Some Christmas pics

Our nieces, Jada and Ciara have grown a ton in five months! Especially Ciara. She's the cutie in white in these pictures. She'll be a year old on January 11th. Jada has a monstrous vocabulary now is capable of carrying on quite a deep conversation, as you can tell by our quality bean bag time. Santa found a great sale on bean bags and blankets at Garden Ridge in Plano and sent them with Angela and me since we were already going to Nebraska, and the girls loved them. I think Santa had intended for Jada to get the lime green bean bag to match her lime green blanket, but Jada liked the aqua blue bean bag so much she just took it over and left the lime green one for Ciara. Ciara didn't mind. She was just happy it was soft and fuzzy.

We had a great Christmas. It was hard to leave, but we were glad we had the chance to be there to help eat all that food, pass out some hugs, and play with the little ones. Jada starting calling Angela "Ollie" on this trip. It used to be Alala, and no one knows how that morphed into Ollie. I'm still Nenny. She snuck up on me a few times while I was off doing something by myself, and she always announced herself with, "Oh Hiiii Nenny!" like she was looking for me yet surprised to find me at the same time. She knows how to get a nice big giggling hug, that's for sure. Every time Harry would bark she would say, "Oh silly Hayee." She's just the cutest thing ever. Jada and Ciara might be the cutest sisters ever. Ciara almost took her first steps while were there, but she decided sitting down was preferable so we'll have to wait to see that. It's fun being an aunt.

We got back Monday night, but I don't have to go back to work until tomorrow. I got a wild hair and made baklava today. I've never done it before, but Angela has been craving it and I felt like baking something complicated so I decided to try it. I love puttering in the kitchen. I've never used an entire pound of butter for anything before, but it's still the holidays and we're not worrying about fat or calories right now. And it's Bowl Week! I've got to get settled for the Nebraska/Michigan kickoff at the Alamo Bowl tonight. I have a feeling it won't be pretty, but hey, we still have the Longhorns next week. I love this time of year.