Infatuated

There's this thing I do. I get totally hooked on a subject and I can't stop reading about it. The first time I remember this happening was in grade school when we learned about the Titanic. That one lasted a good long while (and truthfully, it's still kind of hanging around ;). The last known literary obsession on record occurred shortly after graduating from my master's program, when I devoured anything and everything about the Tudors of England for a good two years. Since I had a child, I haven't had much time for anything to catch my interest to that degree (besides raising said child of course).

Enter the Kennedys.

I stumbled upon this latest infatuation completely by accident. Hubs and I were cruising Netflix, desperately seeking something decent to watch, and we happened to find this miniseries from 2011. Intrigued, we watched the first episode and were promptly hooked. Am I the only one who didn't know how fascinating this family is? Seriously, you can't write fiction this interesting! So naturally, I followed  the miniseries up in quick succession with this:

Riveting. (Thanks Dad, for sharing!)

and shortly, this:

Can't wait to crack it open, though I guess I should use "crack" loosely, since it's an ebook.

And then a little light reading to get me through the winter doldrums:

Combine those with this:

....ahhh, the best thing about winter!  

Holiday Hiatus

Whew! I fell right off the face of the bloggy planet for awhile there. We just got so busy getting ready for the holidays, and then my computer was on the fritz and I was lacking in inspiration blah blah blah. So I thought I'd do a post to bring you up to speed on what we've been up to since the middle of November. Here goes!

First, our pets become BFFs. So random. They previously had a love-hate relationship wherein the dog loved to chase the cat, and the cat hated it. But then Sweets learned to pick up the cat and he must have figured it would behoove him to have an ally against those sticky little fingers because he buddied up to that dog so fast I think even the dog was confused. You can kind of see it on the dog's face here. It's like he's thinking "You're sitting with me. Why are you sitting with me? Is this a trick?"

Then Auntie L and Uncle K visited for Thanksgiving - yay! We love it when they're here :)

Uncle K is amazingly talented and took some killer photos for our Christmas cards this year.

It makes me so happy to have such beautiful photos that we're all in, since either Hubs or myself is usually taking the picture.

We put up our tree December 1st - I'm all for waiting until after Thanksgiving, but I couldn't hold out much longer - I LOVE decorating for Christmas!

Sweets "helped." He thought every ornament on that tree was a new toy for him to play with. That little baby carriage he's clutching is actually my Baby's First Christmas ornament from 1981!

My mom and I took Sweets to see Santa for the first time this year. It went pretty well, all things considered. We didn't have to brave the mall, thank goodness, or I wouldn't have bothered. My mom works for an optometrist's office and a nearby referring office hosts a yearly kids Christmas party, complete with Santa. Initially, Sweets wanted nothing to do with him, until Santa waved a candy cane in his direction, and then he was like "Candy cane? Why didn't you say so? Sure, I'll come talk to you!" Is it just me, or is it unsettling how easy it is to lure little kids with candy? I'll have to have a chat with my son about that at some point ;)

Then there was nothing left to do but wait for the big day! I was SO excited about Christmas this year because Sweetie Pea is old enough to understand a lot of it. We had lots of conversations about Mary and Joseph and the Baby Jesus, and Santa, and naughty and nice, and coal. This photo was taken on Christmas Eve, at our gathering with Hubs' family. Poor little guy, he was so tired and overwhelmed by the time that mountain of presents was put in front of him!

Then came Christmas morning at our house. It was magical :) Sweets got a train table and a million Thomas trains and we had a very hard time convincing him to leave them in order to go to the Christmas Day festivities with my family.

We ended up having a beautiful, white Christmas. Though Sweets was NOT into the snow last year, this year he can't get enough! This was taken the first time we suited him all up in his snow gear. I suspect Hubs will have himself a little snowmobiling partner in the future!

We couldn't convince him to come inside, even when his cheeks turned red and his little fingers were freezing!

Bonus: playing outside in all that fresh air and snow = a GREAT night's sleep for everyone! You know how I feel about that ;)

Last weekend Sweets and I went sledding at GaGa and PaPa's house. He went down that little hill all by himself, such a big boy!

So that's all for now, but (I know, I know, I say this all the time) hopefully I'll get back on a regular posting schedule now that the holidays are behind us. Life just gets so busy and I refuse to beat myself up over not blogging when that happens. Part of the problem is that Sweets is just so much fun right now I can't tear myself away long enough to blog about it!