So we cleaned out the car today. Quite the process. I string together about 7 extension cords to get the vacuum to reach our car. While doing this, I leave the front door open a bit to leave room for the cords to go through. Today just happened to be extra extra windy - not that that had anything to do with what happened. We completed the job fairly uneventfully and dragged everything back in to get Cambree up from her nap. I stopped in the kitchen to grab a drink and I saw this whitish black stuff on the counter. Wow, that looks surprisingly like bird droppings I thought... but no. Probably it was something that came from someone's nose or worse, mouth. I headed upstairs preparing myself for whatever might be in Cambree's diaper.
...2 minutes later Haylee runs upstairs, "Uh Mom, come downstairs. I want to show you something."
"In a minute, my hands are-"
"It's a bird! In the pantry!"
I thought it was funny that Haylee was the calm one here.
My first instinct was to grab the broom and shoo that dang thing out the door, screaming at it all the while. Well that of course, scared that blasted bird into flying all over the place, leaving his, shall we say mark? all around the house. After watching the bird smack into the sliding door 5 or 6 times it occurred to me to open it up. Finally, after what seemed like a long time but really wasn't (just long enough for Cambree to find a not so hidden bag of Vday candy, tear into it, and get chocolate everywhere) we got the bird to fly out the back door.
We spent a good part of the remainder of the afternoon searching for and cleaning up bird droppings. At least it didn't come upstairs. Well, we hope it didn't. We have no evidence of that...yet.
Many of you know we've had mice issues ever since we've lived here. I despise mice. But, as Haylee very intelligently remarked while we were cleaning up, "Maybe the birds will chase the mice away."
That's my girl. Always looking on the bright side...
I later wondered why I freaked out as I did. Maybe it's because I watched part of Hitchcock's
The Birds movie yesterday. Or maybe it's because unleashed, unwanted, living animals do not belong inside. That, I have determined, is why we have doors and I intend to keep mine shut from now on. We'll have to figure out another way to clean out the car.
Finally, we get some snow in NC worth talking about! None of this .25 inches stalling traffic on I40 for 6 hours business. Nope, we got real snow! The total accumulation was about 3-4 inches I'd guess and everything shut down. Even BJ's workaholic preceptor "guessed it'd be safer if he stayed at home" (the beast) so we enjoyed it together! It snowed pretty much all day long and it was just gorgeous outside! No snow covered mountains for our back drop, oh in fact, as soon as we went outside Haylee commented on all the snow but asked me where the mountains were! 
When I walked into the room Haylee proudly announced with a faux breathless voice, "Look Mom! We're getting energy!"
Cambree and her Uncle Twinkie at one of the times when she should have been sleeping but really just wanted to come downstairs and play games with us.
Elefun! Cambree's smiling because although she had no clue how to play the game or that there was even a game going on, she was in the middle of 4 squealing big girls!
Grandma's bathtub is much cooler than ours!
Marianne (BJ's mom) made matching jammies for all the girl cousins. While the whole process of getting them all done in time was a bit stressful, they turned out adorable...at least we thought so. These are my attempts to capture the matchingness. As you can see, they were all very willing to comply.
"I'm gonna take a picture, go stand next to BJ if you want to be in it!"
We went with all the rest of BJ's family to see the lights on temple square on Christmas eve. It was cold as always and I guess that is why Haylee was such a grump, but it was just nice to be together and here all the oohs and ahs from the kids.
Haylee was so excited to go play in the snow since she hasn't seen much of it out here in Carolina. Her cousin Sami got to teach her how to make a snowman and angels and all that...
These 2, above and below, are probably some of my favorites from our trip...why? Because they show personality I guess. Below is very typical of Bree, trying to fit as much food, not normal food, big people food, into her mouth at one time as possible
Jack: "Hey Haylee! What level can you get to on Grandma's tank game? I can get to level 2!"
Our first time ice skating in who knows how long...we enjoyed spending the evening holding hands (not each others') and catching Annie :) Haylee refused to try it but had a ball watching us go around and around...every time we got back to her side she'd jump and scream "HI MOM AND DAD!"
Haylee and 3 of her cousins taking turns on Grandma Jan's lap for story time...