Happy Valentine's Day!

Brandon and I are way cool. You may think we're nerds. We're not.

For Valentines Day (yeah yeah yeah, I know it's early), I got Brandon a replica of Professor Slughorn's wand. For those of you who don't know, that's from Harry Potter, and you should stop reading this and go read the series instead.

Tonight, my present from Brandon arrived in the mail. A Dumbledore wand. Oh yeah!

The Elder wand. Hey, the most powerful wand ever made, no big deal.

Proffesor Slughorn's wand. Brandon really likes it, he always thought it looked really cool.

Portia even got one. My wand came with a Harry Potter wand pen. She loves it.

In fact, when we opened them all up, Brandon waved his wand at Portia, and she did the best thing ever. She froze, and fell backwards. Think Neville Longbottom: Petrificus Totalus. It was hilarious.

Needless to say, we spend a good 20 minutes playing with our new wands.

Nothing says love like a reenactment of the second wizarding war. Reducto!

I ran over a skunk tonight in my car.

He jumped right out in front of me.

At first, I felt real bad; I probably killed him!

Then, the bog of eternal stench started to permeate my car, and my compassion for the animal kingdom dissipated.

Stupid skunk.

Is it lame that I like Court TV?

Judy? What do you think?

milestones

Margot hit a few milestones this week. She rolled over for the first time tonight, and she ate her first bottle of baby food: carrots! She thought it was pretty yummy!

She has also started to read:

It's just "My Little Animal Book" for now, but next on her reading list are Hemingway, Steinbeck, Tolkien, and Shakespeare.

She's a fast learner.

owl boots

Brandon's parents have some cats, and Portia loves them. One of her favorite activities is going outside and playing with them. Most of the cats run and hide when they see her coming, but not Owl Boots.

He's a little terrifying. He is an adopted stray, with a bit of a scrappy past. You can tell by looking at him that he's been in more than his fair share of fights. He has patches of fur missing, half of one ear is gone, and his eyes don't quite point the way they should. But Portia loves him. And Owl Boots loves her back. He lets her scream at him, pull his tail, and squeeze him till he can't breathe without any complains. We think he is just so happy that someone is paying attention to him, he doesn't care what she does. He follows her around like a pre-teen girl would to Justin Bieber, his one good eye full of love.

This is from the same day.

You're welcome.

Last night, Daddy came home with a present for Portia: a stuffed cat.

She named him Owl Boots.

Christmas morning!

Portia was really excited for Christmas morning. On Christmas Eve, I was telling her that when she woke up the next morning, Santa would have come and brought her some presents, and she gasped and said "I want to go night-night!" Silly girl.

The loot:

Portia and Margot got a ton of awesome stuff this year!

Portia got a little jeep, barbies, books, a piggy bank, babies, play dough, and tons more. She was thrilled! She kept wanting to stop and play with each toy before opening another one.

Margot's gift stash was a bit smaller, since she is too small to play with a lot of toys. But, she got a few rattles and teethers, and a stuffed hippo. She drooled on that hippo for hours.

The girls put on their new matching Christmas dresses, and we headed to church. After that, Portia wanted to spent every moment outside with the cats, and playing with her new jeep.

I love that Portia is old enough now to really understand and enjoy Christmas, It's so much fun!

I now understand why my mom just sits grinning on Christmas and forgets to open her gifts.

The Annual O'Dell Grandkids Christmas Eve Party

The next few posts are picture/video heavy!

Ready? Here we go!

Every year on Christmas Eve, my parents and sister plan a spectacular party for all the grandkids. There are now 11 kids, so it's pretty loud and crazy, but super fun! The kids love it!

We arrived at my parents house at about 3, and the festivities commenced! First, the kids decorated gingerbread cookies. They were going to make a gingerbread house, buuut it was decided that it would be too messy and too hard, since we would have to wait for the frosting to dry. So each kid was given a bit of the house and some frosting and they went to town!

A lot of Portia's time was spent eating the candy and frosting rather than decorating with it.

This is how Margot decorates cookies:

Next came presents! We gathered all the kids into the living room and started passing out gifts. They got books, teddy bears, toy octopus (octopuses? octopi? eh), and lots of other goodies. Even the parents got presents. Grandpa's gift was the most anticipated. Everyone was so excited.

He got a muppet! My sisters and I went in together for it, Carrie picked it up at FAO Schwarz in NYC. He was pretty tickled.

Then came the traditional Nativity play. All the kids dress up, and we read from Luke chapter 2, and the kids act it out.

(I'm glad there are so many grandkids now, because a few years ago there weren't enough babies for all the parts, and Carrie and I had to step in. It's great fun for kids, but it gets a bit embarrassing for a 19 year-old to be dressed up as Mary and drug in on a rocking horse. One year I was even a sheep.)

Next we went to Rhema. For those of you who aren't familiar, Rhema is a church in Broken Arrow that puts up thousands of lights every Christmas. Thousands and thousands. Really. A lot of lights.

Margot was entranced, the lights are really exciting for a tiny thing.
Portia thought Rhema was pretty cool, she just discovered Christmas lights this year, and loves them!

All in all, a pretty awesome night!