Versatile

Who knew a sleeping bag could be a hat, a leg warmer, and a mask?!

(These are the things you do during winter break)

My birthday

It was my birthday.



Elle started it off right when she served me breakfast:
Captain Crunch with a candle in a peppermint Jo jo
YUM!



Decorations


And finished it off with peppermint brownies, and peppermint ice cream that night!

In the mean time,

I had a birthday lizard.

That's right.  I started to sit on the couch and chillax for a bit, but a funny thing happened along the way...

I stepped on the soft carpet, but it felt soft and squishy.  And it moved!  That's when I saw the birthday lizard skitter across the floor and settle on my blanket--the one I was going to cuddle up in! (it's freezing here.  In the 60's!)

The logical thing to do was to carefully pick up the blanket and carry it outside, but did I do that?  No I did NOT!  I screamed like a girl, grabbed the blanket and flung it across the room. (ya)

I immediately texted Chris, who did not respond.  So I texted my friends who were satisfyingly horrified and consoling. One of my friends who has even had experience with this sort of thing came over.
We located the lizard in the corner.  Her advice was to block it off until Chris came home:



I had another brilliant idea to have Elle catch it for me when she came home.  Well, that didn't go well either.  It just hid under the couch.

Eventually,  Chris came home and chased it all over too.  In the end, he used a ruler and flicked it ito a garbage bag:



( you can see it in the lower left hand corner)

But, back to GOOD birthday happenings:

A few days earlier, we went to a Japanese barbeque and had MEAT!
(NO, not lizard meat, silly)

Although Elle has sworn off meat of any kind (after throwing up for six hours on the way home from Thanksgiving), she was kind enough to help me eat  (and cook) all the delicious cuts of meat.

Really, there were other things like vegetables and rice, but the meat was all up to us, not Chris, to eat.

Chris even cooked me the perfect marshmallow for my birthday s'more!

It was a great happy birthday to me thanks to Chris and Elle :)

Gingerbread Houses!

Chris's artistic (or something) house:

Apparently, they are removing moss from the roof)

Elle's house:

My house:

(see the woodpile out back?)

The gingerbread village!

So delicious!

We didn't end up doing stain glass windows because it was hard enough just cooking and assembling the things!  Maybe next year. . .

Sunday (night) Dress and Hair

As Promised . .

group selfie in front of the Tree

And Elle in her Chrismas dresss and bare feet 

:)

And fancy hair

And all the fixin's to make gingerbread houses!

to be continued. . .

Sunday/Friday Dress and Hair

Elle went to the Jr. High School social on Friday!

To prepare, she and her friends went shopping for dresses then got together early to do each other's make-up

This is only half of her group.  The other half met them there.

It was semi-formal, but the girls wanted to look extra spiffy.

Notice Elle's adorable clutch.

None of them danced, but they all enjoyed the hot chocolate bar and singing along to Frozen in loud and obnoxious voices.

I love her cute new coat! She looks so grown up!

Now, as requested:

Elle in front of our Christmas tree

With cute hair

:)

And a moustache!