Christmas!

Well, a very exciting Christmas was had by all. Sophie was REALLY into it this year, so it was lots of fun. However, it was a bit confusing to her - Santa, the Bumble, the Grinch, the Whos down in Whoville, St. Nick vs. Santa, what exactly do elves do? Buddy the Elf ("The Buddy Show"), Rudolph vs. the other reindeer, the 12 days of Christmas (Me: "It's not Christmas yet"; S: "But there are 12 days of Christmas, Mama.").

Add into the mix that Sophie thought Santa really wanted her to be a Christmas Princess Witch (her own creation) for Christmas and that she needed a cape and a crown and a wand. So, in addition to the other gifts I was attempting to make, there was a cape and a crown thrown in.

I didn't get a very good photo of the cape, but here is the crown...

She was THRILLED by every single present and it got to be overwhelming because everything was her absolute favorite present ever and she wanted to play with everything as soon as they were unwrapped. The problem was that there were lots more gifts to open. Maybe next year we'll open one at a time, give the kids a chance to play with things and then go back and open another one.

She asked Santa for dinosaurs and unicorns. Luckily, Santa has heard about Playmobil.

My mom bought her a vet kit and she also got her a vet coat and mask, complete with a badge with "Dr. Sophia (last name)" on it. HUGE hit. My dad is a vet, so he helped her give her new stuffed puppy shots and pills and check for his heartbeat.

You can see another favorite present in that last photo - a learning cash register. All the cousins played and played and played with that. And we didn't even put batteries in it until we got home. I kind of like it without batteries. The main game seemed to be to have one person be the cashier and another person (or people) would tell the cashier what they wanted to buy. There is a little scale on it, so the cashier would weigh the item and then tell them how much it costs. Pretty much everything cost 48 cents.

One of her absolute favorite games right now is Zingo! - a gift from our family in OR. She wanted to play it over and over and over again.

The kitties stayed at my dad's clinic while we were at my parents' house. We decided to put them in separate cages because Tabitha needed a little breather from her "shadow". Fiona adores Tabs and must keep her within eyesight at all times. They handled the clinic stay okay but were so happy to be home again.

Hmm, what else? Oh, Sophie's favorite songs at the moment (partly because we've been listening to the John Denver's Muppets Christmas CD - "12 Days of Christmas", "Christmas is Coming" (S: "Mama, do you want to sing: "Christmas is coming the goose is getting fat pleased to put a penny in the old man's hat?"), "Rudolph", "Frosty the Snowman".

We also had 3 different advent calendars this year. One fantastic felt and sequin creation my mom made when we were kids, a paper chain one to count down the days and a Santa face one where you glue cotton balls to Santa's beard.

In other news, I've signed onto Twitter and Facebook after much reluctance. It has been fun to catch up with old friends but man, what a time-sucking experience.

I hope you all had a fantastic holiday season.

I'll upload photos of the various craft projects soon.

Snow Report

Well, we got another 5-6" yesterday so it brings the total for the weekend close to two feet. It's hard to tell for sure because it was very, very windy last night.

Aaron stepped out this morning at 6 only to figure out that the snowblower was too low in gas to start. So, he bundled up even more and walked down the hill to the gas station, filled up his can, and walked back up. The new beast made nice work of the 3 foot wall the snow plow had left for us at the end of the driveway.

I managed to make a few of the gifts I had had planned, but the double whammy snowstorms cut short my plans to buy more supplies this weekend. So, I'm making do with what I have and am buying some additional gifts to fill out everyone's stockings.

Christmas cards are going out tomorrow. ;)

Snowstorm Update

Well, we got a doozy last night and Aaron has been chomping at the bit to get outside and blow his little heart out. It hasn't stopped snowing since about 1:30 yesterday afternoon, but it slowed down a tiny bit. He just measured and there is 11" out there right now.

We're due for another 6-10" tomorrow. Good thing I bought wine and beer yesterday, eh?

We also baked and decorated some gingerbread cookies (I made the dough last weekend but we never got to them - it's been sitting in the fridge all week).

