Merry Christmas!

Fiona went to bed last night with dreams of sugar plums or at least a lot of sugar in her head...and woke up this morning with a rejoicint HE CAME!!!!!!!!

As expected he brought an owl and plenty of books and puzzles. We all sat in front of a beautiful christmas morning fire and not one of us was swept away in the a slide of wrapping paper.

Hope that you and yours are having wonderful day too.
Love

Louise
A note left for Santa and the cookies munched on.

reindeer poo outside!

Stocking loot.

Owl found in the tree.

Salmon Art

Fiona made this picture of a salmon for Devon the other day. Its good to have art supplies in the car...you never know what will come out of the back seat!

The Visit

We made the annual pilgrimage to the mall today to meet up with Santa who visits there every year. On the way there Fiona accounted for the "few"times that she hasn't been "nice" and wrote them off as days when she was, "just a bit tired." She insisted that there wouldn't be many more of them in the future.

Her request of Santa this year:

• An "owl of any size" as we discussed that if he brought a "Giant Owl" which had been a first choice there wouldn't be much room on the sleigh for other kids' stuff. This owl thing comes from her recent Harry Potter obsession and the owls featured therein.
  

• She also asked that Santa bring a "present for kids who don't have a mother or father"...Sniff sniff. He assured her that he would.

I don't know if she will still be a true believer next year...but I hope so.

Love Louise

By The Book

I'm sure I've used this picture before somewhere, but now I use it to remind myself what a bright wonderful happy girl we have...BUT...Will the sass ever stop?!?
It seems like every morning starts with the same endless negotiations, storming off, whining, manipulations and then end with the whining, negotiations, manipulations and then some storming off for good measure.

I smiled today at dropoff to kindergarten when another mother looked like she was having the same interaction with her kid. I didn't smile to show that I was happy that she was about to throttle the child, but rather that I was not alone in feeling like I am in some sort never-ending psychology experiment... and I'm not sure if I'm the test subject or the investigator.

The book we have about five year olds uses words for the five and a half year old as: "indescisive, overdemanding, dawdling, antagonistic, and as having an all-too -great-readiness to disobey"....At least she's by the book!