103.6

That number is not a local radio station or even the percentage of people in our house who are thankful tomorrow is the last day of school (that percentage is actually a little higher). 
That number is the internal temperature of our little Julia at its highest today.  Poor thing woke up with a cough and a mere 101 degree temperature.  I had no choice but to keep her home from school.  Good thing I did because even after several doses of Tylenol, that number continued to rise...reaching its peak around noon (after she woke up from a nap...yes...she must have been sick because...SHE NAPPED.  A thing she has never in her life done voluntarily). 

She was so sad to miss the big Mountain Man Rendez-vous extravaganza at school today and shed some mountain man sized tears to prove it.  Hey, we're from Colorado and the Mountain Man Rendez-vous in fourth grade is one of the highlights of the year.  Turns out that fever lasted all day...and even as we tucked her into bed tonight, so looks like she'll miss the holiday festivities at school tomorrow too.  Oh bother.

Instead, she spent the day curled up on the couch, playing the Wii and watching Elf, and napping with her ever-loyal buddy...who was happy to have someone to spend the day with him.

And though voted "Least Likely to Decorate Any Christmas Cookies to be Consumed by Her Fellow Man" by her (largely germophobic) family, she was instead sanitized, masked, and dubbed "Frosting Color Czar" and allowed to choose and supervise frosting color and saturation for our evening cookie decorating...a job she took very seriously.

Once we were done decorating with our new Christmas frosting colors of turquoise, grape and peach, she could decorate her very own stash of custom cookies...to be consumed...by her...at her leisure. 

It all worked out very nicely (except for a few chili stains on her shirt from dinner).
Hopefully she'll be feeling better tomorrow!!!  Santa's coming soon for goodness sake!

**sigh**

My middle child might not have passed the test to be in the spelling bee or have the drive to join the local competitive swim team, but she can pull at your heartstrings like nobody's business!  She made this sign for herself to hang on her bedroom wall. Just because...

oh christmas tree

A mom just gave me a gift card to Starbucks to thank me for picking her daughter up every week for choir practice.  She didn't need to do that because her daughter is a super sweet friend of Julia's...(and I don't usually frequent Starbucks), but there happens to be one right across from a Christmas tree lot in our local mall.  So...what better way to use my card than to enjoy a steaming cup of hot cocoa after searching in the cold wind for the perfect little real Christmas tree!!   No better way, I tell you!

 Afterwards, we stopped by Redbox & picked up a little Fantastic Mr. Fox (best George Clooney movie ever!) to watch while tree trimming...what a great girls' night in we had while Bob was at poker night!

sculpey nativity

Sophie's latest project...

done baking...now on to the painting...

 ...and she built a creche too!

never too old...

...to chat around the Christmas tree!

Definitely missing a few Texans for the pic and soon will be missing some Icelanders, but I think they had a nice little US getaway...we enjoyed having them around!

wowie

Sorry folks.  I was going to post some fabulous photos of the brilliantly lighted City & County Building with a lovely witty, story about our fantastic day with a delightful girl visiting us from Iceland, but Blogger tells me I've used up all my photo space.  Unless I want to buy more storage space for a low monthly fee.  Which I don't.  So now I have to figure out which of my precious memories to delete and how to do it.  So now I'm just not in a witty mood, and I can't even post a photo to prove it.  Stay tuned...otherwise, check out some photos I posted on my FB page.  Stupid Blogger.

ahhhhhh

Lately, we've just about gotten to the end of our rope hearing about rockets flying over the Gaza Strip, abductions, attempted abductions, legalized marijuana, shootings, student-led teacher evaluations, more shootings, and worst of all...searching for paperwork for our upcoming refinance.  Ugh!

Better than "Calgon, take me away!" is "Cindy, can we pleeeeeeeeeeease escape to your condo in Winter Park?"  Lucky for us, that Cindy is super sweet and ultra generous (and no one had rented her condo for the weekend) & she let us sink away into the alpine world of neon bowling, hot tubs, stew, and...SNOW!  What a well-needed respite!

Now we're back to reality and ready to face the world of anti-aircraft fire...and the mess that is our basement file cabinet.  Bring it on world!