ahhhh

 I do like looking at winter. 

Aaron, your office:

This very sad thing happened to John and Dannell's tree--fell right over.

This is not the firs time. This happened to Heidi years ago too. 

Thump.

And that's the end of the night.

Nothing but love, Val

the last few days

 A couple extra Thanksgiving pictures of that little baby of ours--

 Oh, and this. This is the candy dish where Tim placed a handful of the Bean Boozled jelly beans hoping to snag a niece or nephew.

Well, the person who actually ate these was MY DAD.

Good God.

One of the sisters ran to Tim and told him, and you should have seen him fly down the stairs and out to the front yard to apologize.

I don't know if my dad accepted that apology or not.

 Saturday we met up at Alicia's parents for chili and friendship. It was a very fun afternoon.

 Got the candle lights going in all the windows--

 The New York City snow globe I found at Target:

 This old guy:

 And this one! She loved him, told Heidi she wanted to, "Give her a High Five."

 We went outside and I lifted her up to do so.

 Here we are eating lunch.  At one point she traded me my left over fried rice for her leftover ravioli.  She had that little Santa walking in the rice. Today she pulled too hard and he broke off the string.  I'll glue him back.

 Today, playing kitchen sink and washing dishes--madly running water and doing dishes.

 Yesterday she did so many dishes in the real kitchen sink that she used up all my dish soap-- a new bottle bought the day before Thanksgiving.

She asked me if I bought a new bottle.

I told her, "Yes, I did. Grandpa did!"

She tilted her head, "Sorry."

 They had no soap and she was seen drinking the water and had her face under the faucet.

 Here the are after shedding their wet clothes:

 Sprout pony tail!

 When I greeted her this morning, for a second I didn't recognize her with the pony tail, coming out of the bathroom door.  I stared at her for a second, and she stared back. Then her hand went up to point out the pony tail.

Yeah!

Girlfriend!

And then after a wild, scrappy day, they went home, and I went to work in this quiet house.

Sidney had a lot of teeth pulled yesterday, so we kept care of that little fluff of cotton, and it was a fine Tuesday indeed.

Love, Val

the next day

 The tree is up.  The kids helped decorate inside, and Jay worked outside.

 This was from the Christmas we brought Elin home.

 New lights in the garland, and I like them much better than the lights we had for a year or two--those were too led blue, had flicker to them.  I hated them.  These are right again.

 Old favorites:

 And the tree outside.  This tree has grown.   Santa is twelve feet tall.  The tree is close to twice that.    We had Christmas bulbs on it before and they just kind of went with the tree as it grew, but they all quit working and we had to start fresh.   Jay had his work cut out for him.

 And of course, Little Santa:

 The fog in the park beyond was hazy pretty.

Love, Val

thanksgiving, 2018

 It was a great Thanksgiving, family all around.  My brother's family was here, and I was so happy to see them.

 We used to do a continuous table, but last year changed it up to four separate tables, a better plan.

 Mama and p.j., two peas in a pod:

 Oh my goodness, these two partners in crime:

 And all sorts of cousins:

An aunt and her niece-- or a niece and her aunt, late in the evening:

 Why is this in my kitchen anyway? 

Kung Foo Fighting?

No.

 No fighting of any kind.

This is a Thanksgiving gift from my mother.  Every year she brings a gift, so I have about twenty interesting Thanksgiving decorations, not that I'm objecting.

This guy is quite cute.

 Later in the evening after pretty much everyone had gone home we searched around for this guy.

Christmas decoration that he is, we found him tucked in with the EASTER DECORATIONS  because THAT MAKES SENSE.

Whatever. He's found.

 And yes, he's here to welcome the holiday season.

Okay, good night.

This was a lovely Thanksgiving Day.

So much love, Val