I try hard not to pigeon-hole the girls into any kind of category, but I do find myself thinking of Anissa as the athletic one and Elianne as the more "girly" of the two. I really should give Eli more credit though: she's tinier than Anissa was at this age and not nearly as physical, but she makes up for some of that with her determination. This weekend, for example, we spent both Saturday and Sunday afternoons out enjoying the sun, sledding and skating. We had some little skates I had bought for Anissa in New Hampshire and never used, so we brought them along thinking Eli would last a few minutes then Mehdi would pull her around in the sled. She surprised us, though, with her stamina and enthusiasm. After over an hour skating on Saturday, mostly pushing a chair, she graduated to skating on her own by Sunday. (And thanks to our friend Wendy, whose little girl Sydney is pushing the chair beside Anissa and I, we have photos to mark the occasion - I have been so lazy about taking photos lately!)

Happy 2010!

We had a lovely crowd of friends attend our first ever New Year's Afternoon/Eve Open House, and did a countdown at 9 (we yelled, "Happy New Year in Nova Scotia!") in case the kids, especially the younger ones, didn't make it until midnight. Turns out they all made it for the real thing, with the exception of Elianne who finally succumbed to sleep at about 11:50.

After the confetti had been swept up from the party and the champagne flutes put away, we spent a wonderful few days doing absolutely NOTHING. We hadn't done that in a long time and it was sooo great. Thus we had time for such pursuits as the game Elianne accidentally invented one morning: "Shoot the hair elastic at the popcorn ceiling and see if it sticks". Good times.