The whole time we were cutting and decorating the cookies, Sophie kept wanting to try little pieces of the dough and to try the frosting. She kept telling me that I was the "most beautiful mommy she'd ever met" - the girl's good, I tell you. Butter me up so you can eat cookie dough.

Last week, I made some of the famous NY Times best chocolate chip cookie dough - the one everyone was talking about this fall? Only I didn't have to two different kinds of flour and I had regular chocolate chips. Anyhoo, the first batch I baked for a potluck at work sat in the fridge for 24 hours before baking and then today I just baked the rest - it sat for 6 days...the dough is kind of crunchy on the outside and super-chewy on the inside. It's a great recipe. If you can let the dough sit for a few days, something chemical happens and it just becomes more and more incredible.

Fiona!

Update - new kitten! Ice storm!

Well, I have photos of the snow blower and a video of Aaron seeing it for the first time but they are still on my camera.

I also have photos of our new kitten, Fiona, but they are on the camera, too.

We've been quite busy and our house looks like it has weathered a storm. A storm of cookies and flour and chocolate and gingerbread houses and frosting and Christmas trees. It was a whirlwind weekend.

We had a bit of a storm (outside) Thursday night - we got lots of sleet and slush and everyone around us got full-on ice and mayhem. Aaron got his big snow blower and then still had to shovel because you can't really blow slush.

My parents were stranded at their house because there was a downed power line blocking the road - they could walk under it, but they couldn't fit their cars under. They lost power, along with 103% (strange statistics at the WMECO website) of their neighbors.

Lots of people couldn't make it into work on Friday and there were lots of stories about states of emergencies and the National Guard and how long will food keep in a refrigerator without power?

Saturday, we drove down to my dad's clinic to pick up little Fiona. She's a black tortoiseshell (I think that is the term for her markings) who is very, very quiet. She didn't meow the whole time in the car.

We ended up driving from the clinic up to my parents' house with my brother's car. Aaron parked it on the other side of the downed power line so that they had something to drive. All the way up the mountain - nothing. No snow, no ice, nothing. We were starting to not believe that they were actually stranded when, boom!, we must have hit the next elevation level because it was all of a sudden like we'd entered another realm.

It looked like someone had tried to wage a battle with the Ice Queen and had lost, handily. Everything was covered in incredibly thick ice and trees were down all over the place and huge branches, branches that should not have fallen down, were laying across the road and on houses and on trucks and cars. Pure destruction.

We slowly made our way up their hill to the sound of huge chunks of ice ricocheting off the roof of our car as it fell from the trees. More downed power lines that we could weave our way around until we got all the way up to their house. My mom met us wearing chain-like grips on her boots and using her ski poles for balance. The sound of snapping and crackling and crashing was intense in the woods around our parked cars. We tried to convince my mom to stay at my brother's house (power! food! water! warmth!) while he was out of town. We then made our way back down the mountain and all the way home. Fiona was silent the entire time. We're used to cats pitifully meowing while we drive, so we kept checking to make sure she was okay.

She was a rescued farm kitty, so playing possum must be her defense mechanism.

She hid in the big cat carrier for most of the day Saturday. We would gently pull her out and hold her and she'd purr and purr and purr and stay on us. She'd stay on us as long as we'd let her. She eventually got comfortable and would snooze all sprawled out. She has beautiful markings - her face is divided evenly down her nose - one side is all black and the other has tan and brown and orange markings. It makes a perfect line down her nose. Her nose is split in half - one side is pink and one side is black. She has little yellow eyes that are kind of close together and I think she looks like a little owl when she glances around.

She was much more frisky Sunday and much more comfortable. Lots of playing and frolicking by the end of the day. Still very spooked and panicky, but when we're calm and holding her, she warbles and purrs and squeaks. Still not meowing - just sort of squeaking.

