Complete and utter miscellany.

This is nothing but a mishmash of random photos I have found from the last month with nary a theme at all.

Casper has not only grown in size, but grown in curiosity about staring off into the wintry backyard. You know what they say about curiosity and cats though... hopefully he'll be smarter than the last cat and stay indoors.

Who knew beagle mutts and stuffed wookies were natural enemies? Clara loves to wiggle Chewy around until he makes strange wookie noises and then she drops him like a hot potato and runs away with her tail between her legs.

I shouldn't even garner this with a mention, but Colin INSISTED I take this photo and tried to use it in some crafty project or other until I utterly refused. This kind of stuff just never ceases to crack the boys up.

Liam actually ASKED me to take a photo of him and SMILED of his own accord. I couldn't pass that opportunity up. (Also used for some crafty project, I think something he made for Daddy.) There were many days of secret elving projects that we weren't allowed to see going on in the playroom with all the craft supplies. Strangely, there were no magic elves popping in to clean it all up.

We surprised the big boys with tickets to Cirque du Soleil Dralion just before Christmas and had a very lovely day out with Grammy and Grampy. This just spurred on the ridiculous acrobatics that Liam carries out on a daily basis anyway. Here he is yet again showing off his balancing prowess (yes, that's a cat scratching post, you saw correctly). He actually has gotten even better and can now do it on one foot and pivot, the whole shebang. We expect Cirque du Soleil to be calling for him any day now.

For some reason, Eamon became enthralled with the first frost of the season and insisted we walk back to the bus stop in the afternoon and take "really really close" photos. It is pretty cool, I have to admit. I stupidly bought him his own pair of scissors and now all he does all day is cut paper into tiny tiny "snowflakes", otherwise known as annoying little snippets that the vacuum cleaner just spits around.

I can't remember why I took these initially, but I think it was to show two miracles in action simultaneously. One was that Sadie kept a bow in her hair for more than 12 seconds. And the other was that, of ALL the toys we have had (and that is pretty much every one ever made), this toy has stood the test of time. I bought it for Colin as a little baby and EVERYONE has loved it. It plays all sorts of orchestral music, you and add and subtract different instruments and, if I'm not mistaken, it is still on its FIRST SET OF BATTERIES after seven years.

Lots and lots of game playing this month. Chris taught the boys how to play checkers and Liam was soooo kind and patient trying to teach Eamon how to play too. They played for HOURS over a couple weeks before they lost all the pieces (yet again). Liam made this Trio construct on top and begged me to photograph it and, of course, I did. And the real kicker of the holiday season is on the bottom... at Thanksgiving, the boys spent HOURS with their cousins building plastic cup pyramids, higher and higher and higher. They took the idea home with them and spent countless more hours perfecting their creations. Which really just made me think: why are we bringing more toys into this already over-stuffed house when I can just give them the recyclables and call it good?