rabbit!

Happy new month and especially new year.

I spent Christmas in Ohio where there was - !? - no snow.

It was plenty ominous, overcast, and dreary .. so I got a dose of seasonal affective disorder, just no snowmen or snowball fights ... and, ok, or scraping ice off my brother's windshield, and I can't exactly say I was dismayed to return home to sunny skies and t-shirt weather. But what's the point of going somewhere cold for Christmas if you don't get quaint puffy snow outside the window when you're opening presents?  (If you're stuck somewhere arctic, I'm really sorry for ruining your day here, but just try to imagine palm trees strung with lights and maybe you'll see what I mean) 

(if your imagination fails you, there is always the internet)

I had intended to make a gingerbread house, but was daunted by an amazing array of them at the Cleveland Botanical Garden (where you can also, and we did, traipse amongst butterflies and birds). Here are a few of my favorites.







after that I wasn't so inclined .. can't really top those.

So instead of the gingerbread house, I helped make cookies.

This is what happens when a 4 year old and an 8 year old decorate cookies:




This is what happens when you let a 4 year old borrow your camera:


This is what happens when you let an 8 year old borrow your camera:


This is what happens when you ask the 8 year old to take pictures of his 4 year old sister:


Even so, no one got a stocking full of coal.
Maybe next year.