This tree is the spirit of the **** Family Christmas

These pictures are disappointing quality, but they're all I have. I also realized, while uploading these pictures, that brushing the girls' hair prior to taking their photographs might have been a good idea. Oh well.

On Tuesday we decided to put up the Christmas tree. As per our family tradition, Sheref and Ella went and picked out the tree while the rest of us stayed home and had hot chocolate (or Good Start formula, or Pinot Grigio, depending on your age...). After they got home, we hauled out the Christmas decorations, set up the tree, and started decorating. The tree looks about 100x better than in this picture (seriously). Charlie fell asleep before Sheref and Ella brought the tree home; hence why he is not in any of these pictures.

Another family tradition is that each year over the Thanksgiving holiday, I take the kids to each pick out one Christmas ornament. This year, Lucy picked out a Cinderella ornament, Rose selected Tiana from the recent Disney movie whose name I can't think of at the moment, and Ella chose a Yorkie ornament. Charlie "chose" a basketball ornament.

Unfortunately, the Yorkie ornament shattered, as tends to happen when glass gets dropped from a 4' height. Oops. So the replacement ornament is a Cardinal perched on a branch. Never mind that she got it free with the Christmas tree -- I told her I'd buy her another Yorkie, but she preferred the plastic Cardinal. Seriously.

This is Ella's stash of Christmas ornaments from past years.

Lucy's collection.

Rose's

Ella in mid-decoration...

I made Lucy "re-enact" hanging up ornaments because I realized I didn't have any photographs of her. She was a good sport and humored me.

Rosie hanging Santa on the tree.

Free Haircuts

Part of it is being cheap. Part of it is the hassle of taking kids to a REAL place to get their hair cut. Ok, most of it is the hassle of taking kids to get their hair cut by people who actually know what they're doing. So I cut all our kids' hair. And the dog's too. They have had some rockin' awesome haircuts, and also some, umm, not so great ones. I knew I could cut straight longish girl hair reasonably ok (yes, I do realize that ANYONE can cut straight long girl hair reasonably well), but didn't know if I could do boy hair. Ok, fine, I still don't know if I can really do boy hair well, but tonight I put the guard on the clippers and went to work. I thought Charlie might be a little scared of the noise the clippers make, but he wasn't. Took about 2 minutes, and Mr Charles looks like he is fit for the Marines. These pictures don't really show his hair, but it looks pretty cute. Most of that is because he is just super cute, but the haircut is ok too.

Ignore the drool...

This is my favorite Jin-yeong look. Doesn't he have a cute smile?

Again, ignore the drool...

"I'm so happy my new haircut rocks" (or just happy because Mama is singing Itsy Bitsy Spider...which, by the way, he likes so much that I wonder if there is not a Korean song with the same tune...seems from his reaction like he has heard this song before)

If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...it just might be a wedding duck.

This is going to sound weird, but one of the nicest associations I have of my grandmother "Dabby," my mother's mother, is of ducks. Dabby was a beautiful, very elegant, sweet and interesting woman. She liked ducks, and had several gorgeous china ducks in her beautiful house. When she died, the only material object I really cared about getting was a set of gorgeous red glass ducks she always kept on her wooden secretary. I did get those ducks, and, although I am not generally into fancy "stuff," I love those ducks because they remind me of her.

When I heard that our son's birth country has a tradition called "wedding ducks," well, I knew we were going to need to bring some home from Korea. Sheref bought a beautiful set of wedding ducks for us, and one for each of the children. I may be explaining the tradition wrong, but as I understand it, couples are given wedding ducks when they marry. Apparently if you are feeling amorous, you are supposed to turn the wedding ducks to face each other as a sign to the spouse of your intent. If you are miffed at your spouse, you turn them away from each other. I may have the tradition all wrong, but it's at the very least a fairly entertaining version. So (and please do not read any romantic intents into the positioning of the ducks below:) here are some of our newly acquired wedding ducks:

This set is actually my personal favorite. The male is the one with the decorative colors.

Ok, so clearly not ducks, but these are a set of male and female statues to ward off evil spirits. Or something like that. To me they look like they belong on Easter Island, but whatever. We still think they're cool.

Twinkies, Wondertwins, Monozygotic Wonderment

There are people who wish for twins. And I, as a high-risk obstetrician, think those people are naive and foolish. I never wanted twins, knew that twins come with a long laundry list of obstetric and neonatal complications. We got surprise twins, and lived through many of those complications. Obstetrically, one should never wish for twins. To do so IS naive and foolish. However, having, raising, living with twins is absolutely wonderful. Fabulously, fantastically, magically wonderful.

Let's just entitle this picture "it's really hard to be cute when you only weigh 3lbs..."

Teeny, tiny twins.

About 4 weeks old. This picture is blown up and framed in their room.

Such cutie cueballs!!

All of which brings us to today, when these two are the best of buddies. They are so sweet and love each other so much. That, of course, is not to say that they don't fight, because they do (example: this am when Rose accidentally broke Lucy's Cherokee Native American necklace, and all h*** broke loose!), but these two are tight!!

Impromptu tea party.

Good gossip, I suppose...

Reading Princess stories.

Love these two sweeties!

Charlie's "Room"

I put the word "room" in quotes purposefully. Little Charlie doesn't have a real room, but rather a corner of our room. Which, of course, is entirely fine for any baby, and especially for a baby who sleeps most of the night in our bed anyways! Don't judge the co-sleeping. I honestly think co-sleeping is ok for any baby, but for one adopted internationally at nearly one year of age, I actually think it may be a good thing.

Nonetheless, it would be quite nice if we had a real room for Charlie. Like a closet, room for his clothes, etc. We have, however, the next best thing. And that is a corner decorated by my real-life artist mother and my budding artist daughter. My mom and Ella made this canvas mural for Charlie's "room." I am not exaggerating when I say that I truly LOVE it. Love the colors, love the theme, love the shapes.

The corner in all its glory!!

Hangin' Out

Crazy Hair Cutie

While I was in Phoenix a week or so ago, I asked Sheref to take some photos of Charlie to potentially use on our adoption announcement. He tried, but none of the photos was quite the quality I had hoped for, although some came close.

Obviously this particular photo is not quite publishable quality, but it just tickled me. He just looks so cute and impish.

The other thing this photo points out is the crazy stick-straight-up-in-the-air hair. I've trimmed his hair since this photo was taken, so he's looking a bit more clean-cut these days.