Love This Tradition (350/365)

The girls currently have three Advent Calendars/count downs till
Christmas (chocolate, create Santa's beard, nightly stories about
Christmas), but I think I like this one the best.

Last year I found a set of ornaments that you read on a night leading
up to Christmas. It's all about the biblical story of Christmas, and
the girls love reading it each night, and then finding a spot on the
tree for the book.

I'm betting they also like the Daddy cuddle time as well!

Paging Dr. Who! (349/365)

Alice got to pick up a new doctor kit today.

I promised her that if she could help me go through her old toys and give some away

that I would get her a new doctor kit when we were finished

(her old one was down to three unbroken items).

We bagged up 4 large garbage bags full and donated them!!

She totally earned that new kit and she's been playing with it all day!

I finally finished Alice's scarf last night.

I ended up doing a stockinette stitch so it really curled up on me width wise.

So to remedy that, I just made it super long so I could loop it around her neck several times.

The resulting scarf rivals that of Dr. Who.

Ok maybe it's not THAT long.

It actually doesn't look half bad once it's wrapped around her neck.

In fact, I have been wearing it all day long (it's chilly, even in the house)

and it's mighty toasty as well.

O Christmas Tree (348/365)

It's small and it's hard to view it from a good angle because our house is small, but we love it. Someday when we have a larger house we'll have a bigger tree, but for how this one suits us well.

I Think We May Finally Be Ready For Christmas (347/365)

Cookies are made, decorations are up, there's a chill in the air, and snow on the ground. Today Alice and I bagged up 4 full bags of toys to donate, and boy does it feel good to get all of that clutter and unused stuff out of my house! Too bad the good feeling won't last with Christmas coming, but at least the clutter won't be compounded once the presents are opened.

We Decorated Cookies Today (346/365)

They may not taste as good as homemade, but we sure did have fun making them!! Also, with all the mini M&Ms Izzy ate it's no wonder she hardly touched her dinner (for a while there it seemed like she was going "one for you, and one for me...").

Freaking Internet (345/365)

Be back later when it's working.

ADDENDUM:

The girls looking fabulous in Grandma Susie's aprons.
They both ate this up.

We cheated this year and bought sugar cookie dough in a tube instead of making it ourselves so we could skip to the fun part of decorating. The girls will enjoy them and that's what matters. With foldovers, puppy chow, cream cheese cake mix chocolate chip cookies, fudge, and peanut butter blossoms I think we're ok in the sweets department.

Besides, I prefer a drop sugar cookie recipe that can be found in
Grandpa Rice's nursing home cook book to roll out sugar cookies any day.

Even Izzy got in on the fun. She was most hysterical when I had the mixer running. Silly girl spun her head round and round trying to either keep her eye on the paddle, or she was imitating it.

No, we did not drop her on her head when she was younger.
She's a Bathje, she comes by it honestly.

Tomorrow will likely again be spent at home instead of at my in-laws. We're supposed to get a bad winter storm and we will not brave the storm if it's as bad as they say it's going to be. I planned on this actually so I didn't have to finish the foldovers tonight as my back was killing me and foldovers can be time consuming. If I get through with that and feel inspired I'll hopefully at least get the fabric for Kay's present cut. Cross your fingers that I don't mess it up this time and have to get even more fabric!

So I'm Going to Make Puppy CHOW Tomorrow (344/365)

and I really wish a special little girl was here so she could help me again. Vacation just didn't last long enough this year, or being sick for most of it made me not able to enjoy it as much.

Miss you, Kay.

Well I Was Right (343/365)

The cats got to the toy and shredded the string before the girls even
had a chance to play with it this morning. Oh well. They still had
fun chucking a foam brain around the house.

This evening I wasted about two hours attempting to make Kaylee's
Christmas present. It wasn't until I got a good chunk of it done that
I realized I totally miscalculated and would need to start over. Looks
like it's back to the craft store for me tomorrow!

Our plans for the weekend are as follows:

Make Trinity Church chicken salad
Finish up Christmas shopping
Sew Kay's gift
Bake Christmas cookies
Watch Inception

If it's all we do this weekend I'll be a happy camper.

Anyone Up For a Game of Paddle Brain? (342/365)

Oh the geeky things Daddy brings home from a long day at work for his
girls. Wouldn't you know it - they both fought over the damn thing
they loved it so much. If the cat doesn't get to it tonight (she is
notorious for attacking and chewing up anything string-like) I have a
feeling I may be breaking up a few fights over it tomorrow.

Oh well, if all else fails at least I can tie them up with it if I have to.

Getting Around to it (341/365)

I could probably write blog posts until the end of the year filling them with pictures that I have taken with the camera and not the phone and never got around to posting them. Yeah, I'm guilty of it. BIG TIME. Hell I still have pics that I took of cousin Jen's newborn from last year (he's slightly younger than Izzy) that I haven't gotten around to looking at to edit, let alone send her a CD of them (sorry, hon!). So I'm far behind, I know, but at least I'm getting around to it now. Here are some pics from when we were in J'ville.

I didn't break out the camera often enough since I didn't feel well most of the time I was there, so this is what you get.

Lil Miss Piano woman. She LOVES to tickle the ivories.

Oh, and Grandma's iPad too. The kid is OBSESSED with technology.

We wore her out!! And Auntie was frequently the person she preferred the most.
You've got competition, Grandpa!

Playing "doctor" to the girls involved tying each other up with Grandma's yarn.

Alice (poorly) trying to escape from the Uncle Mike Monster.

Auntie Racheal read many, many stories to the girls in our week together.

Most of the time they shared pretty well.

We miss you guys.
Every one of you.

Sneak Peek (340/365)

This is an outtake from the little photoshoot I did with the girls this past weekend. It's a taste of what's to come in your mailbox sometime soon. I was lazy and didn't create my own design this year and just let Shutterfly do all the work, but I'm pretty happy with how they turned out - despite everyone being sick!

Thank Goodness For iPhones and Kleenex (339/365)

Matt's got the evil disease that I'm still trying to shake and now HE
sounds like Marge Simpson. I'm kind of thankful that the day when my
voice was at it's worst we were in separate cars on our way home from
J'ville because Matt didn't have much opportunity to have fun at my
expense. We spent the whole day at home together - needless to say
Matt wasn't as lucky. Oh now I wasn't hard on him, I just did a lot
of, "What was that?" and pretending not to hear him. So far he doesn't
seem to be hit as hard by it as I was, hopefully the trend continues
and he can shake it quickly.

This post made possible by the fine people at AT&T (stupid internet
not working).

The Tree is Trimmed…(338/365)

The house is decorated, it smells like pine, the ground is covered in
a beautiful blanket of snow. It sure is beginning to look a lot like
Christmas around here.

Because I Didn't Post Them Last Week (337/365)

And because I'm currently sick to my stomach (ugh!) and not in the
mood to post anything else, here's Izzy looking damn cute in Charles's
hat last Saturday.

I Think They're Feeling Better (336/365)

Though Izzy is still having GI trouble, they sure had a fabulous day!