Christmas!

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Christmas morning was so much fun with three little girls! Maisie woke up first and went and found Heff and curled up on his lap. He said "I wonder if Santa came?" and she said "Prob-we not. Or maybe he prob-we brought me wain-deer poop. GaGa said he being me wain-deer poop." Poor second child :) But Santa did come and brought both girls shiny new pink bikes. Maisie is still a little tall for hers (Heff had the bike store guy take off the pedals and gears so it's a scoot bike for now but will grow into a real pedal bike when she is ready) and Janie got a little white puppy dog who barks and walks. Stockings had art supplies and there were a few princess items under the tree too (the biggest hits of the morning were the gifts they gave each other - a princess tent from Maisie to Francie and a princess night light/singing music box from Francie to Maisie. I didn't take any pictures all morning- it was too much fun to just sit back and soak it up.

Then we hosted Christmas Day at our house with my parents, siblings and Big Uncle Jerry. A small affair for our family!

random assortment of snacks -ready for company

Heff got a big Prime Rib for dinner and cooked it on the spit on the BBQ for 4 hours. It turned out great.

Presents with my family. I got Pat in the draw and gave him an Auburn garden gnome and as a gift for HIM and to get back at my sister for selling out and piercing her ears at 25 - a beautiful pair of lapis shell big ole Auburn earrings! You better wear those ABA!

Francie wearing a Dorthy costume, Maisie trying out her new doctor set in her Elmo PJs and Janie still in her pajamas from last night at 4pm- pretty good day!

the aftermath - and reminds me we need to hang those pictures on the wall (they've been sitting there for at least a month- shocking they haven't been stepped on and broken yet!0

guys watching football in the back-to-red kitchen! (and playing with James' new wide angle lens)

Prime Rib a cookin!

Big girls playing with toys in their room (with new twin beds)

Arte Italica table set - our favorite Christmas cards all over the wall to admire - ready… set…

DINNER!

Christmas Eve 2011

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Janie's first Christmas! We were at Grampa and Jannie's house for Christmas Eve - which is usually our big night of gifts, Cracked Crab dinner, Santa, swaps and the ever-growing Mr/Mrs Christmas contest. It;s a full night - next year we decided we may need to start earlier since we had to take the girls home at midnight and we hadn't even gotten to one of the swaps yet! It was a great night- I love Christmas at my parents house and it's 100 times more fun watching the girls getting into the spirit too.

The pretty tree and lots of presents ready for swaps and swapping

Mr Jerry Christmas - another good showing this year! Jerry started the contest three years ago when he thought people were showing up for Christmas Eve too casual...

the plaque - he was going for a three-peat

James and Em - I'm not even sure what to say about this outfit on my brother

Emmy, Em and I trying to add some sparkle

Aunt Mimi making delicious cheesy puffs - I think I had 12

Jannie and her niece and nephews (aka contestants)

The "kids table" (ha)

and the KIDS table

Jannie and Grampa - the chefs and host/hostess extraordinaire!

Ann and Pat making their Brother-in-law John Galassini's famous tortellinis

after dinner waiting for Santa upstairs! Always an energy charged 5 minutes

Santa left Francie her much anticipated Princess roller-skates, JJ got an alphabet music toy thing and Maisie- well Maisie wanted tinkerbell roller-skates but turns out they don't make specific tinkerbell ones but Santa found a Tinkerbell helmet which seemed perfect since the morning "big" Santa gifts were shiny new pink bikes. She was pretty happy with the purple Tinkerbell helmet but my brother Jerry was like "Mary - a HELMET from Santa?!" I guess it was a little weird

still a happy kid

and a SERIOUSLY happy kid

roller skating fool

Let the chaos begin

first up after Santa was the "Hilarious" swap

my favorite swap gift was my sister's but she made me promise not to blog it or she'd get in trouble for re-gifting. but it was GOOD!

and it's time to get serious - The "talent show" portion of the Mr/Mrs Christmas contest. A score card with 11 categories and a total of 75 points possible was assembled by Jerry and even emailed to everyone a week before the big day. Intense

