Our Post-Holiday Deer!

On the morning of December 27th, this gorgeous buck came to visit us. He was right outside our kitchen window. He came to investigate the birdseed that had fallen to the ground from one of our birdfeeders. But every time he lifted his head, his antlers tangled with the bird feeder and more birdseed fell to the ground. This magnificent fellow must have thought he'd hit the motherlode... "every time I lift my head, food falls from the sky!"

2009 Entry in World's Funkiest Gingerbread House Contest

Every year, G'ma Libby undertakes to make a gingerbread house with the girls (or whatever random assortment of children we have underfood on the given day!). This year was no exception, and the funkiness of these gingerbread houses just cannot be underestimated!

(Here's a flashback to last year's creation... The Ramshackle Gingerbread House).

And here are the scenes of this years' mayhem construction:












And the final product!

Christmas Day.

I didn't take a lot of pictures. I wasn't feeling very well, and actually wound up taking a long afternoon nap. Thank goodness, there was a surplass of capable adults to cook Christmas Dinner. Thanks Mom, Nina, Dave, Jim, Irv, and Jeremy for getting dinner put together without me.

Here are some photos from the day...

Christmas Pajamas!

We have made a little holiday tradition out of getting new Christmas pajamas on Christmas Eve. This year, I found some that I really liked, and they had them for grownups too, so I took a chance and ordered a set for the whole family. Daddy-J wasn't too thrilled, but I thought they were adorable!

Holiday Play (2009 Edition)

The girls had their school holiday play last week. It was so adorable. Miss D was a bird. K-Wiggles was part of a Hannukah party. M-Moo was an elf. Of course, the conditions for taking photos were terrible, but we took a bunch anyway.

Finishing the Christmas Tree

We got most of the Christmas Tree decorating done, but the angel for the top remained on the down-low. Finally, Austin and G'Pa Irv, working with a very tall ladder, got the angel installed.

And Austin got down safely!

Hannukah

The girls really got into Hannukah this year. In years past, we have just lit all of the candles of the menorah on one night, maybe said the prayer, hid some gelt, and did a present.

This year, the girls had been learning about Hannukah at school, and they knew that it was supposed to last for 8 nights, and they knew that the candles were supposed to be lit one every night, and they knew about playing dreidel. So we did the whole thing this year. We said the prayers every night. We lit the right number of candles on the menorah every night (in the right order, even!). We taught them how to play dreidel, and gave them gelt to play with.

They loved it!

Christmas Tree Hunting

Now that Hanukkah is over, we went to hunt down our Christmas tree today. It was a fabulously beautiful day here today, 46 degrees was the high, and we saw nothing but bright blue skies and sunshine.

A short drive higher into the mountains brought us to a lovely snow-packed hiking trail. About an hour or so of hiking (we probably went a good mile or so up into a canyon) brought us to our beautiful (and very tall -- they never look so tall out in the woods) Christmas tree.