The Wise Men finally made it to the manger scene on Epiphany.
The whole gang's together.
The next day I put away all the Christmas stuff. This includes the tree, which of course had dropped needles all over the rug in the living room. I know better than to try to use the vacuum to clean those up now, though, because one of my least-favorite things is cleaning out a clogged vacuum. And that is exactly what cedar needles will do, every time.
Thus, I picked up all the needles on the rug by hand.
Fun.
We took the church decorations down that afternoon, and I found that the fake tree there also shed needles. I guess there's no such thing as a non-shedding Christmas tree.
Taking the small chili pepper tree off the table meant I had nothing there. I mentioned to Poppy that it was too bad I didn't have anything for the middle of the table, and she ran off to her room to find something for me.
She made this button flower craft at a school event. Perfect.
A couple of days after that . . .
Cold cattle.
Cold road.
We got around two inches of snow Friday morning. Enough for the kids to play in, at least.
One of her brothers gave Poppy two tiny plastic pigs for Christmas. She decided they needed a nice place to rest, so she made them a bed. She sewed a mattress and blanket for it, too.
She also made some troughs and pig food.
I bought a new mattress for A. and me when I was in town last. When we hauled the old memory foam mattress out, the children begged to keep it to play on for awhile. We couldn't get it to the dump right away anyway, so we left it on the porch, where it became the crash pad for many daredevil jumps from the freezer or the trampoline.
And then, inevitably . . .
Jasper was quite pleased to find such a soft, large bed in his territory and immediately moved in.
I made some more candles from the church candle stubs, which means we have a ready supply for the living room.
I thought using two wicks in this larger hexagonal candle would help it burn down evenly.
It did not.
There you have it! My life, snapshotted.