(not so) Merry Christmas

Poor Kiki started feeling sick last night, just as we were skyping with Grandma and Papa (my inlaws). She threw up many times from then until the middle of the night, but had no fever. This morning however she had a low grade fever, and still felt very queasy and tired. She came in to our bedroom about 7.30am and just lay there for a while... her head hanging over a dish, poor thing. 

We eventually came downstairs where she lay on the sofa and opened a few presents (very slowly). We don't have the usual Christmas Eve and morning photos to share, and we're all just having a quiet day now. We had to cancel going over to our friends house to have prime rib with them, but luckily I had cooked a small turkey breast yesterday and made my yummy mashed potatoes. Later I will make a green bean casserole and we'll have a late Christmas dinner. Kiki might not want to eat much though.

We did wake up to 5 inches of snow though, which was pretty, but poor Kiki can't go out and sled in it. 

 Hope you're all enjoying your Christmas Day. It was great skyping wiht my family back in England too.

For Nenna :-)

We went to a birthday party on Saturday, it was at a house in the neighborhood. Our new friends little girl was turning one. Their house is HUGE and has a gym and a WINE CELLAR!!!!!! So, especially for my sis, I snapped a few pics ;-)

This is the bar downstairs in the basement!! What you can't see is the big tv to the left of me there, and the comfy sofa, and behind that is a billiard table and two pinball machines!!

 This is the wine cellar - to die for. It is climate controlled and to the right of me you can see a fountain on the wall. It is a very soothing sound when you walk in there, and you can smell the cedar wood that the wine racks are made of.

 

5 liter bottle of wine anyone?!!

You can see the climate control panel on the wall here.

 

This is the entrance, the wrought iron on the doors have grapes and leaves entwined on them. 

 Right next to the wine cellar is the home gym!

So Nenna, when are you coming over?! :-)

Gingerbread

It's time to decorate the gingerbread house :-) Our yearly tradition is usually to do this after the last day of school before Christmas, but this year we just did it one evening this week when we were all in the mood for it. We had Christmas songs playing and I made extra icing (as the kit never seems to come with enough) and I let Kristen go to town and decorate to her hearts content.

She got very creative this year with one side of the house. It was looking very bare, so she created a snowman mosaic :)

A White Christmas - perhaps!

We are getting snow today, one week before Christmas :) We may actually see a white Christmas for our first year in Colorado. It's snowing as I type this. Thought I'd take a few pictures from the windows and share them with you....

This is the view I see above the computer screen as I look out the front on to the driveway.

To the left of me is the front porch. It's windy so the snow is blowing around as it's very light and dry. 

The driveway is getting a good covering.

This is the main deck out the back, the snow hasn't settled here much either, because of the wind.

 

A close up of the view from this deck

This is the deck on the other side of the house, with a view of our two big pine trees.

 They look so Christmasy when the snow is on them.

And a few pictures taken inside this morning.

 We can't hang our stockings on the fireplace, so I've put them here behind the sofa, on the kitchen counter

Are you all ready for Christmas? I think we are!!

Oops!

I guess I got out of the habit of blogging again! Not much to blog about over the past few weeks, and life as usual has been busy with school every day and taking Bindi on walks to wear her out!!! Yes, she is one little hyper puppy so I have started taking her for a walk in the morning before we start school. Just for about 40 minutes. It does help, as she settles down a lot more and sleeps or just chews toys while we are working. I took some pictures the other day as I headed up the street..

Took this one too when we got back....

 I've also been knitting and made these cute tree ornaments this week. I've got shawls on the needles and socks too, but these were a quick knit so I wanted to try them. There's a bunny you can make too which I think I will do next.

We have snow this morning, about 5 inches!! I may try to take pics later when Kiki goes out in it to play, which I'm sure she will.  I have the fixin's for a lovely breakfast brunch, bacon, eggs, hash browns and waffles, AND Mimosas!!! It's going to be a cozy day at home for us 3. Hope you have a great day too. 

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to our sweet baby girl, who isn't such a baby anymore!!  Kristen turned 12 today :-) (I was typing this post yesterday!) We had some of her friends over last night for pizza, cake, popcorn and a 3d movie on our new tv's. They watched Brave and loved it.

 (it's Monday now!) On Sunday morning (her actual birthday), we went out for Brunch at IHOP (her favorite place for breakfast!) Here she is (below) ready to go, in front of her Daddy's new car!!!!! Yup, he traded his Corvette for a Cadillac CTS-V!