it's the most wonderful time, of the year...

so much happened last month. Molly met Santa, good friends came to visit, we celebrated Zero's birthday, we watched Portland's famous Christmas ship parade, and to top it all off, it snowed!

let's start at the beginning. the day after we got back from our Thanksgiving trip to Arizona we found out that Santa Claus was in St. Johns at our local toy store, Grammy and Nonna's (the best toy store ever!). our timing was perfect and just as we headed out the front door to see him, so did all our neighbors and the Charleston Ave gang went to see Santa. Molly had been talking about it all morning, but when we got to the store, well, she basically crawled into my coat and refused to come out and even look at Santa, much less sit on his lap. honestly, it makes sense to me, i don't want to sit on the laps of oddly dressed, hairy men either. either Grammy or Nonna (can't remember which) suggested we write Santa a letter and come back the next week (Santa came to St. Johns twice, cuz we're so cool!). a couple days later, Grandma Nancy sent Molly a snow glob Santa, and so all week Molly talked to "Santa" and grew more confident. the following Saturday Molly dictated the following for her Santa letter,

Dear Santa,
I would like a candy cane. I would like a panda and a robot.
Merry Christmas.
Molly

and we headed back to the toy store. this time, she was willing to hand him the letter, get her candy cane (which i think was the real driving factor here) and have her picture taken next to him - success!! [please note, our Santa has a gold tooth - you gotta love St. Johns!]

the next weekend our friends the Englehardings came up from Eugene. dad Jim, mom Terri, Skylar and Paige all came and stayed with us (Skylar, Paige and Terri pictured with Molly to the right). it was so much fun having friends come stay and have a sleep-over. we went to the park, we played with play-doh, we all went out to breakfast and Molly showed off her favorite toy store to her friends. it was a really great time!

the next weekend was Zero's birthday, i won't tell you how old he turned, but we'll just say next year is a BIG ONE. we had a nice day together, and Auntie Shani came over for dinner and we had cupcakes. Molly helped daddy blow out his candle, very thoughtful! normally at this point we'd have a picture of Molly next to a 5 pound Hershey bar (see here) but the catalog went missing, so we'll skip 2009. but i think i can safely say, she would totally dwarf that candy bar this year - you know it!

and that brings us to Christmas!

we got our tree a week or so before xmas. we had big plans to go cut down our own but ran out of time, and thankfully there was a lot right down the street. we even got a discount because it was the display tree (and covered in tinsel which we had lots of fun picking off by hand, but $5 is $5!) i totally forgot to bring a camera, but thank goodness for cell phones. i got a quick pic of zero and Molly carrying it home. and here is a little slideshow of tree trimming with Molly, at first sporting her Santa gloves and hat (she loves to pretend she's Santa) and then donning the tree skirt as cape. we wouldn't want the tree wearing anything we wouldn't wear ourselves! :)



you'll remember that Molly asked Santa for a panda bear and robot. i'm not 100% sure where these gift ideas came from. we do have some favorite books that star a panda bear named Stillwater (i highly recommend these books!) and we also have a book on saying please that has one scenario where a small boy really wants a robot. a combination of those two could be it.
or, way back on that first trip to see Santa, I believe our neighbor Mishya (who you'll remember from many past postings) may have said she wanted a robotic panda for Christmas? i don't remember Molly being in on that conversation, but if she heard that that was what Mishya wanted, well she would want it too! but no matter where the idea came from, it's what she asked for from Santa, and Santa being the super cool jolly ol' elf he is, brought her exactly that. check out the photos to the right, this is the scene Christmas morning before and after Molly came out to see what Santa brought - in the top one you can see panda and robot on the arm of the chair next to the tree. she also checked for the cookies she helped make for him (she did all the sprinkles, and cut out some of the shapes) and she was very pleased to see that he had eaten them right up! and we read the note he left her. that Santa is a good guy!

of course, Molly has a ton of "Santa's" in her life and as you can see in the above pictures, prezzies from friends and family were overflowing out from under the tree. she got stuff for her kitchen, art supplies, books, puzzles, clothes and so much more. here is a slide show of Molly opening, playing with and listening to some of her presents. notice how in some of the shots she is completely surrounded! it took us four days to unwrap everything!


on christmas day, after a couple hours of nonstop unwrapping, we all stretched our legs and went for a family walk. we could not have asked for better weather. sunny, crisp and dry. here you see Molly taking Harley for the walk. she does a very good job of holding the leash. i sometimes wish Harley was a bit younger, so that she'd maybe feel more like playing with Molly, and they could be friends for many years to come. but at times like these i'm kind of glad we have a 16-year-old, 20 pound dog for our daughter to learn with. not only has Harley taught Molly to be very gentle with dogs (because Harley has very little patience at her age) i also find it works well in learning how to take a dog for a walk. i've seen kids dragged down the street by exuberant labs and giant retrievers - with no control over the pooches. and though Harley can still be quite sprightly when she wants too, there is very little chance of dragging Molly down the street when she outweighs Harley by close to 15 pounds! they are a good team!

we even managed to get in a nap, though it was much later in the day then usual. but that's to be expected on Christmas day. we had lots of lovely invitations from our friends on that day, but after all the hustle and bustle, it was a bit too late for much visiting. so we put on our party clothes and ran down for a quick visit at our neighbors house where i had a delish lemon drop and the kids (this includes Zero) ate christmas cookies and danced around. what fun! check out the party clothes! you'll note that we are wearing our Fancy Nancy tutu and ruby red slippers from Grandma Nancy, and that Mr. Bacon and Monsieur Tofu are coming with us. Bacon and Tofu were a favorite gift from the Feeney/Hancocks.

we made delish homemade Mac and Cheese for dinner (two kinds!) and steamed some green beans. forget roast beef or turkey, this was the perfect Christmas meal! after dinner, on our way to bed, i remembered we hadn't taken our annual family Christmas photo! so we pulled it together and gave it our best shot after our big day, with Molly already in pjs after her bath (she got lots of fun bath toys, and we had to play with them!). as in past years, it can be hard to capture a good shot with a young person and a dog in the mix. not to mention that i'm sometimes still in motion as the timer takes the picture before i can fully run back and get settled. because it was evening and i dislike using a flash, the lighting is a bit odd in these. and then there was Zero with his melancholy expression. he assures me he was not bummed-out, he says he was "content". those of you who know him well, get it. :) so with all those caveats, here are our attempts at family xmas photo 2009...

the one that turned out looking almost sepia, was probably the best one of the four of us, but the color was terrible. the first two we took were really the best, and this one, the very first one, is probably what i'll go with for this year. so, Merry Christmas everyone!


shortly after Christmas, we got our snow! last year we had a very white Christmas and i was worried we wouldn't get any snow this year, but then Mother Nature came through. unfortunately for me, she came through while i was at work, but Zero and Molly met up with the neighbors and made snowmen, had a snowball fight and topped the whole thing off with hot cocoa and marshmallows. what could be better!

so as you can see, December was a fun-filled month! we are very fortunate and thankful, and we are excited about 2010 and what it holds in store for us. of course, in the case of the smallest member of the May/Feeney clan, ms. Harley-poochie, it's all very exhausting!
happy new year everybody!