THE WEATHER OUTSIDE IS FRIGHTFUL

It is that time of year again... We are all decorated for Christmas and cannot wait for it to come at last. Time has flown by so quickly - it seems like we just put last year's Christmas decor away (don't be a smarty pants, Nikki, we didn't just put it away, it has been put away for a year now...)! Here is Starkisha striking a pose in her new Christmas sweater, displaying the quilt mom made (my mom, not her mom) and her letter to Santa. Isn't she getting so fluffy?

Daisy absolutely LOVES to be curled up in blankets, even more so now that it is so cold. She digs and digs at them until she creates a little tunnel for herself, and then she burrows underneath. She usually completely covers herself, so I actually had to lift up a corner of her blankets to take this picture.

Here are our three Christmas trees - we thought it would be fun to get three little ones this year instead of one big one. But when they came to our doorstep, they were quite a bit bigger than we expected. So we decided to decorate each one in a different color (one silver, one gold, and one red), and they are now spread throughout our living room. It looks quite festive in there, but it is impossible to capture it in a picture. So here they are displayed all together.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING Y'ALL

Wow! Another Thanksgiving over. Let's move on to Christmas and get this show on the road. Thanksgiving was great this year. We feasted with our good friends Ryan and TJ. I wanted to say "the Pinis" but figured that didn't look too good. I am sure glad my patients will not have to say they are going to visit Dr. Pini. Maybe he should have been a Urologist. We had a forced romantic candlelight dinner because we lost power just after everything finished cooking. It actually stayed off for almost three hours. As you can see we had just about every candle in the house burning, and Ryan thought it would be a good idea to light his alcohol lamp for the extra flare.

Our dinner consisted of a combined effort of family specialties. We made the orange rolls, yams, and stuffing. TJ and Ryan made the Asparagus prosciuto, turkey, and potatoes. After raving about the potatoes, we found out why they were so good. All it takes is two cups of heavy cream, two sticks of butter, and two to three teaspoons of salt and voila! Good potatoes.

After all was said and done, it turned out to be an excellent day and great dinner, even without the lights. Now we can't wait to get this semester over with, so taking our cue from Alvin, Simon, and Theodore, all we can sing is, "We've been good but we can't last! Hurry Christmas! Hurry fast... Please Christmas don't be late!"

THE COVERED BRIDGES OF PARKE COUNTY

HALLOWEEN TIME

Starkisha and Daisy got their first costumes this year. Starkisha dressed up as "Devil Dog," which is quite fitting, while Daisy was a cute little pumpkin. We bought tons of candy this year because we ran out so quickly last year. As luck would have it, we hardly got any Trick-or-treater's this year, so now we have a huge bag of candy in our freezer. Starkisha and Daisy didn't appreciate the doorbell rings we did get, so it is probably good we didn't get that many. Here's our little devil and pumpkin.