Dear Santa, you’ve lost one.

Say “Santa” to Maggie, you’ll get a half-hearted  “ho, ho”.   Mention Rudolph? Now that’s where it’s at!  You’ll get a shimmy, a dance, a yelp, and a little girl frantic to find her stuffed Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, or better yet...

Lalalalalalalalambeau Field!

That’s us in Santa’s locker at Lambeau.  Oh wait, you couldn’t tell?  Hmmm.  Maybe it’s because the lady who took the picture neglected to get the S. Claus name plate and upper part of the locker in the picture.  It’s one of Kole’s biggest pet peeves – people who can’t set up decent photos.  In their defense, he’s awfully particular, but seriously…

They were best friends…for about 20 minutes.

Maggie made a big discovery Sunday morning…

Yes, that’s a caterpillar crawling on the family room carpeting.

A caterpillar… in December… We figure it must have been hibernating on the Christmas tree, and finally warmed up enough to come on down and say hello.

There were shrieks, squeals, and peals of laughter along with well-timed OH NO’s when the caterpillar crawled off his paper and back onto the carpeting.

She watched intently, petted gently, and moved the papers to “dump” her new friend in new locales.

And as I scoured the internet to discover how we might keep this Wooly Bear Caterpillar/future moth alive for the winter, Kole dumped him outside and was met with the fury of the youngest girl in the house.

Fa la la la…

We’re busy decking the halls.  We cut down the tree last weekend.  Thought it’d go well.  There was a little girl in the backseat yelling, “ho ho ho” and “tris tris tree” the whole way there.  Then there was a little girl saying, “car. uppy. car.” as we hunted for the perfect tree.  Then there was the ride into town to get cash because we had forgotten the checkbook and the ride back to the tree farm to pay for and pick up the perfect tree. 



With all that excitement, it took a bit to get lights on and ornaments on. While Kole and I were working on the tree, Maggie was busy climbing up and down the step ladder while simultaneously telling herself, “Maggie, sit down.  Sit down!” 



We did manage to capture her attention for bit – she helped put her ornaments on the tree.

Holy Flor de Nochebuena Batman!

That’s poinsettia for all you monolinguals out there.  Who knew there was a place just minutes (okay like half an hour) from our house?  Open just one day a year for the Annual Lions Club Poinsettia Sale.


I have never seen such a thing in my life~!  Seriously THOUSANDS of poinsettias, and we went in the last hour of the sale.  Unbelievable.  I was kind of glad that we didn’t pop in until things had died down – for the obvious reasons people with toddlers might list, but also because Kole admittedly looked like a homeless person in his Christmas Tree Getting Gear.  Those are his words, not mine.


We ended up buying some cool variety of splatter poinsettia (not painted) and a curly petal plant, too.  Oh, and I won’t make you ask about that sweater Maggie’s wearing.  Yes, it is the reindeer sweater Kole has been looking to purchase for himself for years now.  Maggie loves it and calls it her “Udolph shirt”… It’s no coincidence that she knows the name. Somebody felt forced to play “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” on repeat for what amounted to about 45 minutes last weekend during a particularly LONG part of the long trip to Minnesota.  What can we say? It made her happy – doesn’t matter that it drove us crazy.

Let the preparations begin!

We've started to prep for the season ahead.  Maggie's really into "helping", so getting ready for Christmas has changed a bit this year.  An early Christmas present puts her at counter level, and she's been pretty involved in the action in the kitchen ever since. 

adding ingredients

eating butter

watching

Consider this your warning - if you get baked goods from us this Christmas, there's a good chance that Maggie licked the ingredients before they went in the bowl!

We're back... I think.

Dear friends,
Has it really been 6 months since last we were here?  Sorry we've been gone so long, but hey, we've got an excuse! We're settling into our new home, and much to Kole's dismay there are more projects and plans floating around in my head than I can even explain!  There are shelves to build, rooms to paint, furniture to refinish, curtains to sew, and treasures to find homes for... it's exhausting.  I'll try to get organized here and share some finished projects with you along with some updates on the family & what we've been doing for the last 6 months.  More info and pictures to follow.

Love,
Kari