December Updates

New pictures have been added, both to the 05-November Photo Album (I added Thanksgiving weekend pictures, portraits that were taken at Marcia & Larry’s anniversary brunch, and pictures from Mikaela’s preschool Thanksgiving program); and a few pictures in the new 05-December Photo Album.  Also, I’m making an early New Year’s Resolution to do more frequent blog updates this year.  Here’s an early start – a cute Mikaela anecdote:

Mikaela is quite the drama queen.  We’ve known that for some time now.  But lately, she’s started something new.  She will quote movie lines to you, in what seems to her to be perfect context.  Over Thanksgiving Break, on a day that we needed to stay inside because it was cold and snowy out and Mikaela had a cold, we spent the morning watching Mikaela’s favorite movie of the moment, Shrek2 (which she calls, "New Shrek").  Later, we got out the watercolors and Mikaela developed her own unique painting style.  She would carefully paint her hand with the brush, and then stamp her hand onto the paper.  When Mikaela had had enough of that, we scrubbed her hands to get the watercolor off.

A few minutes later, Mikaela wanted to finger paint.  Having just cleaned up paint, I told her no and that she needed to choose something else to play with.  After insisting, "But I WANT it!" several times, and still being told, "No," Mikaela stomped off to her playroom.  But as soon as she got there, she turned around and stomped back to the Great Room, crossed her arms across her chest, and with her poutiest face looked right at me and shouted "I’ve made changes for you, just think about that!" – almost a direct quote from the movie – and stomped off again.  (I had to work REALLY hard to supress the laugh, but she still didn’t get to finger paint).

Here’s the scene from the movie:
Princess Fiona: You know, you are acting like a… a…
Donkey: Go on, say it.
Princess Fiona: Like an ogre!
Shrek: Well, whether your parents like it or not, I am an ogre!
[growls at the dog to shut it up]
Shrek: And guess what, princess? That’s not about to change.
Princess Fiona: I’ve made changes for you, Shrek. Think about that.
[she leaves]
Donkey: Real smooth, Shrek. "I’m an ogre! Arrr!"