Daniel & Annabel's Adventures

For Christmas, Annabel made Josie a coupon for sleeping over at our house and Josie was beyond excited about this!!! The kids, all three- Josie Daniel Annabel, asked daily when the sleep over was. So we made it happen on Saturday January 1st! They didn't have to wait too long after Christmas for this fun night.

The kids were all very excited once it was all arranged and couldn't wait. Josie apparently put her coat on all ready to go hours before she was due to come to our house. So cute! She was clearly very excited and very ready! It was supposed to snow a LOT while she was here so we also asked them to send her winter snow gear so we could all go sledding. My kids were very much looking forward to taking Josie sledding while she was here, too.

We filled the day with play, games, more play, and even started a movie that night (which we then finished the next morning). It was a very busy Saturday with lots of fun cousin time! Sunday morning the kids finished the movie and then we all went sledding!!! The sledding fun is another post though. :)

You can enjoy the sleep over pictures for now! We sure had a great time with Josie here- she's a lot of fun!

Josie was ready hours before it was time for them to bring her. Amelia sent me this picture early that day. Too cute!

The kids played Crossfire, which funnily enough, I remember playing with my brother (Josie's dad0 when we were little. Now our kids are playing it- isn't that wild? (To be clear- This isn't the same exact one Brian and I played...that one is long gone, this is a new one we gave Daniel a while back.)

Daniel also taught Josie how to play Klask and they had fun with that, too.

Of course, Playmobil toys definitely got set up and played with! Also- I didn't take pictures of everything, but they played with Legos, Roblox figures, and more, too! They were busy!

Sunday morning...finishing up the movie!

Life in December is always busy!

First up, we have the many faces of Annabel. (This reminds me of doing the many faces of Daniel when he was a teeny baby.) Annabel had to make a dodecahedron for her math class for homework one afternoon. She put faces all over it and then proceeded to demonstrate each expression. It was so cute and so fun!

Two kitties in this pile.

Annabel and her Girl Scout troop had the opportunity to ring bells for the Salvation Army outside a local grocery store. We had a nice warm night for it and the girls had a lot of fun! They sang and rang and raised quite a bit of money we were told. A very nice customer even bought them all fresh cookies from the bakery and brought them out to the girls- so fun! The girls were very delighted at this of course. Fun times!

Shoe attack!

I celebrated a friend's 40th birthday at a local chocolate cafe. It was SUCH a fun party- I had a blast that night! Esra has such nice friends and she was so fun and totally into the whole celebrating thing which made the night all the more fun- she's not a bit shy, haha. The dessert and hot chocolate were DElicious and I wanted one of everything. Guess where Annabel now wants to go for her birthday? Anyway, a fun night- probably the most fun I've had out in a very long time.

Looks.

We hung Daniel's Woodward Cruise poster finally.

Yep, he fits...note the cat under the stool.

Cozy Ziggy!

Love my front hall table lights at Christmas time!

Kitty company. Always.

If I drink my chai with this snowman mug and use my snowman spoon, will it snow?? Please?

It didn't.

Ziggy's hiding...from??? I don't know but it's cute!

Festive house complete with lions at the base of their driveway- fun!

He fits. Ziggy in another Tinker Crate box.

Such a fun afternoon out and about to see this small outdoor production of A Christmas Carol downtown! Aside from a lack of speakers and therefore sound volume, it was well done I thought- the costumes were neat and the show was fun...from what we could tell!

The kids had candy advent calendars this year (having decided they didn't like or need the Lego ones or any other variety of "stuff," thankfully)- Reese's and Hershey's for the win! I got myself a puzzle advent calendar this year- 12 days of 100 piece puzzles for me to do and I loved each and every one! Such fun to sit and do that every day.

Okay, this next picture...here's the story...

The boxes were down at the bottom of the picture, as noted in my drawing. We heard a commotion and discovered the boxes were no longer where I'd left them and instead had made it down the hall and fallen open, where the kitties were now sitting and enjoying their prizes. The boxes were empty, don't worry, and there's a video next just to show you how exactly this happened...but apparently Ziggy stuck his nose into the box handle opening and pushed, and voila, new spot for the box! Too funny!!

You can watch the hilarity here!

