I think Ferris was pretty happy to see Santa, don't you?

If you squint your eyes and look closely, you'll see that this is Santa on top of a fire truck. He visited our neighborhood, courtesy of the local fire department. Sirens were blaring for a good half hour before he finally made it to the corner we were waiting on with neighbors. In prior years they handed out candy canes. No such luck this year.
And I let Santa know he needs to bring me a better camera for Christmas so I can take a decent picture of him next year. :)

Violet's Feet

The cats, and sometimes the dog, love to sleep in this box that sits in front of my bedroom window. Today, Violet was in the box, and the only parts of her that were sticking out of the box were her feet and the tip of her tail.

Jacques

Meet Jacques. Jacques is our Elf. Our Elf on the Shelf.

Jacques' current position is not a shelf. Today he is perched on a string of lights over our kitchen sink.

Yesterday, Jacques was here, on this reindeer's antlers. You see, Jacques is one of Santa's elves. Every night Jacques, and millions of elves like him, fly to the North Pole to report on the children they're staying with. They re-appear the next morning in a different spot in the house.
Well, Jacques picked a bad spot when he landed on this reindeer. You see, it's a little too close to the floor....and a little too close to Ferris. Sadly, Ferris thought Jacques was a chew toy. Santa's elves are not allowed to speak when they're staying watching to see if children are naughty or nice, so Jacques was not able to holler for help. Rachel and I discovered Jacques lying on the floor in the kitchen last night after dinner. Minus his cute little white collar. And an arm. And his head appeared to have been bitten.

Ferris, what did you do?!?!!??!?

Unfortunately -- or fortunately, depending on how you look at it -- I have no pictures of the carnage. Please rest assured that Jacques is magical (how else could he fly to the North Pole and back in one night?) and therefore he feels no pain. However, Jacques really needs his arm to fly. So after a short surgical procedure last night, I'm happy to report that Jacques is nearly 100% healed. He had no head injury after all...just a small tear in his hat which was easily fixed. His arm is a little wonky, though. (I love that word, "wonky") But I think that just makes him more endearing. And now he has a "history," a story to hand down to the next generation. I think Jacques learned his lesson and will only land on higher locations in our house. As for Ferris:

"I'm sorry, Jacques!"
It's okay, buddy. I'm sure Santa will still bring you some presents on Christmas, too.

One of my Favorites

I took picture after picture tonight of our Christmas trees and they were all blurry, so I gave up and decided to post one of my very favorite pictures of Rachel. This was taken 6/17/05. She had her kindergarten graduation and her ballet recital both on the same day. She just glows in this picture. She danced to one of the songs from The Nutcracker, and she had such poise on stage. I know I'm her mom and I'm expected to see everything she does through rose-colored glasses, but even one of my neighbors remarked that he had never seen her smile the way she did when she was on stage. And she was good, too; very graceful, and she knew all her steps. But that was the only year she took dance. After that, it was all about cheerleading. Which is fine, because she loves it and she's good at that, too.

Open House at the Vet

We took Ferris to the vet today, but not for an appointment. They moved into a brand new building this month, and today they had an open house. Winslow Animal Hospital has a beautiful facility. They were giving tours of the whole building, and Ferris had a lot of fun sniffing some other dogs that were there. The new facility's is a therapy room that includes a small pool for aqua therapy, which Ferris wanted to try out. There were also free samples, free toys and photos with Santa. I'll post Ferris' picture when I get it back.

In one of the operating rooms, Rachel got to "help" with a simulated c-section. It was cute. They had a stuffed animal on the table, and they pulled baby stuffed animals out of the belly.

The best part of the day? Snow! We only got a dusting, though.

Best Buds

I have so many pictures of these two like this. It's almost an everyday occurrence that they lay together in the sun. In colder weather they seem to snuggle up together more.