Clarissa meets a cat: a photo story

Today, Clarissa met a cat for the first time, an event which fortuitously coincided with Mom having the camera out and ready.

The doughnut affair

There once was a doughnut shop with a drive through. Over the summer, in a land where store doughnuts cost almost the same as doughnuts from the shop, Mom became rather good friends with such doughnut shop drive throughs. The Muffins approved.

When "Talk Like A Pirate" Day rolled around with a special offer from the shop, we were there with eye patches on:

Halloween doughnuts? Yup, we stopped by for some of those, too.

Once Mom even took a few Muffins inside the shop to see the great doughnut machine at work. Lots of good times for our resident doughnut lovers.

Then came the Valentine's Day special doughnuts. They were good, of course, and pretty, too, but . . . Mom also received a very special gift after that particular doughnut run, the gift of doughnut loathing (translation: Mom feels ill at the thought of doughnuts. Same thing happened once with a Facebook game Mom spent too much time on.). Thus ended the doughnut affair.

St. George!

Winter in Utah mountain valleys. At times, fun. And then there are the looong stretches of endless gray, both on the ground, in the sky, and in between (inversion, booo!). At times like that, it's time for a change. In our case, it was a quick trip to St. George. Behold, color!

The Volcano 
Our first adventure was lunch in a volcano (don't worry, it was extinct). Of course, there were all sorts of pesky logistical concerns that cropped up along the way, but the end result of it all was that we climbed up, in, back out, and down the volcano and lived!

The Family Fun Center
After a nice stay at a hotel with a pool and a great breakfast, we headed to a family fun center. Miniature golf, arcade games, stuff to bounce and climb on, who could ask for anything more? At least every couple of weeks since then one of the kids has asked, "When can we go to the family fun center again?"

Dinosaur Tracks!
"So, what's there to do in St. George?" was the question travel agent Mom encountered during the planning phases, when the destination was still potentially different. Let's just say that this particular attraction scored a lot of little Muffin votes.

Look, Ma, it's the volcano we hiked yesterday!

Visit with a Very Old Friend
Ever seen the Piano Guys Charlie Brown medley video? If not, go ahead and watch it below. Don't worry, we'll wait.

So, remember the spunky lady who gets the last word? Once upon a time, she was a substitute teacher at Mom's school. The Muffins enjoyed meeting her, and Mom was glad to see her again, too. Can you believe she's in her 90s? (Update July 2013: here is a link to Mabel Mitchell's obituary.)

Overall, the St. George vacation was a Muffin family win. (And we saw a Mary Kay pink Cadillac on the way home, too.)

Christmas 2012

Amanda and Curtis enduring a picture while waiting to open presents

Look, ma, seven stockings! (Now we just have to finish putting names on.)

A present for Lydia

The advent calendar, fully ornamented

Lydia finds her stocking

Lydia eyes Jared's loot

Clarissa's first Christmas, complete with presents

Yay, more presents for Lydia in her stocking!

Enjoying the white Christmas from the cozy side of the door

Jared's birthday 2012

Jared has shared a birthday with Dad all his life, but as of last year, he got another birthday buddy, son of some friends. So, this year we went out for a little joint birthday activity to Chick-fil-a. Here's Jared enjoying a milkshake:

 Back at home, we had a little cake party. Earlier in the day, Jared and Lydia had helped Mom bake a cake. The cake shown below is not that cake. As for the home baked cake, let's just say you know the cake is cool enough to frost when it's no longer frostable because small hands have already dug it to bits. Thank goodness for store cakes, like the one shown below.