Dezemberfest

We have heard reports that a smurf-eating miscreant in a stunning red gown has been set loose in this area, wreaking havoc on New Haven's population of industrious blue diminutives. Katharine wore this dress when I graduated from law school and in recent days often wakes up sounding imperious demands that she be robed in her "'drayshun dress."

The sainted Sister Joyce Thomas has made herself a heroine in our household by buying each of the girls a new Sunday dress. The girls overwhelmed Sister Thomas with such an effusion of appreciation and applause that she repeated the performance a few weeks later. Here's Julia posing in dress #2. We have a real problem enforcing the dresses' "Sunday only" status.

Here is Katharine being cool and Julia being beautiful. Common roles both for both girls.

Six cheeks that fairly cry out to be kissed.

Here's Eli joyfully living the vita contemplativa. Within this tranquil exterior swirl torrents of vivacity and fire.

Katharine, it might surprise some readers, has a formidable streak of impishness. Earlier today she ran around in an undershirt and a diaper singing what she thought was a merry tune from Aladdin. "Prince Ah-yee! Ada-bu!" she burbled as she pumped her arms and wiggled her shoulders. We don't mind Katharine's relentless rounds of song and dance and sound, however; we have learned that her silence portends much more mischief.

Julia continues to be a marvel of inquisitive industry. We had a bit of a problem recently with the health of her hair, and Julia knew, from her mother's example, where to look for answers. Last Sunday Julia and I joined the ward choir together, and today we sang in the sacrament meeting Christmas program. Julia sang soprano, literally in the midst of a handful of world-class opera stars. Not a bad way, we reckon, for a kid to learn to sing. I sang tenor, following my neighbor and trying hard to stay on tune. Afterward we congratulated ourselves on staying, as he put it, "within three standard deviations or so of our notes."

Eli, needlessly to say, was insanely jealous of Julia's ward choir debut. She made a menace of herself in the pews (actually we just have folding chairs), pointedly refusing to whisper and at one point calling out, much to the merriment of the family in the neighbor row, that "Julia is not even going to be an opera singer like I am!"

But being the middle child does have some perks. Eli gets to stay home with Katharine while Julia goes to school, and the two younger girls have become (most of the time) great friends. Here's Katharine making Eli feel special as only Katharine can.

A source of inexhaustible hilarity for both girls is to have Eli climb into Katharine's crib.

About a month ago Katharine felt like there was no better way to see my mom off on her return trip to Utah than with a momentous left hook.

Who could get angry with, or even correct or reprove, a face like this?