Christmas Morning!

I didn't have to work or be on-call for the holiday for the first time since Lily was born. It was so nice to laze about and not feel rushed. My family came and we had a nice time opening presents and eating in the crowded house.













A purple drum set, a stuffed animal tea party
finally a dog bed (We hadn't trusted she wouldn't eat it, but Santa apparently had more faith in Miss Cookie and you can see that Santa was right. That is a dog who wanted a bed by the fire!)

















Thank goodness the snow cone maker arrived on Santa's sleigh. Georgia's mouth was numb and purple from her multiple snow cones.
Lily made a little nativity scene out of critters.



Georgia eating the ribbon candy I was talking about! My sister brought some for the girls. It is still lovely and still not that tasty (to me, Georgia was sold on it.)


The trampoline goes up!



















Getting too dark to put up the enclosure, hopefully we'll do it sometime soon.

Someone is tired of photos.

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve

We all had Christmas Eve off together. We took a walk that lasted much longer than we had planned (the bridge Rob led us to was surrounded by cold mucky marsh) so we had to turn back, hungry and tired. But it was nice to be out in the chilly sun and I was thrilled not to be wrapping presents, which is how I usually spend the day, but I had done a few late-night wrapping episodes and I was free to enjoy the holiday, which was very novel for me.

The fungus above reminds me of ribbon candy our grandmother used to give us on Christmas. It didn't taste very good but it was beautiful. (The candy of my memory; I did not eat the fungus)

















It seems that the beavers are back, chewing the trees so they look like enormous sharpened pencils.

Lily in the setting sun, still smiling on our way home.

Happy Solstice!!

The shortest day.
I can't believe it, it's been so mild and already the year is turning back to light.
Happy Winter!


I took Cookie for a long daytime walk which I haven't done for a bit because life has been so busy.

I was trying to get a clip of the lovely sound of the stream running, but instead Cookie was bounding over the water and shooting through the woods in an adorable way so I captured that instead. Enjoy!

Georgia's pleas

A friend of Georgia's got an early visit from Santa clause and talked about it at school. Apparently he came, left some reindeer hoof prints and a curling iron, so the girl suddenly had glorious curls.
This killed Georgia.
She was furious that someone got special treatment and wanted Santa to come to her house early, too.

She left out this note each bedtime and then scoured the house looking for her slushie maker.

(What? Why the hell does she need a last minute slushie maker? And why would someone have Santa come early and torture the other children around them? I ask you? Is there not enough going on?)

Santa did not come to our house early.

Hopefully a slushie maker is coming on Santa's sleigh. I went to the office at their school to sign in and both the secretary and the nurse separately told me they really hoped Santa was bringing Georgia a slushie maker.
This surprised me and let me know my child is quite vocal at school.

They told me they had asked Georgia's teacher's aide if maybe they should give me a call so I knew how much she wanted one and he replied "I'm sure she knows." He was right, but I was very touched that they both knew what she wanted and thought I should know. Sweet!

Christmas carols in the neighborhood

It was raining and I was ready to bail on our plans to carol up the street, but my friends were willing, the kids were ready, so out we went.
The rain held off for us and we spread holiday cheer. Some recipients had been prepared for our coming, but some we surprised.
The candles blew out and we didn't know the songs quite as well as we thought we did, but it was really fun.
We'll do it again next year!

Walk to clear the head

after the hot busy frenzy of Georgia's birthday party.

Lily's new leopard coat actually camouflaged her down by the river!
Cookie was thrilled to be out. (Poor thing, we had to leave her in her crate in the car because I didn't want her jumping up on children and stealing all the food.)




Someone leaves all these stone cairns along the mushroom walk. I love the surprising shapes of the odd towers among the trees. I think I know who does it but I don't want to ask him. I enjoy it being a mystery.

























Rob throwing logs and breaking things on the walk as he likes to do. (He's actually clearing the branches so he can get his bike over the tree.)

We came home and cleaned up.
Georgia was sad her Grandparent's gift to her had not arrived on Saturday like it was supposed to (and like the online tracking said it would!)
It was Sunday, but amazingly the post office truck pulled into our driveway and handed the hopping-up-and-down-Lily a package for Georgia. Hooray! Her Bitty baby had arrived! She was happy and spent the rest of the evening playing with her new toys, while we parents cleaned up and got ready for Monday.