A Noisy Cat Named Star, A Flip, 50 Pics & An Espresso Truffle...

You know you're sleeping pretty hard when you call your cat your sister's name. For some reason our cat was quite the vocal little fella last night. He would not let up. Hubb's told me that I kept calling our cat, "Star", my sister's name. No wonder my cat wouldn't stop making so very much noise, when I'm telling him, Be quiet, Star! Which is just funny in itself, because my sister heard that phrase every single night, growing up with me. We shared a room forever and a day and she snored. A little chainsaw is what she was. It's amazing we are still talking.

Despite the cat, I slept good last night. I slept in. That never happens. Even on weekends. I usually get up before everyone, just for the quiet. Quiet has become increasingly vital to me the further into parenthood I get. I actually slept in until nine. Never happens. The day is half way gone now. Seriously. Do you know how much I knock out before nine a.m.? I might as well give up and just stay in my pj's all day. I think I will. Actually, that was the plan all along. I admit it, I really had nothing to do today. Shocking, isn't it? I mean, there is always something to do. I'm a mom. A human. There's always a running list. But today, I am staying at home. Engaging with the kiddos (looking them in the eye). Wrapping presents. Watching Christmas movies. And the Cat In The Hat.

We had movie night last night and the girls wanted to watch different movies. So we flipped for it. I guess "flipping for it" was a foreign concept to them, cuz they were amazed we could do such a thing. At first they liked the idea of flipping the coin. The heads and tails of it. Until O didn't win the flip. She wanted a do over. Yeah...that's the point of the flip. No do overs. Momma doesn't decide--the coin does. She didn't get it. It totally wasn't fair, and we had the tears. So, I told her she could go to bed or watch Elf with us. It worked out. We laughed. But the first thing she said as soon as my eyes popped open at nine a.m., was that it was time to watch her movie--Cat in the Hat, which she has declared the funniest movie on earth. So that's what we're doing.

I wanted to share a couple more pics from last weekend--the dance recital. It was actually held at an event called, Festival of Trees. It's put on by a local hospital and they basically have over thirty trees/scenes that sponsors decorate and they auction them off and give the proceeds to the hospital. O did her speech on this a couple weeks ago. It's very festive. They have something like fifty gingerbread houses too, face painting, Santa's there and they have this great Teddy Bear Hospital.

The Teddy Bear Hospital is kind of a big deal. We skipped it last year, cuz the line was looooooong, but this year I wanted to make an effort to do it for the kiddos, because I thought it would be good for our girls. See Flu Shot Shmooo Shots . They give all the kids a free teddy bear and they take their bears through the hospital, as if it was sick or hurt.

Real life doctor and nurses volunteered there and they would wrap the bears leg/head/arm/nose in a cast, and the kids could prepare their bears for surgery, have an x-ray and the doctor would suture a wound the bear had. The kiddos could participate in just about everything (giving the bears a shot, putting the oxygen mask on them, taking the bear's blood pressure, etc...). It was truly a great idea. The girls loved it. And while we waited in line for an hour, Starbuck's gave us free Espresso Truffle samples. That alone made it worth the wait. Go get yourself an Espresso Truffle right now.



If you're reading this, you're putting up with me. I thank you for that. You know I just can't leave anything out. I mean, you need to know all this, right? You need to see it in fifty pictures. Should I apologize you'll never get these five minutes back? Just in case...sorry. :)

Have a nice weekend. I'm serious about that Espresso Truffle.