In class, we had been struggling to get Ellie to watch the teacher who would stand to the side and go through the dance routine to help the girls along. Each week she would do her own thing instead of watch the teacher. Needless to say, Ellie often wasn't doing the right moves, if any at all. Two weeks ago, on the way out of class, Vivian said to her, "Marielle you have to watch the teacher. You have to pay attention to what she's doing." Marielle looked back at Viv, and in a dejected tone said, "Mom I tried really hard." Viv melted.

So, if not watching the teacher was a drawback, you can imagine what would happen if you threw a little stage fright into the mix. Yes, little Marielle stood virtually paralyzed on stage. I took many, many photos, but I'd say most of them looked identical to the ones in this post. In Ellie's defense many of the girls looked similar to her, and the few that didn't let the crowd bother them didn't really follow the teacher's lead. However, as most of you have already concluded, this was the beauty of it. We were watching their first recital, and it was exactly what we had hoped it would be! As the song progressed, we saw Marielle loosen up a bit. We saw her knees start to bend as she began to bounce, and then I think I even saw a shoulder shake. When it was all over, the crowd erupted into cheers, and we saw Marielle crack the biggest smile. She kept standing on stage soaking it up after most of the other girls had left the stage. Her teacher had to round her up and usher her to stage left.

Fun at Pottery Barn for Kids

Pirates or ninjas? Apparently pirates

I've been meaning to tell you to ...

Check out PC's Blog post about his recent military operation in Bangladesh. And by "military operation" I mean military humanitarian aid operation. I think that the major media outlets in America cover the military, but I don't think they do a great job of showing all of the positive things that our servicemen and women are accomplishing around the world. He's got additional links that go into more detail about support they gave to the people of Bangladesh in the wake of Cyclone Sidr.

Trains and Track Suits

Last weekend we got together with Geoff, Colette, and Alex so that the kids could exchange gifts with one another. After exchanging countless Gap and REI gift cards, we and the Pierz's came to the realization that Christmas, among friends, should be about the kids now that we have them. Drews, you all are excluded from this relatively new rule as being overseas has limited the consumer habits that all Americans are entitled to (curse all companies that don't ship to APOs). For you guys, it's gifts for the whole family until you're back stateside.

The kids had a great time playing together. They played catch for a while, did some chasing, and eventually settled into playing house. The playhouse always seems to be their favorite. They spend a lot of time ringing the doorbell and letting each other through the door. One of the last times we visited, they spent twenty minutes taking turns flopping out of the house's window like stunt men (and women . . . or should I say stunt boys and girls).

Alex got the girls matching Nike, velour track suits; one pink and one purple. They are, by far, the cutest track suits we've seen to date. Nice job Alex. Knowing that Alex loves his train table, the girls got Alex some Thomas the Tank Engine friends. Marielle and Harper will also be the first to tell you that you can never have too many PJs, so Alex got some dinosaur PJs as well.

The Holidays are Here

We've put up our Christmas Tree, and this year, Marielle helped put ornaments on the tree instead of just trying to take them off. She was really excited about it. Viv handed Ellie the ornaments and twenty minutes later we had a two foot by two foot patch of tree where all the decorations ended up. Viv and I later evened out the tree. Since then, we have caught her playing with the ornaments a few times, but, altogether, she has been a lot better at leaving the tree alone this year than last. The one ornament she can't seem to keep her fingers off is a little ceramic Starbucks cup. Hmmmm, future coffee drinker? Perhaps. At the time, the tree was devoid of any gifts so we thought Harper might want to chill out underneath the tree. Her eyes lit up instantly. She was mesmerized by the lights and ornaments while she played with her feet. She's been doing really well reaching for things, so it didn't take long for her to go for the light strand after which she was moved to her Bumbo.

New Toddler Fashions

Al, we are about to throw you under the bus. Just know that we love you, and couldn't appreciate more how helpful you were last week, and know that you did a great job. We hope that you're great sense of humor will allow you to persevere in the face of such a heinous outing by us.

Last week Al came up to our house and watched Marielle for us. He took her to dance class for us which was good since she only has one more class before her recital.
She was a little apprehensive about class - probably because we weren't there - but he talked her through it and got her confidence back. He later spent the morning with her back at home. At some point after getting home, Al changed Marielle and decided to get her into some "regular" clothes and out of her dance outfit. Al went to her dresser to grab some clothes, but Marielle stop him saying, "those are Harper's, my clothes are in there," pointing to the closet. This was a big ol' lie. I'm not sure why she did it, but she convinced Al that Harper's stuff in the closet were hers.

Well Al grabbed a shirt and pants, got them on our daughter, and then realized the grim truth. At this point, however, Marielle was dressed and extremely happy with her outfit (consisting of a 3-6 month top and maybe 9 month bottoms). So at this point, he did what any great grand parent would do ... he let her rock the outfit since she was really excited about it. When we got home, and before we saw our daughter, he joked, "Well you may not like the clothes I picked out, but at least she's not naked." We all had a good laugh, and all continued to let Marielle rock Harper's puny clothes. After all, they were Marielle's at one point.


Al, thanks again for coming up!

Happy Belated Thanksgiving

Since Thanksgiving happened over two weeks ago I won't linger too long on the subject as the statute of limitations for blogging after-the-fact has probably expired. In other words, Thanksgiving, as yummy as it might have been, is OBE (that's overcome-by-events for those of you who aren't around acronyms all day). We've got Christmas tree decorating and toddler fashions to still cover from the last few weeks.

We spent the day at my parents' house watching the Macy's advertisement that is the Thanksgiving Day parade. Throughout the day, the girls got lots of attention from Oma and Opa as well as Opi and Susan, and we finished the day with a great Thanksgiving spread and coffee and apple pie.