saturday surprise

These pictures are from yesterday.   It was warm and rained, turned all the snow to thick, chunky ice.

Jay's working out of town so I had to bring back the trash cans--very carefully tippy toe in the ice, one by one.

Did not fall in the puddles.

Today Heidi called early in the afternoon and asked if they could come over.  A child was requesting this.  

Yeah, sure.  Absolutely.

This is a picture of Joe.  Little Ruby climbed up high on his neck to get away from Dewey the cat.

Dewey was after this little dog and popped her on the nose a few times for good measure, climbed right up on Joe to give Ruby a smack.

He's patient, thought it was funny, helped Ruby escape.

This is the chocolate fondue machine Heidi brought along.

What an invention!

So delicious.

Sun set at 4:39. These are such short dark days, but it was all kinds of cozy in the house.

Love, Grandma
 

christmas day

Barb made Jello Jigglers, Kari's favorite.

A deer went strolling through the back yard, see it down in the left hand corner--it took me a few seconds to get my camera out.

I love Barb's Christmas decorations, the fancy Santas and cute, fun things everywhere.

These guys are always happy to be together.

And at the end of the day, was kind of sad to call Christmas over for one more year, after looking forward to this for a long time.

So much love, Val
 

midnight santa

Midnight Santa, always sweet.

This is what I saw in the morning when I opened the door to check on the kitties.

!!!!

This one was all docile-like in a small nest.

Christmas night Kari was home, so we had Midnight Santa, Round 2:

And this is the dog who stole the kitty cat's Christmas present.

I saw her eating something, seemed weird, so investigated.

It was a package of freeze dried salmon treats that Kari had wrapped up for her cat.

Stolen by the dog!

Of course I took it away, but the damage was done and Kari was a tad bit livid.

Understandable.

I thought of that line from 101 Dalmations where the dogs have disguised themselves in soot and the one hoodlum points it out to the other and he scoffs, "Oh right. Dogs is always doing that."

Bad dog.

Love, Mom

 

christmas eve

Dan and Alicia hosted after church.

They always have a beautiful tree.

Kirsten hosted this auction game, which was a screaming hit.  They had numbers to hold up to bid, fake money, and they fought it out.  I love this.

Thanks for preparing a delicious meal and hosting this special evening.

Love, Mom

family party

Our family party was on Sunday evening, after the play.

Very nice evening.

 He worked on the meatballs for hours, well worth it.

These two:

Gifts!

Thanks for making this a spectacular occasion once again.

Love you all like crazy, Mom and Dad