6:30 am

This is what 6:30 am looks like at my house. Every day. In case you are wondering, he's a knight/Viking. How To Train Your Dragon has been a HUGE hit around here and we're really not sure how to contain this much raw Vikingness.
Erik told him dragons were real and they were called dinosaurs and Jacob has not been able to filter in the extinct thing and filter out the lack of fire-breathing/boiling-water-spewing/bone-napping. This is real. This is serious. Very dangerous, kill on sight. Unless it's a Night Fury, then do not engage.

Snow Shenanigans

Just try and convince Libby that snowy weather is not compatible with a skirt and tights.Why Maggie doesn't like snow... Daniel's last stand.

My creepy, armed snowman stalker who was built right by the back door and watches me through the window.

Christmas Day

Christmas Day we did the usual open presents, play with friends, miss our families and best of all was family Bible time with hymns!
The boys presents are part of our ongoing work to learn California culture and thus the boys will start baseball this year. In Texas it would be soccer and then PeeWee football but here it's all baseball.

Speak of the Devil and...

The girls and I were home alone and without power yesterday, which led to a day of creative activities and eerie quiet. No TV, no radio, no computer, no vacuum cleaner! I took the time to delve through the kids journals and scrapbooks and catch up while the girls styled my hair. This ended in me having to call a neighbor over to help unwind a wide-toothed comb from my hair as I pondered how bad I would look if we had to cut it out. As I walked the neighbor back home, (a nice way of saying "Thank you for not taking a picture and Tweeting what you just saw...") I saw my evil nemesis. Yes, this is the little.....dog....that bit me. The timing of its reappearance is quite providential as I am currently reading Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, no I'm not that much of a pretentious brat it was just the next thing on our book list. So the reason this is relevant is that Faust notices one day that a black poodle is following him and eventually you find out that the black poodle is actually the Devil. Wikipedia it if you don't believe me and consider it your moral obligation to never have a black poodle.