My Blue-Eyed Screamer

"Townsperson" in church Christmas program, watch for
photobombing brother in background

My little blue-eyed girl has caused me pause to smile a number of times recently so I just must write about her today.











She is my Christmas girl. She had her calendar on December all of 2014. I noticed, she already had December 2015 up this year :-). She begins counting the days very early.

She loves kittens too

About a month ago, we proposed an idea to the kids that if Christmas could be smaller (in numbers of presents), we could drive to Idaho for our "main" gift. Our son immediately wanted, "all in, 100% yes". Our older daughter needed some time to think it over, but after two days she said, "I'm 75% yes" soon after becoming a 100% yes.

Our blue-eyed wonder, though? Well, she was pretty emphatic from the start saying, "No. I want presents. Christmas needs to be here in Redmond."

Later, we decided it would be fun to surprise the kids with "tickets" to Idaho on Christmas Day, thus fulfilling everyone's wish.

Darren went all-out on designing really fun "Moss Train Express" tickets using a laser printer from work. He printed it on plastic, which is beyond my technological scope. Anyway, one of the tickets (to our daughter) said, "You and a sister of your choice are invited to board the Moss Idaho Express tomorrow morning at 5 am, meet on platform 9 3/4 (reference to Harry Potter, which has been all the rage since reading it as a family in July). Our son's ticket said that he and the father of his choice were invited to board the train. I then asked, (the wording on the tickets was a surprise to me as well), "Am I invited?". To this I learned, not only was I invited but I was the conductor!!

Opening these tickets was great fun. Daughter Numero Uno was jumping around the room and our son just kept saying, "Really?" or "Are we really going to Idaho?" I guess our youngest was OK with it all because she tagged right along.

I'll save the Idaho Fun for another post, but in the meantime, watch out for a striped-out-smiler in your neighborhood. She's a keeper!



She is very insistent that this totally matches