Here I am with some of my fav folks in Eugene...awaiting the reading and viewing of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas at Cole's house the other night. The book is SO much better than the movie... what were they THINKING? No, really, I liked both. The movie is way better if you yell, "DOGGIE! SILLY DOGGIE!" every time the Grinch's dog is on screen. We think we'll make this an annual event-- anything involving books, movies, friends, distracted parents and cookies is worth repeating year after year after year, right? Right.

Took a hike, climbed a tree, came home and made macaroons. You'll notice that I can now help cook thanks to my new stool. So, in other news: my doctor had the nerve to say during my 2 Year checkup yesterday that I'm a teeny bit off the charts in my, a-hem, roundness, so the dreadful fallout of that is that I only got to sample a little bite of these treats before mama took them to a party. What do the charts know? It's COLD for pete's sake--I need the extra layer!

My new stool designed and constructed by my new Best Friend Forever, Mr. Nic (Cole's papa). Now, for those of you wondering why it is that I would prefer this to, say, a lollipop or a teddy bear or a trip to Disneyland, listen carefully 'cause I'm only gonna cover this once: Countertop Access. Sink Access. Top of the World Feelings that truly have to be experienced to be believed. So come on over and I'll let you stand on my new stool... for three and a half seconds until it's MY TURN! Thank you, dear Nic. Oh thank you.

Have you ever had one of those days? You know the kind: when everything just makes you want to scream NO! and those pesky dogs are always under foot? The kind when dropping your fork makes you hostile towards the world at large? Yeah, you know the kind. The kind where, when all is said and done, all you want is to do is get your favorite sun hat, snuggle down with a book called "Do you have a hat?" and answer YES! I HAVE A HAT! every time it asks. If you've never tried this book on one of those days, you should. It makes the world right again.

It's beginning to look a lot like solstakkuhmas! Dad cut down an evergreen that was growing too close to our house, so had to come down, anyway. Mom hung the lights and set up this fantastic little Dicken's village beneath that I can't stop admiring. We also wrapped a tree in front of our house in white lights... We put the ornaments on our Solstice tree, hung our Christmas stockings, set up the Menorah, and managed to thoroughly confuse all sense of holiday awareness and order I had managed to amass over my first two years of life. What I'm figuring out is that lights are good and we're heading into a month long celebration of winter. I can roll with that.