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Didn’t want to jinx it…

It’s been about a week now that Hannah is all of a sudden sleeping in. Previously her wake-up times were anywhere from 5:30am to 6:45am, averaging about 6:15am or so. Mallory will always sleep in until at least 7. But then, suddenly Hannah sleeps until 7:15 or so. Very nice – to either sleep in as well, or be able to get up at a respectable time and get some things done before the girls are up.

Here’s a photo from one of those early get-ups. Hannah says, “read a book…”

The girls are finishing lunch. Mal is being her typical older-sister and helping/directing Hannah in eating lunch. Mal turns to Hannah and says, “I love you, Hannah.” Our hearts melt a little bit. Mal continues, “I love the toy store.”

As you might know, Mallory and Hannah’s room is on the third floor while our bedroom is on the second floor. Also Mal sleeps in a tall adult (non-toddler) bed.

This morning Hannah starting making noise. As I was walking towards the stairs to get her, I hear the door to the stair creak open. It’s Mallory, at the foot of the stairs. She says to me, “Hannah is crying, please go get her.” That’s the first time she’s gotten out of bed herself AND come down the stairs. So much for having the girls isolated upstairs (and us isolated downstairs!).

Also, a little later this morning: Hannah is in the office playing while Mal and I are in our bedroom. Mal lets a big fart rip. I say, “Mal, what do you say?” (with the correct response being, “pardon me.”). Mal says, “it was Hannah!”

Yesterday we took a short trip to a county “see the big trucks” event. The weather was chilly but nice.

The hit of the event for Mal was the fire truck.

She went inside twice (once front, once back).

They guy up in the tree truck was taking pictures, so we thought we’d go all meta.

Playing with connectors.

What does this silver guy do?

I’ll keep the commentary to a minimum. The mess was at a maximum!

After opening some presents, we took a breakfast break. Mallory of course insisted that her new baby doll sit beside her at breakfast. Sorry for the crappy photo!

Then back to the fun!

For Christmas dinner, we continued our (tradition?… I think this is the second year in a row…) of eating at our favorite Chinese restaurant. As should be expected, the place was packed (eating Chinese on Christmas is a big Jewish thing, if you didn’t know – I certainly didn’t before I moved out East!). We arrived a bit late (5:30pm), and thus had to wait a while for a table. We were finally seated and waited a very long time just to get menus and water – which only came after we asked for them. The tea kettle was put on our table, but no cups. It looked like there were a total of 4 wait staff working the entire room of maybe 200+ people – they were severely understaffed! We ordered and eventually got some food, but after waiting a while one dish never showed. It was already 7:30pm – past Hannah’s bedtime and quickly approaching Mal’s. We finally gave up, I went to the front door guy and settled the bill – learning our last dish was not on the order, so we would have never gotten it – then walked back into the kitchen to obtain some carryout boxes to pack up food, and left. This all sounds like a great disappointment, and it was pretty frustrating for Adrienne and me, but I have to say there’s a great bright spot: both of the girls were awesome! Very well behaved, and that made this parent very happy. Plus we have leftover Moo Shu Duck.

Bonus shot. Not the keeper, only because it can’t be properly cropped to standard photos sizes. Bummer.