A little of this, a little of that...

This is as close as we could get - M, like many a young child is a tad bit afeared of the man in the red suit...  so when we were hanging out at the Elementary school waiting for H's party and he walked in, suddenly I had a 4 year old to carry around.  She's getting a tad bit heavy to be carried around constantly so I tried to talk her down.  "look, Santa's nice right?" "yes, he brings me presents" "wouldn't you like to go and tell Santa thank you" "no" "what do you want to tell him" (thinking I would get her wish list...) "I tell him that T is naughty" (my oldest son, not ME of course)...  Poor T must have really ticked her off that morning!The Ham Junkie - because I was feeling bad that W was so under-represented in the blog until now I was paying special attention to him with the camera... well, that and the fact that this kid was so excited for Ham that he was doing Happy little dances all over the house!  I think he even wrote a song devoted to the heavenly meat!  He even requested that we save the ham-bone... not for use in a delectable soup - but he just wanted to gnaw on it later.  

My favorite Christmas gift!  Some of you may know that for the past... ermmm - let's call it 3 years I have been asked what I wanted for Christmas, my birthday, for dinner - and without fail (well, maybe not for dinner) I have answered SHELVES!  I'm an avid reader - and I love not just the stories but the books... a good hardcover with pretty end-papers sets my heart a-flutter more than Edward Cullen!!  Anyway, as always I had "shelves" at the top of my Christmas wish-list.  Actually, aside from the lovely book light that I also received it was the only item on said wish list!  Come Christmas morning I was afraid that I was going to have to put it back on the birthday list yet again...  because honestly - how could the Man Of The House (I would abbreviate that - but who wants to be known as MOTH) really sneak in a carpenter to build the shelves I wanted?  In my own defense, 3 years ago I wanted simpler shelving...  but leave me long enough to dwell on it and now they have to be built in!)  Well, M.O.T.H. came through and although they are not done, he has found a carpenter and so Christmas morning I found a piece of butcher paper taped to the wall with many books drawn on it... the titles he chose were absolutely hi-Lar-E-Us... but mostly inside jokes so I won't go into that :)

The Mess:  5 weeks of shopping, 5 hours of wrapping, 20 minutes of opening...  Worth it?  yep.

A long time since they were recognized!  As we were enjoying our Christmas Dinner and toasting with the Martinelli's Sparkling Cider M.O.T.H. (this might stick... sorry hub) notices their label has their "awards" listed...  and just in case you can't make them out from the photo - the awards say:  Sacramento 1890, San Francisco 1894, Atlanta 1895, Buffalo 1901, Seattle 1909, and San Francisco 1914 - Impressive?  I have no idea if it's impressive - but one does wonder why there have been no awards in nearly a century to brag about?  I hereby award the Martinelli's company with my own award... heck, even this teetotalling family needs a little holiday cheer to toast the holidays with!  Check it out, next year under the ancient awards it just may say "You Asked for It 2008"!

Another Photo of W - hey, he's a cute kid right?  Yesterday we braved the cold out of town and drove up to do some sledding.  W had a little time to practice with his snowboard on the little hills - we skipped the canyon because we just weren't THAT brave!  The kids all had fun, hit a few little jumps, and learned that the new "snowfling" toy also doubles as an emergency trumpet... much to the dismay of our fellow sledders!