James was very serious about his big surprise this year. And adamant the show had to be outside as usual even though it was FREEZING

the first act…

not even sure what they did I was busy getting ready ;) but I'm sure they were fabulous

The Heffs + Emmy's entry - the creche/nativity scene live and in person. This may seem slightly irreverent but we were just there to remind these competitive family members…

the true meaning of Christmas is not glitz, glamour and sequins… it's the Baby Jesus! (and if you can't tell - Emmy is the Angel Gabriel, I am Mary, Heff is Joseph, Francie is a "wise-woman" riding a donkey Maisie is a sheep and Janie is Baby Jesus of course)

A squirmy Baby Jesus!

We thought we were a shoe-in… didn't even make the top 5!

Then we were so proud of the girls- they both got up and sang songs for their own entries. Francie appropriately sang "I am a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N"

and Maisie sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star - the lamb costume kills me!

Gerald up next - looking for another win

JJ thinks we are all crazy

and then came this… WOW is all I can say. Emily appeared first in an impressive homemade corset/tutu and did a little Nutcracker ballet for us

then Darth Vadar (or so we thought) appeared from the darkness floating along (or riding a Segway- yes my brother James rented a Segway for the contest)

then he and Emily had a choreographed dance routine

and their COSTUMES LIT UP (all homemade- my brother bought some LED light up stuff off some guy in Oakland!)

and then we realized this was actually DARTH XMAS performing for us

and Rabbi Lowenstein showed up again this year (James' finale last year - and yes he also rented a rabbi costume) but HE was actually Rabbi GLOW-enstein (or maybe Pat)

and they light-saber fought

this went on for awhile…

until Darth XMAS announced he had bad news for Glowenstein…. "I am your FATHER"

the judges… not an easy job anymore

but the most impressive gift/show/thing all night was this charcoal painting Claire did in Art Class at BC as a gift for Emmy - it looks EXACTLY like one of Emmy's favorite photos of her and her mom - AMAZING!!!

more presents - Maisie got a Tinkerbell doll from James and Em. Made up for the whole helmet thing

big girl camera from Jannie

Em had Luke in the swap and gave him a huge box of candy. nice call. Uncle John said "take his picture now while he still has teeth"

the Top 5 after judges deliberated for an hour (I'm not even joking)

Uncle Jerry the Emmcee has it down to the final two…

yeah James won. Jerry had to give up the title graciously

oh this family is crazy!! But we had a fun Christmas Eve being a part of the craziness :)

SF Night

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We were in San Francisco December 23 for my family's Christmas tradition - drinks at the St Francis and dinner at Sam's - a table for 29! We usually stay overnight but this year it's a little tricky with two little girls and a baby who likes her own crib so we just drove up and back that night. It was a loud, wild, crazy evening with my relatives, as usual!



before the carnage






walking back to the St Francis after dinner

Grampa loves his JJ time!

Union Square

trying to "recreate" a picture of James, Jerry and I hanging on this banister when we were little - didn't work so much ;)

checking out the gingerbread houses while dad gets the car. It's only midnight!

Carter-Simo Christmas

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Thursday night we celebrated the Annual Carter-Simo Christmas dinner at the Carter's house. We grew up next to Ryan, Beth and Jill who were in the grades right in between me, James and Jerry (Baby Ann is infamous for scratching Bethy from her carseat in carpool:) Ryan and his wife Kim are here from Philly with their triplet boys Danny, Drew and Dylan. We took the girls home before the Left-Right-Center competiton got too heated - it was a fun night!

ABA (who just flew in this afternoon with Pat!) and her god-daughter JJ!

Three Heff Girls and Three Carter Boys!

Georgia is on it- all the gifts are wrapped! (as I sit here procrastinating wrapping mine)

Jer always thinking- dressed up for the occasion in the EXACT outfit he wore everyday for two years in 4th-5th grade. A Pearl Jam shirt that says "9 out of 10 kids prefer crayons to guns" - plaid board shorts and high top sneakers. We teased him endlessly about that shirt - he found the replica on eBay :)

Jannie and the big girls

Jerry (in his dinner attire), Jill, Ann and Pat laughing at the old junior high photos of us - the spouses all got good laughs at our awkwardness!

