Preschool Holiday Party

The girls had their preschool holiday party, and was it ever a crazy scene. Hundreds of children running around juiced up on sugar and holiday cheer.

The girls had a good time. This is the first year they really "get" the whole holiday scene. Other than some crying when they first got up on stage (see video clips, below), the girls enjoyed running around, watching the older kids perform, and eating lots and lots of sugar.

The party ended late for the girls -- about 8:00 pm. I thought they'd fall asleep on the way home, but they were a bundle of energy after their pizza and cookies. They got home and kept on partying until about 11 pm, two hours past their bedtime.

It was a quiet Saturday morning in the Lim household!

Here are some video clips from the girls' holiday party.

** WARNING: Unless you are: 1) A Grandparent; or 2) A family member of one of the kids in the video; these videos are pretty dull. Nothing exciting happens in them, so you may want to skip them unless you are in one of the above categories.

Caroline Caroling

In the spirit of the holidays, here is Caroline in her movie debut, singing her version of "Jingle Bells".

Note: Listen closely to the background for the review of her singing from her sister.

Santa Claus, Part II

As you'll recall, last year, we took this photo of the girls with Santa Claus:

Who is this guy, and why are we sitting on this lap?

(click on photo for larger view)

We figured this year, we had a better shot of getting the girls to take a decent photo with the guy in the big red suit. After all, we reasoned, they are a year older.

To increase our chances, we started a subtle PR campaign aimed at enhancing Santa's image in our girls' eyes. For the weeks leading up to our visit to the mall, we:

• Showed the girls T.V. shows and movies with Santa in them.
• Sang "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" (See previous post)
• Asked them what they wanted Santa to bring them for Christmas.

The brainwashing seemed to be working. In the week leading up to our mall visit, the girls walked around confidently proclaiming, "I want to take a picture with Santa!"

When the big day arrived, we dressed the girls up in their best Christmas dresses and took them over to our local mall.

Ultimately, this is the photo we ended up with:

(click on photo for larger view)

Here are some things you may or may not have noticed about this photo:

• Terri and I are in the photo. This is because Santa absolutely refused to let the girls sit on his lap. You heard me. He refused. You'll notice this is an older, more authentic Santa than from the previous year. This Santa, being older and wiser, had no hesitancy in having his helper state, "If there's a chance the girls will kick him, they can't sit on Santa's lap." So Terri and I ended up sitting next to Santa, and holding onto our girls.
• Katherine is still crying this year, but at least this year she wasn't trying to leap out of the photograph.
• Caroline looks at this photo and is proud of stating, "I'm not crying." However, what you can't see in the photo is Caroline fearfully digging her nails into Daddy's chest and arm, causing them to bleed.
• Notice the forced smile on Santa's face. It seems to be saying, "They don't pay me enough for this gig. And with this guy sitting on my right hip, I can't reach my flask."

I can't wait to see what next year's photo will look like!

Tough Crowd.

You will notice I haven't been posting as many photos recently. That's because I've made the family photo archives more easily accessible. Just look on the right hand column of this site, and you will see direct links to the most recent photos of our family, as well as a link to the entire photo and video archive site. The archives have a minimal password protection so that only friends and family will be able to look at the site: Just login as "guest" and type in the name of the town David was born and raised in (all lower case). Pretty easy, huh?

On to today's entry:

The girls continue to be my toughest critics. I've been battling a cold for the past week, and lost my voice the past few days. So my voice has cracked and croaked whenever I've tried to talk, much less sing.

With that background, the following exchange took place in the car earlier this week:

Caroline: Daddy?

Daddy: Yes, Caroline?

Caroline: Sing "Santa Claus" (Short for "Santa Claus is Coming to Town")

Daddy: Okay. (Cough, cough.)

Daddy: Oh, you better not pout (cough), you better not cry (croak), you better not . . .

Caroline & Katherine: Daddy!

Daddy: Yes?

Katherine: Turn on the radio.