Adventures at The Bunny Manse

Madeline woke up, stretched, yawned...and then I saw her eyes dilate. The realization that it was Christmas morning washed over her! She ran through the hallway and looked over the banister. MOMMY! There is tree wrapping paper! there wasn't tree paper last night! SANTA HAS BEEN HERE! We all went downstairs and marveled at the tree and presents. Harris got me both champagne and coffee for the morning's adventure. A majority of Madeline's presents are still necessities. This year, it included a rain coat and rain boots that will last her 2-3 years, new pajamas, tights, rubber bands for her hair, and a pair of tennis shoes. She also received a couple of new lego sets, a build a fort kit, playdoh, thrift store dresses, and an American girl doll she has named Julie. Margot received a couple of toys, a classic stacker, shape sorter, and push elephant. One day this year she will be old enough to play with them.

This day was made for caroling and improved by matching pajamas.

Our little girls!

Madeline literally lost a tooth yesterday. Her story "I was holding my backpack with my mouth - not the whole backpack just the top - then got to my class and swallowed my spit and it tasted funny and then Mrs. L asked if I had lost a tooth." Where was this all "In the carrider entrance before I got to my classroom. It wasn't even loose!" The tooth fairy was very kind and found the tooth at her school and left her a paper dollar under her pillow.

Overheard in line at the Farmer's Market this weekend. Person 1: So you're buying a house? Person 2: Yeah, we figured it's cheaper than renting. Plus we can do whatever we want to it! Oh cute, naive, little snugglebunny. I just want to eat you up! Lemme guess. In year 1 you might paint a room over the builder colors and change a bathroom towel bar. You will also plant bushes in the yard and make a small gardening patch.

While we were in Greensboro we stopped in the middle of the road and stared at a house. It had the exact shade of deep dark color we were looking for. We wrote down the street address and took pictures and forwarded them over to Sara, our tastefully purchased eyes and she found some really cool colors that scream US without it being right in your ear. We're going to paint swatches this weekend and see if we like them on the house!

 I went back to work on the 17th so have blissfully quiet surroundings. We started with three carpenters fixing the rot. Basically, they started on the porch and have worked their way around our house fixing any rotten wood they find. Along the way, they've found -literally - 400 lbs of squirrel nests. Squirrels ate through the crown molding and made nests in the eaves. At one point, these were fixed with metal soffits. We've replaced those with wood and are encouraging the squirrels to stay very far away from our roof and attic. We then added to the fun a set of roofers who are working on the total restoration of our slate roof. It was not leaking, it had been patched and tweaked over the years, but it had maybe 10 yrs left on it - and those 10 yrs would be full of $1,800 repairs when slates blew off (yes), the metal flashings finally gave way (yes), and the rot from water running in at weird angles. We decided to go ahead and do it now while we still have access to the s...