Ready for dinner - pretty table Carter girls!

Dinner shots - can you tell we all had a little wine? :)



The Carpool - since 1989

and with spouses! (Jer and Jill being good sports and looking like a cute couple :)

all the girls

Beth and Greg's Rehearsal Dinner posted that made it through DTPA bar scene and the wedding day golf course - and who knows where else!

Cheers!

Mariani Christmas Tea!

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We had such a fun afternoon with all the Mariani girls and a few other friends for our Annual Mariani-Simonson Christmas Tea. Arlene hosted at their house in Saratoga this year and there were kids running around everywhere - it gets more and more fun every year as the kids get older and the moms get to sit around and catch up! We were there for six hours- a great way to kick off the holiday season!

My little stinkers

Tracy and Julie

Molly and JJ

Janna and two babies

and of course SANTA made an appearance!! Here are the kids getting there last minute requests in…

The Wallace Crew - Joe, Whitney and Maddie

but my favorite Wallace photo :)

The Passanisi Clan - Emilia, Sofia and Nico

The Heff Girls - Francie, Maisie, Janie

(The closest Maise got - nice faces on the girls!!)

The Stonebargers - James, Wil, Stella and Emerie

The Cassles - Nellie and Beau

The Farwells - Stella, Giacomo and Dominic

What a fun day - can we do a Mariani Christmas Tea every month instead of every year?!?! Love you girls and all your cute kids!

Back Track

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I wish we were really back at the beach but only in photos! We just got a few more pictures from our fun trip to the Bahamas- makes me miss that sun long after anything resembling a suntan is gone!! Guess we'll just have to go back someday :) The sunglasses picture above might be one of my favorites ever so I had to revisit a repost.

I was obsessed with the colors in this cool kite the kids helped fly on the beach - I want one for the park

Jet ski maniacs - look at the Beezer driving!

We were there to celebrate 11-11-11 at 11:11am! (and pm but that involved champagne over seashells)

I'm thinking that pixie haircut was a really GOOD thing Jannie

Little scraggly Maisie - but still cute :)

big smile from my JJ

A picture Heff with a baby taking a picture of me paddle boarding - I would think "what a smart/adept husband!" but I know he was laughing at me trying to be sporty on the paddleboard and was secretly hoping I would fall hard so he could capture the shot :)

family in stripes - Janie was sleeping!

Even big girls (Francie) need snuggles

beach baby with a conch shell

Maisie looking like a big girl

Little Miss Thang (she was singing "I wear an itsy bitsy teeny weeny stars and blue striped bikini")

Night time with my JJ (don't worry Dad - it's over 4 feet of water)

wish we were there again!!!

Holiday Parties at Bumble

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I've been slacking with lackluster posting this week- we've been wrapped up in the holiday craziness - especially at Bumble (which means work, not play, but I'm not complaining about the business for Bumble) We had some fun holiday parties with friends but mostly busy putting on a few big holiday events at Bumble. One night we had the whole place rented for a company party- imagine that NO kids! Here are some pictures - Christian helped me decorate for the holidays and for the "mature" crowd...

Chef Marc behind the counter

Santa Hat desserts! (saw this on Pinterest of course)





our favorite wines

Some of our talented servers and hostess for the evening!

the fish tank looks coolest at night - especially now that the snails are working hard eating algea. Francie and Maisie named every one of them Lola. We have almost 100 fish now- just waiting for some Puffers!

Still a few days/nights left to enjoy the holiday spirit at Bumble - come by for dinner or afternoon tea to enjoy it!

