Christmas tree post with photos

Hang in there, because this is going to be a random one.  (And that's different from normal how?)

FIRST, we have a 9 foot Christmas tree!  All set up!  With colored lights! It's a beauty. Thanks to Tommy, for putting all the silver balls right in the same spot, and to Lulu, for taking them off.  Lulu was such trouble during the setting up process that at one point, Eli shut her out of the living room  and you have never seen someone have such hurt feelings.  It was chaotic all around:  as Eli observed, the more excited Tommy is the louder he talks, so that by the end of his proclamation, he's shouting! 

Lulu does something really cute right now, which she did when we plugged in the lights on the tree last night.  She says, "Woooow..." but in a sort of breathless, incredulous way.  (It can be about things even less impressive than Christmas lights.)

The next random thing is a result of Tommy getting asked to get off the ladder during decorating.  He predictably was disappointed when he had to get down, and when I wouldn't relent and let him climb back up, he started yelling at me in his classroom jargon:  "Bad choice, Mommy!!  You have done a very bad choice!  YOU'RE ON THE RED LIGHT, MOMMY!"  all while shoving his hand with a  "thumbs down" as close to my face as possible.  It is actually still making me laugh, but you'll be happy to read that I did not laugh as he did it last night, no, just threatened some time on the step (very far from the ladder) if he couldn't get his act together. I hear him chide Lizzie for making bad choices on occasion, too.  SO FUNNY.

 Tommy took these:

I spent the weekend in Budapest with Hanh and Eleanor.  Folks, I'm not going to lie.  Eleanor is an ADORABLE baby.  She is chatty and alert and bright and she is very fat.  Delicious, honestly.  She hated me on Friday night -- when I held her it made her cry in a serious, frantic way -- but we became friends on Saturday morning and I got to hold her quite a bit, and we had some good chats.  She's coming to visit for Christmas, and we're all very excited.

It was a different trip, now that there's a baby.  We didn't go to the opera, and we didn't go out to dinner (but we did go out to breakfast and lunch).  We went to the Christmas market but it was very cold and so we didn't stay long.  We baked cookies, and of course we ran around that island in the middle of the river.  And there you have it.  It felt good to be there, because last week was nuts at work and I got to catch up on some sleep.  And it's always so nice to spend time with Hanh, especially when I'm so far from most of my besties.