Our friend Ryan met us at the zoo. He lived with us for 2 years when we were first married so he knows all our dirty secrets. Monti and Ryan spent some time discussing guitar playing. He explained to her that he started playing at age 11. If he lived with us now we would all be jamming together and laughing a lot more.
Christmas morning was low key but enjoyable. Dahlia and Monti each received American Girl horses. It was the one item that Dahlia said she wanted from Santa in the ER room before she was stitched up. They both have already begged me to let them ride home on the airplane with them in their laps. I convinced Monti to let me crate them up for the plane ride if I added a carrot to the box in case her horse gets hungry.
Joe is doing his best to tease the kids. We all went to Chip and Kim’s house for a Christmas Eve party.
Each girl received a gift certificate to get one outfit for their American Girl doll. There are probably well over 300 outfits available there so the decision took some time. They came home with a riding outfit, a beach outfit, and a ballet ensemble.
A snow storm was predicted to roll through on Tuesday so we moved up our plans to head downtown Chicago to do some Christmas shopping at Water Tower Place. We left after dinner and all 3 girls were dead asleep within 10 minutes of leaving the house. It was good because we stayed out till about 11:00.
Once inside the theater we could relax and enjoy the show. Ten minutes into the ballet Dahlia leaned over and whispered to me “Mom why aren’t they singing?” I must agree with Dahlia ballet seems to be lacking a certain something when it comes to telling a story.
Each of the girls received a black cape to wear to the ballet in
Chicago. Each cape had it’s own unique colored lining. The problem was
that the temperature in Chicago was -3 before you considered the wind.
We were all so chilled to the bone it was just simply hard to move.
Long capes are a little more difficult to maneuver in and
they can catch the wind very easily. Both Dahlia and Gwendolyn fell
between the parking garage and the Auditorium Theater. Even with the
problems I loved the image of three little girls in a row walking in
their black capes with Mama following in her black cape. It was such
a great dramatic effect.
The adults and Gabe were playing Apples to Apples while the smaller
kids enjoyed a tea party at my mom’s house. This was the first bit of
a smile we had seen from Dahlia since her accident at home.
Our neighborhood is great for snow days. There are lots of kids and a
endless amount of places to go sledding. Of course safe sledding
places become more limited so supervision is important. Parents would
take turns staying out with the kids who wanted to keep sledding all
day long.
