Well, one of the only thing sadder than the fact that the holidays are now over is that the regular season of the NFL is now over as well....today is WildCard Saturday, and even though the patriots are not playing (they win their division the correct way....they dont need the system invented by the liberals to get to the postseason) , I still love watching all the teams play their hearts out to get into a position to lose to the pats neeexxxxt week. Plus, all football should be played on Saturdays, shouldnt it? I will really miss NFL games. Once the season is over, we are truly in 'dark territory' until...like...well....summer I guess. There is really nothing else to do as far as sports go. Well, there's the Bruins, but no tengo cable....

I was able to watch some of the Bills/Pats finale with one of my favorite dogs--Ms Lola Carlton. I dont think I've ever had an animal like me as much as this dog does--but I bet she loves everyone. But I will believe that she just loves me....

Lupine/Cupcake update: They are learning to co-exist with each other, and sometimes they even have cute moments such as this:

But this Cupcake is driving me absolutely crazy. What a KITTEN she is....she is either moving at 120 miles per hour, attacking Lupine, knocking decorations down, etc.....or she is dead asleep in front of the wood stove. She is unreal.

A few more 'cousin' pictures: Callum is such a gentle, tender, nurturing spirit. He would make a wonderful teacher, I think. He loves teaching Maira how to draw pictures and write her letters...and he always compliments her on how great her artwork is. Likewise, with Annabella, he is very attentive to her--he wants to make sure she is safe. It is funny though...he doesnt want other people to 'know' he is doing this...he likes to be out of the limelight, so to speak. Below, he saw Annabella crawling toward Nannie's door, and he wanted to make sure she didnt 'fall outside.' So he crawled/followed her over to the door and coached her on, telling her how well she was doing....

Woops! Now Maira wants to help too! They love helping her; they both love babies....

Annabella has been standing up on her own, while leaning on things....and Callum and Jackson were trying to help Annabella to stand up on her own and 'walk.'

I love this picture: Annabella propping herself up onto one of Nannie's end tables, while Maira 'spots' her attentively to make sure she is safe....if you blow this picture up, you can see that the photo on the table is my mom when she was a little girl--she is sitting on Santa's 'yap,' as Maira would say.....

Last week, on our way back from Mass, we stopped over at LL Bean in order that Sally could exchange her slippers I got her for Christmas (they were too small). While she did this, the kids and I enjoyed one of the last days of LL Bean's light show. The kids love the way the lights move and are sychned up to songs like CAROL OF THE BELLS, etc...

It was nice to see one last 'flash' at Christmas festiveness....we took our tree down last night, and I am actually kind of happy about that, since Cupcake was going to knock it down anyway...haha. Here we are. January 3rd. Very very cold lately. Very windy. Absolutely no snow on the ground. Just frozen banks and ugly lawns. We are supposed to get some snow tonight...let's see!!!