Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Auld Lang Syne

Happy New Year! Since I have no real new information to offer, I have decided to bring you the following stream of consciousness style blog post to usher in 2009:

Item 1: Why do you suppose our dryer has a setting for "very dry"? I mean, it's either dry, or it is not yet dry, am I right?
Item 2: Our neighbors seem to be ringing in the New Year with lots of bass. Sorry we won't be here tonight to enjoy more of that.

Item 3: Max is currently dancing to Roy Orbison, very very passionately, while wearing nothing but a Batman tee-shirt. This is weird because I have no idea how Roy Orbison came to be on our TV in the first place, and because I am not sure that I personally am inspired by Roy Orbison to the rhythmic frenzy that Max is clearly feeling, and because oh my God Max is really shaking his naked buns hither and yon like they are the proverbial Polaroid picture. My life is amusing.
Item 4: Now Maggie is also dancing. She just called Roy Orbison "Dada". The glasses, maybe?

Item 5: We finished watching Indiana Jones and The Crystal Skull last night. It was our fourth attempt to make it through the movie without falling asleep or needing to tend to wakeful offspring. So few movies are worth that kind of fricking effort.
Item 6: We got a new espresso machine from my dad for Christmas. Ian loves it. A lot. I think he has been sneaking out into the kitchen to sleep with it at night. We have, in related news, been drinking quite a lot of espresso. I offer this as an excuse for items 1-5.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I hope your New Year celebrations are at least as exciting as this blog post. Happy Aught Nine!

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Holly Jolly Christmas: Tillmanstyle

'Tis three days after Christmas
and I am still
so very tired
so I hope that you will
accept this here bounty
of photos and then
I will write a better story
after I sleep again.


Christmas Eve morning

Playtime at Granny and Gramps' house

Maggie "helps" make the Christmas Eve feast

Christmas snuggle

Making cookies for Santa

Decorating cookies for Santa

One for Max

And one for Santa. It's covered in frozen blueberries, in case you are studying the picture and thinking What in God's name is all over that cookie? while feeling alarmed and/or disgusted.

Letter to Santa.

The stockings were hung by the futon with care. (Take special note of Granny's mismatched pyjamas. She enjoys it when people notice that sort of thing.)

Stockings all in a row.

Reading "'Twas The Night Before Christmas".

Christmas morning, far too early.

Opening presents. Maggie got a baby doll and baby doll accessories. Santa enjoyed taking a trip down the girly aisle this year! And, as a special Christmas bonus, take in my uncombed hair. It was the liveliest thing in the entire house.

Well, maybe the second liveliest.

Max picked out the cloth for Ian's jammy pants, which, now that I think about it, are at least a tie with my wild hair for liveliness.
Gramps made waffles for breakfast, with a side of every single kind of food in the entire universe. If you look in the background, you can see Maggie impaling a bite of ham. She said her first and sassiest multi-sentence conversation item on Christmas during breakfast, when asked if she was going to eat a bite of something. "No", she replied firmly, stabbing herself more ham. "I don't like it. It's yucky." Ian and I are in for bad, bad trouble with that girl, and you should pray for us daily.

To sum up: Merriment abounded.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Merry Winter Holiday Of Your Choice


We are headed over to Granny and Gramps' house tomorrow, to spend the night there. Max's itinerary includes (but is not limited to) a)making gingerbread men, some of which are for Santa and some of which are for Max and one crumb of which might be for Maggie, b)waiting for Santa, c)basking in the love of Granny and Gramps, a love which allows for greater freedom and more frequent treats than his parents', and d)waiting for the snow (we have told him that this is unlikely, even throwing in a whole hemispheric, north/south, weather-pattern explanation, but he is not convinced). Maggie's itinerary, as best as I can tell, includes a)pretending to be a doggy ("I a doggy! Woof woof woof woof woof!"), b)demanding gingerbread cookies ('Mine! Mine! I try it, Guys? Pleeeeaaaasssee? I got it! Mine!"), c) basking in the aforementioned Granny and Gramps love, and d) sleeping even less than usual in an unfamiliar bed. I am very excited to see their wee faces on Christmas morning. Merry Christmas, Internet!

Friday, December 19, 2008

And To You Your Wassail Too

(Incidentally, wassail is apparently a festive spiced cider, traditionally served around Christmas. According to Ian.)

So. Hi. I have received many an email, postcard, phone call, smoke signal, regarding my neglect of this here blog, and it has, to be fair, been a long while. Shortly after we last spoke, The Tillman 4 hightailed it to Ian's parents' new house for Thanksgiving. We took the train, which had it's good points (comfy seats, sense of adventure, etc.), and it's bad points (some of our luggage decided to travel to Los Angeles, which is not, by the way, where we were going, and also eight hours in an enclosed train car with two small children is OH MY GOD A REALLY LONG TIME). We had a lovely time and there are many lovely pictures of our lovely children cavorting with their lovely cousins, and all of that loveliness deserves its own blog post which will hopefully happen shortly. If we know you, like you, and know your address, you probably got a Christmas card from us featuring a picture of us with a beach behind us, and the beach was near Ian's parents' house. Further pictures will have to wait. Both kids are currently napping -- hey! Max takes naps again! Did I mention? -- but Maggie is an unreliable sleeper, so we could be interrupted any moment. Treasure this time, people.

When we got back from Thanksgivingfest '08, we went and got our Christmas tree. We cut down our own this year, which was exciting, and we are sort of inexperienced tree-cutters, so we had some good times wrestling the tree into the tree stand. ("Dada got a little mad at the tree. But now he likes it!" Max informed me the next day.) The jolliness of hunting and gathering our own fresh tree helped me to cope with the fact that, once again, we were forced to choose a miniature tree this year. Even I, who lobby for the biggest tree we can fit in our apartment every year, had to admit that our determined little mountain goat of a daughter could not be trusted not to climb to the highest bough and hang there like the world's cheekiest Christmas ornament. So the tree is out of her reach, but she walks up to one or the other of us every 30 seconds, clasps her hands and lifts her big, earnest eyes up to us, and says, "More treee? Please treee? Yeah, yeah Santa!" until we pick her up and admire the tree with her for fifteen minutes or until something in our back gives out, whichever comes first. And yes, Maggie absolutely speaks with the level of clarity dictated above. I am not exaggerating. The other day, I was negotiating with her while we were in line at the store, and some lady behind me laughed and said, "it's so funny, it sounds just like she's talking to you!" Um, yeah.

Max is super excited for Christmas. Relatively fresh from his birthday, he understands enough now to anticipate presents, and cookies, and he has holiday spirit to spare. We have talked about making cookies for Santa, and he is agreeable, as long as Santa doesn't get ALL the cookies. Ian told him that Santa comes down the chimney to bring toys, but that if you don't have a chimney, Santa comes through the Internet. Max was initially dubious ("but he will get squished!"), but now accepts this and all other Santa-related discrepancies because Santa is "very very magical".

So, I have now given you a blog post, with witty narrative, heart-warming Christmas cheer, and a festive color redesign for the holiday season.

And now that you no longer need to send me grouchy emails about falling off the face of the Internet, feel free to fill that hole in your busy schedule with bothering Ian by discussing how much he looks like the Grinch in this picture. Feliz Navidad.

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Happy Birthday, Joseph!

We miss you already.