In my funny-looking, too-small, Bumble-theme Santa Hat - finally sitting down after the party and ready for BED. Thanks to everyone who helped pull off a great party

Bumble Holiday Tea

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Sunday we had a private event at Bumble in the morning and then a Holiday Tea for kids in the afternoon… and Santa made an appearance! It was a really fun day - I set home a photobooth, we had the kids make frames for the photos, we had gingerbread cookie decorating and TONS of kids running around! The crowd was smaller for Santa and the girls got to tell him what they wanted for Christmas.

here comes SANTA!! (in case anyone needed an espresso from the friendly Barista Martin while Santa was reading Llama Llama Holiday Drama… uhhhh you had to wait a few minutes.)

Story time in the playroom

Loves it from a distance and Dad's safe lap

Check out big girl JJ looking for trouble!

time for Santa's lap

Francie jumped right up "Hummm… I want a princess bike, princess roller-skates and an Ariel swimming pool." interesting choices.

Maisie would only go "hold Santa's hand" if Dad helped her...

but then busted out "Um Um Um - I want tink-r-bew rorrerskates and tink-r-bew bike and tink-r-bell swimming pool."

I love these little Maisie expressions :)

Janie - not so sure about this big guy! Looked at him for awhile and then signed "ALL DONE!"

Cousin Clara's turn! She wanted to go with Uncle Brian too.

fun day at Bumble

THANKS SANTA!!!

more photobooth funniness...

Sarah, Clara and Caroline! I love this shot of all three of them… too bad I forgot to take any pictures of the cute tea party!!

Heff and the girls (he also gets credit for the cute festive outfit coordinating while I was at Bumble getting ready :)

This was my favorite photobooth picture - "JJ look at the camera!" poor child

It's a trend

My babes

Tis the Season

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A quick re-cap on our December so far... as you can see FISBEE (our friendly Elf on a Shelf) showed up for the third year in a row. Man I love this guy! He flys home to Santa every night, reports the good and bad behavior and then comes to a new spot in our house every morning for the girls to find him. Someone (not me- maybe Heff ;) is very good at remembering this every morning!

We still have the tantrums, bad behavior and oops around here...

but on the 9th day of Christmas Fisbee left a little early reminder that it's the Christmas season - he left 9 Christmas books on the mantel for the girls to pick at bedtime for the next 9 nights. (I saw this idea on another blog- of course that mom did 24 books and hand wrapped every one with a note from their elf - I clicked on her amazon suggestions, opened the box on the doorstep and threw them on the mantel this morning. Other blog mom wins.)

I'm still cranking away at Bumble (when does this restaurant business get easier!!?) but Emmy is such a rockstar with the girls in the mornings!!!

They take Ariel and "Mersa" (Maisie's favorite doll who she is usually pretend-nursing) to the park

and play house with them. Emmy is the grandma. (Francie told Maisie she was the dad and Maisie goes "I'm not a boy!" and Francie said "Well you look like one with that haircut.") tears followed

Francie has one more day of preschool for the semester. She is still bringing home at least 3 rainbow paintings a day. and dressing herself complete with accessories, as you can see

Cousin Kate is working at Le Cirque so we get to see a lot of her which is a treat for us! She comes down at least once a week and makes the girls "cocktails" and paints their nails.

She also helped merchandise the shelves at Bumble for a little holiday shopping!

We sold out of these "chew beads" for mom's with teething babies to wear in a few days! Such great gifts... Buy them here!

We had sushi dinner with friends and JJ sat at the big kids table!

Francie and Maisie were invited to an ELEVEN year olds birthday party on Sunday in SF at Lovejoy's. It was a pretty big deal :) (thanks Hannah!)

