Anika, where are you?!

The Christmas holiday was more like a Roman holiday with festivities extending through the weekend. Santa Claus made not one, but TWO appearances--and there were about twenty pounds of cheese consumed in five days thanks to cheese FUNdue, lobster mac-and-cheese, hor d'oeuvres, pizza, cheese fondue again--even the stuffed mushrooms had cheese in them and on top of them. (Thank you to the Whole Foods cheese expert for teaching me that both grueyere and emmenthal are types of Swiss.)

Grami made the best meatballs (no eggs included!) and a tasty-before-you-serve-it avocado Christmas tree. Grampi did an incredibly special recording of songs like "Smile," "Edelweiss," and "You'll Never Walk Alone." Nana and Grampi--and Auntie Eileen--gave a goregous heirloom-to-be rocking chair and "The Very Smiley Snowman" to read in it. Grami and Grampi added to the rocking fun with the Imagine Me book series (pop ups AND removeable masks in all the books!). Thanks to Auntie Bonnie we are also rockin' to the beats of "Puff the Magic Dragon" - reading and listening to the CD that comes with the book at the same time!

Our primary present to Isabelle this year was a globe we bought in Rome this summer. It may seem obvious, but... all the globe locations are in Italian--and that's why we wanted it. I don't know when the idea came to us to collect for Isabelle globes in various languages, but this was the first time we were on the hunt. We found one at a small university book shop where the student behind the counter had to climb up a ladder to retrieve the dusty globe box from the top of the book stacks. It was an illuminating desk globe. A pretty crappy lookking thing when I looked more closely. Plastic. All plastic. But not for long! We brought it to Bird's Furniture in Falmouth -- and with the plastic globe in one hand and a drawing of a cherry wood base in the other, Larry (an extremely talented woodworker) created the most beautiful wooden floor stand and latitude/longitude markings. Daddy changed the plug, and that finished the job.

We had three Christmas trees up (my favorite: the kids' one topped with an Elmo puppet), and so you might think that assembly was our thing this year. But, no. There were several gifts Isabelle opened and loved playing with (pots and pans, play veggies) that had us muttering, "Wow. This would be so great IF she had a kitchen." In fact, she does have a kitchen (a red retro one), but it's in a box in the garage. Pathetic.

After 5 days with cousins Anika, RJ, Lexi, Elli and Ethan, Isabelle is still getting used to a quiet house. This morning, as soon as she got up, she began calling for Anika: "Dan--i-ka," "Dan-i-ka." Tonight, when we came home, the search became near frantic. Watch what happens outside the bedroom Anika had slept in: