Making

Isn't that a lot of crows?? Gracious! They were having a blast poking around in our straw mulch- looking for bugs or finding nest materials, I'm not certain! I love seeing these flocks of crows in the spring time, though- lots of fluffed-up, ridiculous, adolescent birds with a chip on their shoulder. They sqauwk and preen and fight for the best spot on the roofs and lawns.

I've been promising Ernie ALL YEAR LONG that at Christmas time, we would decorate gingerbread boys. Christmas time came, and I couldn't face making an entire batch of sticky gingerbread dough, and fussily decorating an army of boys and girls. Luckily, our grocery store bakery was selling individual gingerbread boys with a handful of assorted loose sprinkles. PERFECT!! I gave the girls a bowl of honey, and a chop stick each, and let them go to down decorating their little men. Ernie carefully covered every feature of her cookie- eyes, smile, buttons, outline- before eating it. Mimi ate all her sprinkles, ate all the honey, and left most of her boy behind. I think it's kind of a personality test, don't you?

I made these as part of an appetizer spread on Christmas Eve- I barely had time to grab one for myself before they were polished off! I made a triple batch for a guy-get-together to watch a holiday bowl game....my husband was pretty pleased :) (And yes...we won. Bow down to Washington! Woof!)

After such a crazy wind up to Christmas, it's been lovely to have some quiet time this week! The girls and I went out grocery shopping yesterday, and it felt like a major accomplishment. (Well, grocerying and returning....because remember, I'm the ding-a-ling who bought all their Christmas clothes in the wrong sizes? The girls had fun using their store credits to pick out some presents for themselves though.) I can not WAIT to show you guys pictures of our master bedroom. It was a dingy swine color, and I didn't let it bug me too much because it's just paint, you know? Wonder Daddy pulled everything out of the room and spackled holes on Tuesday, spent Wednesday priming the walls and ceiling, and painted the ceiling and walls Thursday. Friday the outlets will get replaced (my vacuum plug won't even stay in the wall if someone bumps the cord, they're that loose!) and things get put back in. The ceiling is a bright white, and the walls are the most amazing grey-blue....very Pacific Ocean. Very dreamy and calm. Calm like nowhere else in our house is- we've worked at at building up kid-friendly energy in our house, and needed a Grown Up Getaway.

He's a genius at picking colors, and takes it seriously! We've had a growing collection of paint chips and paint samples taped and brushed on the bedroom walls for at least 2 years now. (The attached bathroom is going to be a pale lavendar, with white woodwork. Yum. That should get painted before he heads back to work next week too!)