Converse Club

Natalie and I were out shopping the other night and one of the things on our list was new shoes for her. I pointed out all kinds of cute shoes but she only wanted Converse- and they had to be "real" Converse. I was so confused and was surprised she even knew what Converse were. Apparently, Converse are the cool shoes to have at the moment. Her friends even told her that you had to have REAL Converse with the little Converse label to be in the Converse Club. What in the world is the "Converse Club"? Welcome to the world of pre-teen girls and the beginnings of those sweet girls that will eventually label themselves as the "popular ones", I guess. So after a short lecture on conforming to others and my recommendation to tell her friends that their club is a joke and that she ought to start her own club with something original and not a fad that flourished in the 80's, I eventually caved and said I would buy her the Converse. Well, after many failed attempts to find the right size in the right color (she would only consider the royal blue ones or the grey sequin ones- not silver sequins- grey), she ended up designing her own Converse online on their Web site. Even though these are part of her Christmas present, they won't get here for 3-4 weeks.

By the way, these were the second pair she designed. The first were scary! There were so many different patterns and colors that I had to say “Whoa, okay, let’s think about this." The first ones looked something like this:

One of my favorite things about this Christmas season so far has been those holiday chocolate covered mint Oreos. Oh my, they are so good. There have been several nights where I have sacrificed eating dinner to eat two. If you have not tried them, you are missing out. Trust me. They make me happy.

Here is a very cute picture Natalie drew of her elf, Emily.


Natalie got an e-mail video message from Santa recently. Check it out here!