Francie helped me dye pasta one night at Bumble for craft projects in the playroom. We were pretty proud of our rubbing alcohol and food coloring brightness (and she loved the rainbow obvi)

In the spirit of the season- we painted the kitchen. AGAIN. It was red (like the color around the switch plate). Heff said this was the first thing he remembers liking when we saw this house. When he was in Alaska I kind of accidentally painted it pale blue (it was supposed to be green-ish). No one really liked it. So we went back to red- but it's a "much better red" :)

We decorated the tree (as in planned to have a family night putting ornaments on it and drinking hot chocolate by the fire. but what ACTUALLY happened - Heff threw the lights on including one strand of Shotgun Shell lights Kat gave us as kind-of-a-joke and I questioned keeping up with the other strand on our whole living room tree? so he quit putting stuff on it and Emmy and the girls threw some ornaments on one morning. the rest are strewn around the living room. Same result kinda right? ;)

Emmy took these hilarious pictures in the cute Shigo-hand-me-down PJ's that say "Santa.. I can explain"

My little elves trying to get a Christmas card photo for Oma and Opa (I won't give too much away!)

Tis the Season! Now to start our Christmas shopping....

The Great Alaskan Adventure

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Heff and Donald set out on an un-guided 12 day adventure in interior Alaska in September on a search for a great big Moose. Brian had been planning this trip for years - it was supposed to happen in September 2010 but Kat was due with Oliver in October so they pushed it back a year. Brian and Donald were SO excited and we were all at home happy to get the updates they were a little farther down the river everyday. Heff gets so much out of these trips in the wilderness - it was hard for us to let him go (especially since it ended up being 2 days after I opened Bumble!) but I am happy he gets to do things like this and he has a brother in law who loves it just as much.

Brian made a great video documenting the trip...

Alaska - 2011 from B Heff on Vimeo.

and here is the short version in photos!

They flew into Fairbanks, then drove to Tok, then flew these little planes into the wilderness! The service that dropped them off hadn't flown anyone out to this remote spot in 50+ years.

Fueling up -

and away they go

dropped them off here and said:
"see you in 9 days, 30 miles down river."

off to chase a Moose

excited for 9 days of nothing but walking, floating, spotting, dragging rafts, camping out and hunting

They were supposed to "float" the river but the first 6 miles there wasn't enough water to float so they did this:

They set up camp every night somewhere along the river and did their best to hide their scent from the bears

Onward!

Finally some floating water

camp on the river - sleeping on rocks? ouch!

it got COLD- well below freezing every night.

morning Four Barrel coffee (from Bumble :) early on the river

Donald thought he was going to strike it rich panning for gold with a dinner plate. Didn't "pan out" :)

Nap time on the river

Heff had a satellite phone to check in every night, 2 GPS devices, a satellite text GPS and a Spot locator. He texted me messages every once in awhile - I was pretty excited to see this one (half excited for them to get a moose and half excited that it means they might come home a day earlier :)

waiting

and there he is! 1800 pound HANK THE MOOSE

they shot him at 8:30pm and came back early to start the gutting process

I'll spare you the photos in between the shoot and the clean

packed up ready to take Hank home (at least a lot of meat, his antlers and cape - other meat went to the pilots and locals and the bears and wolves enjoyed a warm gut pile :)

and these are going to fit in our living room?

bringing home the bacon-i-mean-moose

pretty beautiful place! 10 points to Heff and Donald for taking such good pictures :)

The Outtakes

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Sunday after the Christmas tree expedition Jannie was intent on getting a picture of all three girls for her Christmas card... let's just say we didn't even come close! The girls were tired and not cooperating, not that a 4, 2.5 and 9 month old ever cooperate for photos unless Emmy works her magic. My mom said it reminded her of trying to get Aunt Mimi to help her shoot a Christmas picture of me, James and Jerry and we were so annoying Mimi walked out mad as can be at us! I know the feeling :) But at least we got some entertaining outtakes...

this was Francie's idea. She must have been surfing the web at awkward family photos.com too much lately

cone heads

get me outta here

Jannie bribed with the candy drawer. Didn't work so much

maybe if they are contained in the crib?

NOPE.

Not a chance

love the band-aids Maisie

If we give JJ an apple Francie already gnawed on?

FORGET IT

"How about an Ariel smile?" works for Number 1. Number 2 has to see what an Ariel smile really looks like instead of looking at the camera

NO WAY JOSE

Maybe if we distract them with the christmas figures the girls look for on the windowsil every year

NOT THAT EITHER!

WE TRIED! Little stinkers...