Nothing says Christmas like....

...cooking together.

Amy & Caleb & I had ourselves a Christmas-y Day,

involving leisurely preparations

over depths of discussion.

[In which our dear friend Buddy was clearly thrilled to take part...]

It was a day of the familiar,

 along with some things less so...

 but with Caleb's watchful eye and Amy's steady hand,

 [nice teamwork guys]

 our dinner fell onto our plates and into our tummies with happiness all around.

After pausing to digest,
we made our way over to the church,

to sing some carols in good old-fashioned cheer.

Nothing says Christmas,

better than a Christmas-y Day like this.

Meetings, Greetings, Dwellings

First Meetings

 Imogen Ann. 

Sleepy, snuggly, sweet.

Familiar Greetings

When he says "LoLo!" I say--"Quint!"

And then he says-- "Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

Comfortable Dwellings
And we all hang around and eat good food and talk good talk and just remember: It is good, indeed.

Winter Memories

Birthdays are for Celebrating!

This lovely lady had herself a birthday this past week, 

celebrations included.

Having received a brand new waffle maker,

we kicked the weekend off with waffles and accouterments of every yummy kind.  Then, we banished her to  her room, 

and set the place for party.

Having asked her guests to bring wine and cheese,

we welcomed all three into our house,

 and had ourselves an evening of good munching

 and good friending,

 with warm conversation,

laughter,

and plenty of wine.

We chose deep questions for her to answer,

and listened as she shared her precious heart.

 Then it was time for her favorite cake

 and candles right up her alley...

 which eventually got snuffed out

 in plenty of time for the opening of fun treats.

 We closed out the evening with 

some jazzy birthday tunes,

happy to celebrate our dear dear friend.

The celebrations continued the next day,

 with a group of folks jumping into an ice cold lake

in order to raise support for our local YMCA.

Due to other obligations 

[including but not limited to preserving my life], 

I did not join in the plunging

but set up the house instead, 

for a warm beverage party 

meant to toast those ice cold folks right back up.

 People arrived, plungers and non;

they snacked and chatted,

perused pictures of the craziness of the morning activities.

Some snagged a moment to nap by the fire.

 These little ones and I had ourselves some piano time,

and some awful lot of fun.

And through it all, we continued to say:

Happy Birthday Sar--we love you!

Oh, Christmas Tree...

It's that time of year, when our house starts to look for a date on which to cut down our Christmas tree.  This year we pulled out calendars through which we looked and looked, and then we discovered: Our lives are ridiculous.

The only spot the three of us could find open at the same time was a small window later on a Monday evening.  So, we withdrew the tradition of cutting down our tree, and decided we would go to the local dairy/Christmas-tree-seller in order to pick one up.

When that Monday evening arrived, we piled into the car.
We arrived at the dairy at 7:37.
We found out they stopped selling trees at 7:30.
And thus,

back into the car we went.  We drove all around town, trying to figure out where in the world we might be able to find a tree pre-cut and waiting for us.

When we ended up at Lowe's,

much to our chagrin,

we decided to choose a good attitude,

 and welcomed this little guy into our hearts.

We paid for him,

tossed him into the car,

and brought our little man home.

 We gazed at him lovingly,

and then got to work,

making him feel like he was one of us.

We decorated him right up,

right along with our other guy [while we were at it...].

We treasured the moments,

including the one tradition we didn't have to give up
[no matter the time of night].

And, when all was said and done,

we had ourselves a perfectly lovely little merry tree.