Groundhog's Day Eve Birthdays

Today is Groundhog's Day Eve, aka my mommy's BIRTHDAY!

She is a super amazing mom, and even though you are probably not reading this today Mama, I just wanted to give a little post for you.  :)

It is also Ben's mom's birthday, so if YOU are by chance reading this Pat, happy birthday to you too :)

And happy new job!

i am related to Annie Oakley

You know what really happens when you "grow up" and move out of the house??

Your parents decide to take amazing vacations with your younger siblings,

to places like this

...but the point of this post is to showcase perhaps the funniest picture of my little sister. ever.

love it.

a White Christmas in Iowa

My family traveled to my grandma's farm in eastern Iowa on Christmas day. I didn't think we would have a white Christmas since it had been pouring nasty rain up until the day of, but lo and behold windy blizzardy flakes turned into huge gently falling clumps of snow and soon the world looked like this. So I escaped the family and went for a walk.

back to school!

I am fiiiinally back in PA after a long long drive today! It was very unexciting except for my mini panic-attack as I couldn't find my camera while I was unpacking the car. EEEEEK!!!

Thank goodness it finally appeared again and was not sucked into the vortex of lost items (like my first iPod RIP)

I don't know if I am really ready to dive into the last two weeks of the semester, but I have no choice so here we go!

It was reeeally nice to relax at home and get away from school for awhile. Thanksgiving is great because you know you will get an even bigger and better holiday in just a month!  More time for sleeping in, reading books for fun, drinking gallons of hot tea and eggnog, eating way too many sweets and holiday foods, basking in the glow of sparkly Christmas lights (LOVE those xmas lights!!! I need to put some up in my apartment!), seeing old friends, and being silly and ridiculous with sisters:

Ellie this one is for you:

After the Thanksgiving festivities I roadtripped to Chicacoland to see Ben

[and that was when my camera ran away :( ]

We dove right into the Christmas season!!!!

Kind of went overboard, I realize now that I am typing this all out...

It was a quick visit but so much fun!

We listened to nonstop CHRISTMAS MUSIC on the radio! And participated in a massive gingerbread house contest at church! And went to the Glen Ellyn holiday walk, in which all the little shops downtown open for the night and pass out cookies, cocoa, hot cider, and everyone mills around under the sparkly lights lining the streets. This town is tooooo cute.  I also watched Elf for the first time and then we tried to go ice skating in Millenium Park downtown but everyone else in Chicago had the same idea so we didn't.  I wasn't even disappointed because I was evidently already saturated with holiday cheer. 

I am so sad I couldn't find my camera for Chicago!!!! It was a beautiful sunny day and I love that city. 

The Art Institute was all decked out for Christmas with really pretty leaf wreaths around the lions.

We walked through the park and across the new bridge to the modern wing that I hadn't ever seen

I'll just have to steal a picture...it obviously looks better in the summer! Now there is no green.

photo

Soooo pretty. I do not like modern art but I do like Monet :)

I could go to the Art Institute every single day; it is too overwhelming for one visit. My eyes always get so overstimulated!

aaand now I'm hoping to polish up my paper for tomorrow! (ugh)

I am too exhausted to deal with the mountains of clothes and stuff that are currently dumped in my room.

Multiple mugs of Sugar Cookie Sleighride will be consumed tonight.

note from Nicole

Aww my little sister wrote me an email and it is adorable! I could definitely not type this well when I was 8 years old (but I didn't play online games with chat-boxes either...we didn't even have a computer in the classroom ugh I'm ancient.)

ANEEEEEEEEEEEEEE I MISS YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



I got my Halloweener costume just a few days ago. I got it from walmart. I'm being Cleopatra. I have a white dress with a sparkly belt with a thing hanging off the belt and a headpiece with a red gem on it and a thing that goes around my neck that kind of hangs on my sholders with a big red gem on it with small blue and green gems in a pattern in diaganle rows about an inch away from the big red gem. Today the catties got in a fight much bigger than the big red gems. HANS COOULD HEAR IT FROM HIS ROOM AND IT WAS IN THE FAMILY ROOM! When me and mama got there they were going under the table! they were tumbling everywhere! when papa broke up the fight Peekie's tail looked hillarius! Itwas all poofed up! Bye I'm done with this note!
 

I am starting to look forward to the holiday season, chilling at home with my family.

Sometimes I miss them :)

Happy Birthday Coleolshkins!

photo

 Eight years ago today, my baby sister Nicole was born!

*sidenote: last Christmas I convinced her that Mama and Papa really named her Coleolshkins but we just call her Nicole for short. She believed me, for a good 2 minutes.