Snuggly Hams

 December is flying by!  Joe and I have been touring Indiana as we deliver trophies and medals to various schools across the state who won in the middle school and Unified competitions with Indiana Esports Network.  It's been fun going on these road trips with hours of great conversation and jamming out to Christmas music (mostly Tommee Profitt and For King & Country).  We have one more trip to take today, and then we'll be done with our part.  Very soon I'll be switching my focus to making tons of Christmas cookies and getting ready to host lots of parties!  💗

Míriel is a sweet girl, even though she's a bit crazy.  I keep finding new things she's chewing on in her tank that I'd prefer if she left alone.  She has so many chew toys, but likes to destroy other things instead.  I know I've said this before, but she truly has such a giant personality smooshed into a tiny body.  Haha!

Elendil is very elusive.  He's so quiet unless I'm cleaning his tank.  Then he quite literally squeaks at me to explain to me how upset he is and how much he disapproves of my actions.  While I know he's not happy with me, I cannot get over how cute he is and his squeaks just make me giggle.  Poor guy will never be taken seriously because he's too cute!  Haha!

Grateful

 I wasn't sure what Thanksgiving would look like for us this year, and for a while, it looked like it would be super chill the whole weekend with us only going to my sister's house on Friday for a few hours to hang out with family.  But then last weekend, we made new plans and the ones we had changed.  So our new plans are that we will be having our friends over on Thanksgiving, Friday we will host my family instead of my sister hosting, and then Saturday we'll have Joe's brother and girlfriend over.  I'm excited and a bit nervous about getting all the extra things done and about fitting 17 extra people from my family in our house.  But I'm also feeling blessed that we have a house and can host those we love.

Míriel ate her pecan and then immediately tried to eat the pumpkin in front of her.  She clearly loves food.  Haha!

Elendil was more interested in exploring than posing for pictures.  He finally sat still for a minute so I could capture his cute little face.  He's just so tiny!

Míriel

 Happy Halloween!

I was most excited to do this costume because I love incorporating Tolkien whenever possible, and I thought it would be fun to show Míriel's namesake.  However, this is where I have a confession to make.  😬  Since Joe and I have kept up with The Rings of Power, I decided to use an iconic look from the character Míriel in the show to model the costume after.  I was sending progress pictures of this costume to my sister who then asked me a pivotal question of, "Who is Míriel again?".  I started writing out my answer out to her but found myself on LOTR wiki to check my spelling on a couple of names.  It was at this point that I slowly began to realize my mistake.  You see, I use LOTR wiki to help me pick names for my hamsters.  When I got Míriel, I researched who the character was and ultimately chose the name partly because of the qualities of the character.  As I explained in my intro post to this hamster, in Tolkien's writings, Míriel, an elf, was the queen of the Noldor and was known for her silver hair and skill with her hands.  Míriel means "jewel-daughter" which I thought was fitting for the dappled markings on my hamster.  But that's not who is depicted in The Rings of Power...  In other words, I literally didn't notice that there are basically 2 Míriels until last week when I tried to answer my sister's question.  😅  The reason I didn't notice sooner is because on LOTR wiki, the human Míriel who is featured in The Rings of Power is technically named Tar-Míriel and therefore isn't listed with the other Míriel who is an elf.  In The Rings of Power, the character Tar-Míriel is referred to as just "Míriel".  So because of watching the show, I managed to completely forget about the elf, and only thought of the human.  To be far, Tar-Míriel is pretty awesome too as she is the Queen Regnant of Numenor.  She and Elendil (the name of my other hamster) are a part of The Faithful who remain true to the elves/Valar.  

Anyways, regardless of my mistake, I'm ridiculously proud of how well this costume turned out.  It took quite a while to do all that bead work and make the headpiece.  After a bit, Míriel decided she was done wearing the headpiece and took it off herself.  In her defense, these were the last set of pictures I was taking that day with her and her cheeks were absolutely stuffed full of treats from the previous sets, so the headpiece was a bit tight on her.  I had so much fun doing these hamster costumes again and I hope you all enjoyed them!  I was thoroughly surprised by how well Míriel wore them and modeled for me.  She definitely proved to me that she is capable of being both crazy and good.  Haha!  ❤

Her dress began sliding off...

I got her reset with the dress and headpiece and she sat so pretty for me.  😊

And then she said "NO MORE" to wearing the headpiece.  😂

I love how she snuggled up to the book!  And with this pose, you can see the back of the costume really well to see the amount of detail in it.  😊❤

Katara

 I've had the idea of doing a Katara costume for a very long time; long before the new live action TV show was announced.  Joe introduced me to the animated series many years ago.  I'll admit, I knew he and his brother really liked it, but I didn't think I would.  I was thoroughly surprised because I truly enjoyed it a lot!  We also watched the new TV show when it came out, and we enjoyed that too.  Right around the same time as the live action was released, my nieces were introduced to the animated series and really enjoyed it which made me happy.  I think they'll be happy that I picked this costume to include this year.  

Míriel was the perfect model for this.  I thought it was so cute the way she stood up and showed off the costume so well.  She was being really sweet and not as crazy as she normally is.  ❤

Frog

We have so many leaves in our yard as we have many large trees around us.  Normally Joe uses a lawn sweeper attachment for our riding mower and I help by raking.  This takes hours, and we end up with a mountain of leaves lining the whole length of our front yard.  We decided this year we are going to try mulching all of the leaves.  Last week Joe mulched the thick layer of leaves we had in the back yard.  I'm about to go out today and do the front because it's really bad now, but the back also needs it again too.  I am grateful for this warm weather for doing the yard work!  I don't know if our grass will be able to handle the sheer amount of leaves we have, even after they are all mulched, but I guess we will find out.  Hopefully we don't end up killing the grass with this method.  Haha!  

As soon as I placed Míriel in her cute little frog costume in the leaves, she tried to eat them.  I quickly gave her some lettuce to munch on instead.  I was thrilled that she actually sat still to eat her lettuce.  Unfortunately, as soon as the lettuce was gone, she once again tried to eat the leaves so that was the end of us getting pictures.  She's such a stinker but I love her!

Carrot

 When gathering my supplies for making the costumes, I grabbed the tub I have that contains all the costumes I've previously made as well as random bits of sets or other things to use.  In it I saw some hats that were gifted to me including this one which I've never used.  I immediately knew I had to turn Míriel into a carrot!  I wasn't quite sure how she'd handle wearing a hat, but she didn't really mind it at all.  She wasn't interested in being contained to the flower pot though and instead walked in circles around it.  She definitely prefers exploring to sitting still for pictures.  Haha!

Ice Cream Cone

 I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I might try to do Halloween costumes with Míriel this year, and I'm happy to announce that I actually managed to get some done!  I quickly came up with a list of about 10 that I was planning to do, but as time marched on I had to cut my list and make some changes to do more simple ideas than some of what were on my original list.  So each day from now to Halloween, I'll be sharing a costume.  For today, I have this lovely ice cream cone.  😊 

Joe and I don't eat much ice cream anymore since we acknowledged that we have both developed a bit of an intolerance to lactose.  We don't avoid it completely though and will still occasionally enjoy some ice cream.  I am such a slow eater when it comes to anything frozen, so I prefer a bowl so I don't make a mess.  But don't you just hate it when your ice cream cone climbs out of the bowl?  😅😂

Míriel was a bit uncooperative with wearing the costume and staying put as she was supposed to.  But I still managed to get some cute pictures of her.  I thought for sure she would eat the cherry stem since it was right in her face, but surprisingly, she left it alone.  I guess she let her sweet side take over for a bit.  😄