Tabitha is tolerating her. She's not attacking her, which is a good sign. But there's been lots of hissing and growling and walking. very. slowly. by. the. tiny. intruder. She'll also some down and watch Fiona like a hawk while she's playing. Fiona really, really wants to play with Tabitha, but Tabs is acting like a grumpy old lady for now.

I've forgotten how much fun kittens can be. The thumpety, thumpety, thumpety friskiness and the playing with everything all the time. All night long.

In other news, I'm still working on my Christmas cards and Christmas presents for the CA/OR families are being sent out today.

Snow tonight - Aaron's actually excited.

Happy Birthday Aaron!

Aaron turned 36 today! Woo hoo! He finally joins me in the over-35 group!

And, to celebrate his birthday and how wonderful he is, I've been talking to my family and his family since at least August about everyone contributing to a huge birthday/Christmas present for him. A frickin' enormous 8.5 HP snow blower. It's fierce and quite the monster.

And everyone did contribute what they could and I donated my birthday and Christmas gifts to the cause and we all managed to keep it a complete secret (not that hard, considering it's Aaron about whom we're talking) until this morning!

Here's a shorter version of what I sent everyone this morning:

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I ordered the snow blower and it was sitting, waiting, at the local hardware store with my name on it. He was at school and then at judo all day on Thursday, so I waited until I knew he had (finally...) left for school and then I drove to the hardware store. The super-awesome hardware store manager kindly offered to put it in his truck and bring it up to the house. Aaron doesn't get home until late on Thursday and we put it out back, under the covered patio area. I covered it with our big leaf tarp, just in case. The manager even threw in a big red bow! Love local companies.

And then this morning, I made sure it was all uncovered and the bow was attached and I turned on the outside lights. I had Sophie give him a card that said:

Roses are red,
My heart isn't (always) black,
Which is why I convinced everyone to help...
Save Your Back!

And then I wrote a big list of everyone's names down. The look on his face was priceless when it dawned on him. There was an arrow to look at the back of the card and it said. "Your present is waiting for you outside."

"No way!" "You've got to be kidding me!"

Best. Present. Ever.
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Happy Birthday, Aaron. I love you.

Sophie says... (plus recap)

My parents' house has mirrors lining the walls (sort of like the backsplash) in the dining room/bar area.

At Thanksgiving dinner, Sophie was enjoying watching herself eat and make faces in the mirror.

Aaron: "Sophie, are you a narcissist?"

Sophie: "No, Daddy, I'm not a narcissist, I'm going to be a doctor."

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Thanksgiving was a lot of fun. We didn't go to my parents' house until Friday, so we were able to stay home all day Thursday and cook. I made stuffing and mashed potatoes and cranberry butter and cranberry sauce and chocolate oblivion torte and Aaron made an apple cider pie from scratch.

We drove up to my parents' on Friday and Sophie made M&M cookies with my mom while I got the turkey ready. It was about 20 pounds. I stuffed butter under the skin on the breast and then cut up a couple of onions and put them in the turkey along with some dried herbs. Then I mixed together some dried herbs (sage, thyme, poultry seasoning) and rubbed that all over the skin along with more unsalted butter.

Into the oven.

My parents oven is small and I'm glad I checked the temperature of the turkey at around 2.5 hours. I had been thinking it would take at least 4 hours to cook but it was pretty much at 165 degrees when I checked it early. Yeeks! So, I gathered the troops and told them to finalize their dishes because the turkey was coming out. We poured some wine and got to work on the final heating up of everything. My SIL had a super-yummy stuffed squash and a portobello with blue cheese dish. My sister sauteed some green beans with lemon and garlic and I heated up the gravy I had made the previous weekend. The turkey sat and waited under tin foil until we were ready to transfer it to the platter. I then drained the fat and added all the dark and lovely turkey juice to the gravy and voila! Done.

The turkey was perfect (not dry and over-cooked last time. Definitely the small oven.) and we all gorged ourselves.

The next day we all went candlepin bowling (Sophie's first bowling outing) and watched movies and finished the wood (not me nor Sophie on the wood). All in all a good weekend.