correcting my neglectfulness

Blogging with more than one child = low priority. I'm sorry about that, because I know this is one of the only ways several friends have of keeping up with our lives. To those friends: get on Facebook. Sadly, I can ALWAYS find time for that.

We had a delightful Thanksgiving in Coeur d'Alene. Mom, Lane, and I stayed in the black on Black Friday by starting at... Goodwill. At 10:30 am. It was perfect. Mom's got a great pic I'll try to snag to share. A few other photos are below, just to do something on this lonely, sad, and neglected blog, and otherwise, this is my Saturday:

• Letting Blake have a doughnut and a half for breakfast earned me the title of "Best Mom Ever." Yeah, the bar is low, but I'll absolutely take it!
• Christmas music, a fire in the stove, an eggnog latte, and one child occupied by a nap with the other occupied by LEGOs (Vesper is really advanced and loves Hero Factory LEGOs already), means I have all the ingredients necessary to address our Christmas cards, sew up stockings, and maybe even put a coat or two of paint on a console table I primed this week. Yes, I AM AMBITIOUS. What, are you new here?
• Ok, I'm not THAT ambitious. I showered, did my hair and makeup... and put my jammies back on. Rob's working from home in HIS jammies, Blake's still in his, Vesper's still in hers. If our dinner guests are lucky, we might all have changed by their arrival. If they are really REALLY lucky, I will text them now and say "Please wear your jammies, so you fit in." They had better not be nude sleepers, because they will be very cold and lonely locked out on the porch.

A friend invited Vesper and I to join us at her table for "Tea with Clara," a Bozeman tradition and precursor to the ballet's showings of The Nutcracker. It was lovely and, though a bit lost on the tiny daughter, I hope it's a tradition we can continue. All the little girls in their Christmas finest were absolutely enthralled by the lovely (and very athletically impressive) ballerinas.

The Harlequin doll and Clara.

This picture is almost a month old, but it's Vesper's five month shot. She grows sweeter and sweeter every day, and we're all having such fun with her. In the last two days, she's started sitting for short spans all on her own, until her balance wavers and she topples sideways into the carpet or us, depending on how fast we are to catch her. She also started, same day I took this picture...

... "solid" food. The quotes are because rice cereal is only a solid if it's mixed really really thickly. She is not a fan of the cereal, but loves the fruit I've been trying out on her, and acted a bit strange after squash, so we'll try that again after a while.

Lane must have bought those funny old glasses we laughed over from Goodwill, because here's Maddox wearing them!

We attended the lighting ceremony at the Lake, all bundled up against the rainy cold.

Happy faces, cold (runny) noses!

Our delightful hosts, the Perrines. Gosh, but I love these guys.

Rob was given a leave of absence to play World of Warcraft in Spokane with his sister, so this is all of the Bedfords you get to see this time. Vesper is wearing and chewing on my mom's wool gloves, naturally.