Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Click below to read our Christmas 2010 letter!

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B4P6hVB7AigFN2JiMmQ3ODctOGQ5OC00NDhkLTgwZGYtZGJjZmM0NGQzNTgz&hl=en

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours,

Marina, Dmitri and the girls

Snow Fun

Emily had a Winter Carnival at school on Friday, Dec.3rd. For the third year in a row, I made my ladybug cakes for the cake walk.

Natalie enjoyed sitting on Santa's lap

I was amazed how big Emily looked sitting on Santa's lap...

Instead of having their faces painted, the girls preferred pretty jewel stickers.

After the carnival, the girls went to a sleep-over at Emily's classmate's house. Maggie's mom, Amy, is one amazing woman... having a bunch of little girls going crazy at her house until 1:30am. In the meantime, honey and I hung out by ourselves at home, watching a movie, eating cake, relaxing. He left the next morning on a trip, while snow was accumulating.

The girls were thrilled to be outside - and they dragged me out too!

Ok, so everyone who knows me well, knows that I don't like winter, cold or snow. But, that day I guess the girls' enthusiasm was contagious, and I found myself enjoying the white stuff and how beautiful everything looked. Now, is this a breakthrough? or will this get old and will I start despising it again?

Emily loved running down the yard, slipping and falling 'in style.'

Things got even more fun when the girls went and got their buddy, Emma.

Then it was time to come inside to warm up with some hot chocolate. This is a view from our dining room window - Christmas lights reflecting on the snow-covered branches outside.

Some leftover doughnuts, hot chocolate with marshmallows... and three hyper and silly friends

Emma and Emily goofed around sucking up marshmallows with their straws. Oh, Emily's wearing the star on her forehead - it's the jewel sticker from the carnival the night before.

After Emma left, we all went down for a very long nap. Then we made pizzas from scratch and played a Christmas stocking Memory game that I printed off the web that afternoon. I felt incredibly thankful for this sweet time with my girls and for the beautiful creation outside.