Early Christmas

Today we celebrated early Christmas with Nana and Gramps, and the girls couldn't have been more excited.  They were awake and raring to go this morning before the sun had even risen, but, hey, can you blame them?  Early Christmas = early presents!

Julia pretty quickly delved into her new toys, settling down with Nana to read her brand new book:

Meanwhile, Madeleine diligently focused her undivided attention upon doing this:

Bubble wrap.  The very best present of all, of course.

Later on this morning, the girls rocked out to Julia's new "Fresh Beat Band" CD.  Before she could listen to it, Julia had to scramble upstairs and change into a new outfit, one suitable for singing Fresh Beat Band songs.  Madeleine opted for a frilly pink ballerina dress, because nothing says rock star like a tutu.

I can only imagine the future standing-on-chairs-singing-into-whisks concerts that will ensue in the coming week...

We will be having a nice, homemade early Christmas dinner this evening, but last night, we treated the kids by taking them out to Julia's favorite restaurant.  Madeleine happily colored away in her kids menu, which is specially made with coloring pages and kids activities. 

Coloring the letters in green, she joyfully announced: "Mom!  This says FISH!"

She then colored the following word in with red, exclaiming: "And this says MERRY CHRISTMAS FISH!"

The final artistic product was bright and colorful.  While it may look to your untrained eye like it says "Water Fun," I can assure you that the message actually reads "Fish Merry Christmas Fish!":

And really, what says Merry Christmas more than a bloody duck, a pair of jaundiced legs, and a hypothermic blue hand grasping for the empty air?