the first week of january

Was gorgeous. Today it was almost 50 degrees.   How is that possible?

We babysat this guy, which doesn't happen all that often and it was a blast.

We babysat this girl too, and that brand new baby came over to play. Well, b.g. played. The little brother mostly slept.

And now he's gone home, and it was incredibly fun to have him here all these days by himself.

When he's here with his family, he only wants Dannell, but when it's just us, I get all those extra hugs, get to hear the little jokes.


Here is b.g. absorbed in Super Why.   We usually have him here a couple days every week, but not this week.

No wonder it seems quiet around the house.

See how Sam parks her fluffy duff right in the middle of everything?

Somebody took the camera--I found these pictures of Bernie the turtle tonight.

Here's Heidi's dog getting babysat and crowding him right off the darn bed.

When they lived here after their fire last winter, she'd sometimes sneak upstairs and get in bed with us in the night. Then I'd have exactly one quarter of a bed to sleep on, and it was absurd.  I'd tell her to go find her parents and she'd trot away down the hall.

Here he is peeking at us through the stair way while they worked on reading.

He played with my necklace for a while.  It's a fairly unexciting necklace, but I wear it every day.   All the kids used to pop the little pearl and diamond pendant in their mouths.  Mine did.  The grandbabies do.  I do it too, absentmindedly at times, rub it on my lips.

He's the first kid to ask for the necklace though. He ran the chain through his fingers, wadded it up in his palm, then asked me to put it over his head.

Okay, here are a couple dumb stories--my parents gave Jay a gift card for Fleet Farm and he went there last night and one of the things he bought was a new belt.

Well, a bit later, he went to the sofa where he'd left the Fleet Farm bag to get the belt, and it was GONE.

Whaaaat?  Who took my belt?  For what reason?

You darn kids, has anyone seen my belt?

Huh? What?  Us?

Belt, you say?

Clueless.

But then, they did confess.  Tim didn't realize it was a belt, had run off with it thinking it was a dog leash, going to try it out on the dogs.   (Good luck with that. Sidney would never allow it, possibly would chew his hands off at the wrists, and Sam wouldn't care.  He could pull on that all day and she'd keep sleeping.)

Okay, but it gets worse.

Someone took a load of clothes from the dryer and tossed it on the dining room table, same as usual.

Only can someone please explain why MY underwear was in the advent wreath?

That is just simply wrong.

They all tried to compose earnest little serious faces when I confronted them, but whatever.  I saw the way Kari tucked in her lips and Tim's eyes slid to the side.   Julia played stupid, "Underwear?  YOUR underwear? That's gross."

Okay, I doubt it's gross, but it does not belong in the ADVENT WREATH.

Well, it's the end of a most perfect Friday.  We watched James play basketball tonight, skinny, fluid arms and legs, pretty smile.  Kirsten bought them all Skittles and Joe bit p.j.'s in half, patiently one by one so she wouldn't choke.

The first week of January has been beyond wonderful.   2012 is looking very fine.  love, Val