A Whole Mess of Turtle Doves...In a Tree

     Today I glanced out the window and saw this. Can you see them? It was a whole tree full of light grey doves. I like to call them doves instead of pigeons because I've been told there's almost no difference, and dove sounds much more romantic than pigeon, doesn't it? Nevertheless, it was a sweetly surprising sight, and reminded me to stop and take notice as much as I can. This is something I try to practice with the girls. Sometimes it's about noticing, but often it's just about stopping and enjoying the moment. I know I've talked about this ad nauseum, but that's because it's an ongoing theme in my life. In all of our lives, right? Sometimes when naked Rosy runs away from clothes-bearing me and hides in their circus tent again, on my best days I see that I have a choice. I can fly off the handle and bark about how I don't have the energy for this or why do you have to do this every single time? Or I can stop. Stop and let her enjoy the thrill of the chase. Enjoy her excited laughter and see it for what it is, a precious, fleeting joy-of-a-thing that will not happen that often in a year. In six months, maybe.  

     The next day they were birds on a wire...

I love this picture because she looks like a certain cousin of mine at this age here. 

     Christmas craftiness has officially begun at our house. I have always loved making things, but my propensity for procrastination usually has me throwing up something last-minute. (Not so much actually vomiting as, you know, putting up quickly). But this year, somehow, I'm a little bit more on top of the Christmas game, albeit at the expense of the housekeeping game. But who wants to play the houskeeping game anyhow? Ok, so maybe a couple of projects doesn't really qualify for ''on top of the game,'' but I do have a couple more in the hopper. Let's hope they get out of the hopper before next Christmas.

     Lily gave Tomáš this the other morning. She made a present out of Legos. I thought it was really clever and cute. 

     Merry Christmas-prepping to you and yours! Anyone got any Christmas photo ideas? I just gave myself a bad orange hair-don't, so I suspect ours will either just be the girls...or in black and white. Wink.