pre·cious 1 : of great value or high price 2 : highly esteemed or cherished

So I started to not feel well yesterday. By this morning I had a raging headache. When I finally got out of bed around 9 Grace came out of her room and said, completely out of the blue, "when you get dressed I will snuggle with you." So of course I got dressed as quickly as my sickly body would allow and went downstairs ready for my snuggling. Grace came along and while we were snuggling she told me that was first on her list.
What?
List?
What list?
Her "to do" list she told me.
So do you want to see what the "to do" list of a six year old looks like?

Behold: (click on each picture for a closer look)

And sure enough...I'm #1!!

Then when I went into the bathroom

I found this sitting on the lid of the potty:

And finally I came down to drink my coffee

and found this on the computer desk:

And so I wonder...how did this happen to me? How did it happen that I have living in my house two little girls and a husband that for all the gold and riches in the world I would not trade. And scribbled onto a piece of paper I have something more valuable to me than any other earthly treasure. These are the kind of things that make me fall to my knees in thanksgiving for.

Christmas

Doesn't get any better than this...



Two little girls sitting at the top of the steps waiting to see of Santa came. Look at the stress on Emily's face. Poor girl. She really thinks there might be a chance he didn't come!
Guess what? He came...






The girls with their totally awesome brother Ethan.
They adore him:



Look what he drew for
me for Christmas...




It was a great Christmas. It has been the tradition the last few years that we spend Christmas Eve with the Kensingers and Christmas Day with the Merrills. It works out really well for all of us. We get to spend a lot of time with each family this way.

The highlight of my day was talking to my Grandma and Grandpa Salas on the telephone. I love my Grandpa's voice. I can hear in his voice how much he loves me. Then when I hang up I'm flooded with memories of them from when I was a little girl. Like cuddling with my Grandpa in the morning after staying the night there. Holding his hand. Always. He is a hand holder and I have always LOVED that. Watching basketball on their tv and wondering why the only books they had were nature books. I remember staying the night there and decorating trick-or-treat pillow cases (to hold lots o' loot). I remember my Grandma's jade jewelry box. And taking a HUGE gulp of what I thought was milk with my pancakes in the morning. It was buttermilk!
Buttermilk! Ever have that? Yikes!
I love you Grandma and Grandpa!

Yay!

Got my Zhu Zhus!! 2 of them!! Yay!

Okay, who did it?

So about 3 years ago I bought the prettiest curtains for our living room. They are the perfect color, a lovely sort of tweed. Anyway, about 2 weeks ago my 8 year old said "Mommy, our curtains are different." I told her she was wrong, that indeed they looked very different (from each other) but that was because the light was on right next to the one causing them to look different. Then last week Merkle says, did you notice our curtains are different? Coincidence?
Fast forward to tonight. We had our friends Don and Anne over for dinner and when we went into the living room to have coffee Don says (read: blurts out) "Your curtains don't match!!"

Okay, so for 3 years these curtains have been fine, now all of the sudden they don't match! AND Anne pointed out, in classic Monk fashion, that the "different"curtain also had very crisp pleats, not the older softer ones of the "original" curtain.

Let it be known that as of tomorrow my garage code will be changed. And, I want my old curtain back!

Why?

Oh dear, ok...my kindergartner learned two new words today:
boobs and hot, as in (being whispered into her ear) "he's the hottest boy in our class."
God help me guide my children.