Finals and a New Friend

I haven't had much to say since Thanksgiving because we have been in the limbo that is finals week.  Probably some of you think that it is pathetic that I said that 'we' have been dealing with finals because it was Brandon who actually wrote the papers and took the exams, but the three ladies of this family also had a pretty rough go of it.  The extra stress combined with stagnant air quality and freezing overcast days had us all ornery, impatient and grumbling at each other.  I only mention it because I have a tendency to only write about the fun parts of our experience here in Eugene and I can see myself in the future reading back about our dear days at the U of O.  When Brandon I get too nostalgic and miss this place too much I'll have to just whisper 'finals' and we'll have at least one thing that we feel good about leaving behind. 
While we were stuck at home the girls came up with a bunch of ways to stay entertained.  Here they were tying to figure out a way to get Pony Ride back after she was thrown over the back of the bed.  Now that I think about it, she may still be there.

 Daisy always stays up on her reading.  I told you that she was born a foodie.  She looks at this cupcake book about 10 times a day. 

 Rocky watched Mickey's Christmas Carol on the i-pod over and over and when it got to the scary part she would hide under the covers.  We started reading the Charles Dickens version after Thanksgiving and we finally finished it.  She will tell anyone she sees about the long chain that Jacob Marley carries.  She is especially taken with the idea that Scrooge changed from being mean to being nice. 

 I don't know what they were watching here but I took this picture because I thought that Daisy's posture looked so grown up.  She looks like an old man resting his arm on his beer belly.  She's not sucking her thumb, but instead appears to be pondering something deep.  It was probably Gnomeo and Juliet which is the new favorite of both the girls.  Daisy likes the music and Rocky likes that Juliet dresses like a ninja. 

To celebrate the end of finals we went to Salem and watched the light parade.  It was so much fun to be all together and just able to have fun. 

Okay, so now for an unrelated story.  Brandon was reading on Wikipedia about this guy, Krampus.  In Austria and some of the other Alpine countries he is a well-known character that is the foil for St. Nicholas.  At the beginning of December St. Nicholas is seen on the street walking around giving treats and looking to greet the good little boys and girls.  But for the not-so-good kids, instead of a saint, there is Krampus.  He is a demon who is out and about looking for naughty children to take back to his lair to eat for Christmas dinner.  We thought that this sounded like a pretty good parenting technique so we showed the picture to our daughters.

  I figured that if she is hiding under the covers because she is afraid of Goofy dressed like a ghost that she would be terrified by this dude.  Heck, I was terrified. 

She seemed unfazed and she laughed a little because she thought he was funny.  Then, later she started talking to her new imaginary friend...who just happens to be a demon named Krampus.  She talks to him all the time and asks if he can go with us everywhere.  I told her that he is mean to kids and she said..."He is nice now, he changed."

She was telling my friend Katie about it at church today (of course he came with us to church) and Katie said, "Isn't he kind of ugly?"

Rocky was all flustered and said, "Don't say ugly.  He is my friend."

Yesterday Rocky walked in the room obviously in a conversation with him and kind of giggling said, "Oh Krampus, you are so craaaazy."

Part of me is proud that she is excited that she isn't fooled by the outward appearance, but the other part is already getting nervous for the bad-boy boyfriend of the future that she swears has 'changed.'  Maybe we'd better hold off on Ebeneezer Scrooge for the next couple of years.

For now I guess we'll take our little demon friend along and hope that he doesn't find any naughty kids while we're out.