God, I'm exhausted. The dinner we were supposed to eat at 4:30 or so was finally served around 7 PM, because my oldest brother is an ambitious perfectionist who doesn't factor in competition for limited oven space when planning for a prime rib dinner with seven sides. Oof.

OTOH, it was all excellent, from the spinach-with-hazelnuts to the yorkshire puddings, and everyone loved my pies.

I left the rest of them watching Sherlock on tv, and came home to find my sister's dog had pooped & peed on my carpet in the living room, because the day had run so much longer than anyone expected. Bah.

Ah, well. I got a GC for a massage, two days of skiing at my favorite place, and some great little trinkets. It was a good day, and all behaved themselves. Plus, it was adorable to watch the two-year-old crawl around the floor pretending to be a cat.

But I'm happy to be home, and alone but for my dog.

Back from a lovely day with JZ's family, including all the out of town Uncles and Aunt.

It was very nice, and Matilda was in a charming, affectionate mood, crawling into many laps and loving on her family. Then skipping about Papou's house in her fancy Christmas dress, and earnestly describing events in photo albums.

Emmett was very pleased to receive more Legos, and then commandeered one of the uncles iPads and played on that very happily until dinner, at which point he consumed vast quantities of prime rib.

It was all very nice, but I'm quite tired after spending the night over at EM's house for xmas eve, and I'm a bit burned out on the social whirl. I'll be skipping the open house tomorrow.

I came out of the latest round of gift giving with tasty homemade cookies, and a new bottle of artisanal gin and fancy tonic.

So let the gin guzzling frenzy (cf. Mojo Nixon) begin. After a lot of sleeping.

Skipping (finally we have internet again! Almost a week with no access to the outside world due to all sorts of malfunctions is still only a very first world problem, but still not much fun at all) because according to the Buffista Calendar, today is one of those special triple Buffista events: it's the birthday of Jesse H, Theodosia and Rayne.

Happy birthday, Jesse! Happy birthday, Theo! Happy birthday, Rayne (and I hope you get to see the well-wishes somehow). For each one of you, lots of wishes for a great day and a wonderful year!

Happy birthday, Jesse, Theodosia, and Rayne!

Happy birthday, Jesse, Theo, and Rayne!

Off to the north coast in a little.

Happy Birthday, Jesse!

Happy Birthday, Theodosia!

Happy Birthday, Rayne!

Happy Boxing Day Birthdays!

It's snowing - less than an inch on the ground, but since it's Georgia I am still betting things will be closed today. The kids are out and I have taken out maple syrup (for snow ice cream), coffee (for mr. flea) and hot banana muffins (for us and the neighbors). I win at Mom!

Happy Birthday, Jesse, Theo and Rayne!

IT'S STILL SNOWING IN ALABAMA. And worse, it is sticking to the roads.

Flight still isn't cancelled, though.

Glad I decided to drive home last night instead of waiting until this morning. The snow isn't real bad, but now I don't have to drive in it! Holidays were good. Presents, dinner, family, only a teeny bit of drama, now I'm glad to be home with nothing in particular that I have to do. Except wash the dishes I left in the sink three days ago. Yikes.

Happy birthday, Jesse, Theo, and Rayne!

In a topsy turvy world, we're supposed to be getting mainly rain in this round of Nor'Easter. We're had a rainstorm every Monday for the month of December.