Fifteen Minutes of Delusion

Here are the girls in their Christmas dresses for their 2009 portraits.

I hope your Christmas was safe, warm, and full of only happy surprises. Ours was. My Christmas Eve started with a trip to the dentist - 7:00 am, to be precise. It's admittedly a strange way to start the season, and I hope to not make a habit of it. But there you go. They did a periodontal cleaning, so they numbed my whole mouth. Fortunately, yogurt in a tube can be eaten even with a numb mouth (as long as you have a good napkin). I still had a bit of shopping to do - some for Christmas presents, some for the regular weekly needs, and some for Christmas Eve dinner. My first stop wasn't too bad, since it was 8:00 am. However, by the time I finished my errands at around 1:00, parking lots and checkout lines were cram-packed with people. To top it off, Mother Nature decided to bless us with a white Christmas, and she was in full-force delivery mode. I drove home in some very heavy, blowing snow. Fortunately, the day before had been in the mid seventies, so there was no real danger ...

This is a post far too long in the making, but it's time I get it up here for you to see. As longtime readers of the blog will know, we here at the ranch are raising guinea pigs. It's a small operation, and with only little girl piggies it's destined to stay small. We started out last year with Lillie and Duchess. Then this summer, in a moment of tremendous weakness, I allowed Anna to get a third guinea pig named Mia (or Mina, as Alyssa calls her). All was fine in piggy land until around Halloween, when Duchess got sick. Her little lymph glands grew to the size of large marbles, and after a course of antibiotics they still weren't reduced. About this same time, Lillie's glands started to swell as well. So the vet lanced Duchess' glands and gave us a different antibiotic - enough for both Duchess and Lillie. The new antibiotic worked on the infection, but it also robbed the piggies of their appetites. Neither one would eat anything. Despite our best efforts to nu...

It was an epic holiday project two and a half weeks in the making! Well, okay - maybe it wasn't really all that much. But it did manage to take two and a half weeks. However, the gingerbread house is now done, and bringing joy and laughter to all who see it. Here's how it went down. I mixed up our favorite gingerbread dough way back on November 29th, and then put it into the fridge to chill for two hours. Six days later, I took the dough out of the fridge, and rolled it out onto parchment paper. I then cut out the five pieces that make up this modernist masterpiece and backed them to perfection. After the pieces spent six days hardening, I put them together using nasty white frosting made from stale Crisco. The unconventional design is so the finished product can live under glass. Then the next day I attempted to move the house to its home on the cake plate, and it totally fell apart. So the next time I put it together, it was on the cake plate itself. Then last night - finall...

This past Saturday, I convinced Alyssa to go shopping with me by promising to take her to the mall to visit Santa. I was not exactly looking forward to standing in a long line, only to have her hide when the big moment came. But I was willing to try. As Santa didn't get to the mall until 10:00, we made Wal-Mart our first stop, where we stocked up on groceries and pull-ups and children's Motrin - all the essentials. We also needed to return a video to the Redbox there in the store, but I realized that we'd forgotten it on the seat of the van. No problem- we just loaded the groceries in the van and took the video back into the store. By this time, it was getting pretty close to 10:00, and my hopes of making it to the mall a little early were not to be. However, as we walked back into the store, I noticed a sign that said Santa would be at Wal-Mart at 10:00 - and they were taking free pictures. Now, "free" is one of my favorite things, and I felt pretty certain the l...

A couple of weekends ago, Anna spent nearly her entire Saturday with the rest of her band friends auditioning for a spot in one of the two All-Region Middle School Honor Bands. The region covers a pretty good chunk of the surrounding area, and includes probably a dozen middle and junior high schools. Now, bear in mind that auditioning is not Anna's favorite thing. Add to that the way she aggressively guards Saturday time, and it becomes clear that the only way Anna would agree to do this audition was if it counted towards her grade. Which it does. So she did. But despite not wanting to spend her Saturday auditioning, she made third chair in the second band, which was very exciting! It also meant that she would have to give up another Saturday for rehearsals and the concert. Said Saturday was yesterday. The combined bands practiced all day Friday - into the early evening - and then again Saturday morning, with the concert early Saturday afternoon. She did a great job, despite feelin...

I'm sure my friends and family in Utah and other points north will be tempted to mock us and our pitiful little snowfall, but when such a thing only happens once or twice a season - and the weatherman predicted rain - even a little snow is a big deal. I decided to try and take a picture with the Christmas lights on - the lights I hung five days ago in short sleeves - but you'll have to click through to the larger image to see them. I was able to hang them from the ladder, without actually climbing on the roof. So, yay! The girls were excited for the snow, and I'm excited to be working from home and not have to commute in the white stuff.