Winter Wonderland

We're getting our first major snow of the season.  There's been a blizzard warning--the forecast was calling for 12-14 inches and tons of things were cancelled tonight (including the community college where Bob's teaches, which allowed us to spend a cozy evening together).  I shoveled when I got home hours ago and it doesn't look like much more has accumulated.  We seem to get a lot of false alarms when it comes to winter weather, which leads to unnecessary panic and frantic trips to the grocery store.

When I came in from shoveling Bob gave me a nice mug of hot apple cider (yumm!) and I put on my jammies.

Bob and I have spent the past couple weekends busily painting his rental house, so our tree decorating got delayed.  Fortunately we both had time last night to put up the lights and ornaments.  My parents gave me a number of ornaments that the family collected over the years.  Many of my favorite ornaments are ones that my aunt Kay made.  Throughout my childhood, Kay made a different type of ornament each year and gave one to each member of the family.  As a result, my brother and I now have a great collection of beautiful ornaments with a lot of sentimental value.  Here are some pictures of Kay's handiwork--she's quite talented.

Sled made out of popsicle sticks.

Cat made out of dough, which has held up amazingly well over the years.

Dough goat from the same batch.

Based on the calico print, this teddy bear must be from the 80s.

Santa painted on driftwood from Lake Superior.

Now that I have three mischievous little cats, decorating the Christmas tree requires some strategy.  We didn't put up any glass ornaments this year, as that would be asking for trouble.  The more delicate ornaments are on the upper half of the tree and the sturdier wood and metal ones are on the bottom.  The cats have been relatively well behaved thus far, but now that Ian is built like a tank (he's almost 20 lbs.), the tree leans quite a bit when he props his front legs up on the branches.