They just couldn't be any cuter when they sleep all nestled in blankets like this.

Hannah!! She's SO cute!

Annabel made this adorable book corner bookmark! I loved it!

Kitty next to Annabel while she plays on the computer!

Annabel did her current event on the (at the time, upcoming) launch of the James Webb telescope and she got top marks...her teacher made some awesome notes and says Annabel is just getting better and better at speaking. Annabel LOVES doing these current event reports (which she does about every 8 weeks or so) and she really puts a lot of thought and effort into the whole assignment, which includes a slideshow in addition to the public speaking component. Anyway, had to share this one!

Cozy!

Annabel scores a goal! Indoor soccer has been so fun this year! It's so nice to get that extra practice and get out and about a little bit on Saturdays.

Annabel had to do a video presentation for her PI (honors reading) class and dress up as an assigned character, among other things. Her character: Half Boy (as in, half of him is not even there). We brainstormed and brainstormed ways to make her be a half-person essentially- so tricky! She didn't like most of our ideas and they weren't great ones admittedly, though they would have worked in a pinch. It was a little easier given that it was all done at home- she didn't have to go to school like this or anything. After finally looking at the book, The Phantom Tollbooth, to get more details and information, I noticed the illustrations were just pencil outlines and took inspiration from that. We used glow sticks to outline half of Annabel...a half-person! Annabel loved it and it really was just fine for what she was doing. The one minute video was only going to be her top half, so we stopped at the shirt line, and with the black, her other half sort of disappears. I think it turned out pretty cute! I was pretty pleased with myself, haha!

The beginnings of a Christmas present! Pretty cool so far. It's Harry Potter page strips all around the vase and since it was going to be for Christmas, I even made sure to include the Christmas bits from the book, too. I had a lot of fun working on this.

Ugly sweater day for the middle school and Daniel wanted to do it!! Here's what we found for him to wear...it was pretty awesome given the very short notice we had! Daniel looked great and I'm so glad he participated in the Christmas week fun!

Google made me cute photo collages...one features Annabel and one features me. Fun memories!

Daniel used the lid for this tub for a project around the house and Ziggy quite happily curled up inside it.

Micro-city made by Daniel and me. I had a ton of fun helping Daniel with this little project. It turned out pretty cool, I think!

Awww, cute kitty Cosmo all stretched out.

The other kitty up against Annabel.

One of my awesome finds while shopping at Target in December was a series of winter themed "eye cars" which I was too excited to save as Christmas presents so I immediately gave them to Daniel. He was then inspired to make a snowy village for these eye cars, complete with mood lighting in the form of a string of battery Christmas lights. It was so cute!

Bedtime story time for Daniel...and Ziggy apparently- look closely at Ben's arms!!

This is where Cosmo curls up during said story time every night. Very cute.

Ziggy saw me taking pictures and decided to see what attention I would give him!

Instagram post fun...the idea was that animals in costume are deceiving you, albeit mildly..."mild deception"- so people were tagging pictures of their animals in costume. This one caught my eye- a cat as a lion. We thought it was funny!

Another darling collage of Annabel.

The Harry Potter vase is finished and I just love how it turned out! It was for Amelia and I was told her house was Slytherin so I used those house colors for accents at the middle (which covers the seam between paper strips, too) and I was very excited to find Harry Potter charms to add to the ribbon and make it even more special and fun. I was amazed at how it came together- so awesome! This picture barely does it justice, too- it's great in-person. My friend at the library, Lynne, immediately asked if I could make one for her daughter. So that's in the works now, too!

Annabel's chair was in my room for a couple days (we'd gone to a virtual workshop together) and it kept staying there because Ziggy loved it so much!!

Owl crate fun!!

We had a mystery to solve...what was making the very intermittent beeping noise? We were ALL over the upstairs checking every device, every detector, and every room...we even looked in the attic, which had the cats' attention big time!

I joke that Ziggy would be the cat we'd have to call the fire department on because he will have gotten so high up we can't get him down. He LOVES to climb and is always looking higher and higher as if there's more to reach towards. This cat. (The beeping by the way was an unplugged no-longer used detector on the floor in the linen closet, which apparently still had batteries in it that were of course dying...I have no idea why it was still there, but there you have it. Mystery solved.)