Merry Christmas!! May your day be full of joy, peace and happiness as you celebrate with those you love.

Santa's Little Helper

Monkey helped me big time today. She brought gifts to me to wrap, then took them out to the living room for me. I had to trim the ends of the paper on a couple of the gifts, so I put these curls of wrapping paper over her ears. These are, as she calls them "earbows". LOL Funny little girl. :D

You know your're tired when...

You can't keep on jumping, but just want to go to sleep. Thank you to medication and lots of carbs for lunch - baby girl is SACKED! Hopefully her sleep will help her feel better.

House Builders

During the afternoon on Cookie Day, Gayle set up all the fixin's to make gingerbread houses. All the children gathered around and created their own houses. There were graham crackers & a tub of royal icing, along with mini marshmallows, gumdrops and a bunch of other candies for decorating. The children had a great time and each one got to take their house home. Big, BIG kudos to Gayle for taking on the task. You did great!

All faces on the first pic have been blurred out, to protect the identities of the children.

The construction crew hard at work building thier masterpieces



Hannah's house



Lillian's House



Mia's House



Chloe's House - you could even see the people inside sitting on the couch watching TV!

Cookie Day 2006

Our family has a really neat tradition. Each year, we all gather at my sister Kathryn's house on a Saturday between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We bring our prepared cookie dough, along with any candy we want to make or pretzels, etc for dipping. We try to get there as early as we can, but no earlier than 8am, or Kathryn would be upset.

We bake all day long. We all help each other, rolling cookies, dipping pretzels, or whatever needs to be done. Usually one person mans the oven, while another takes the cookies off the baking sheets to cool. It's just a huge team effort, and the payoff is great.

Not only do we have a great time together, but we all end up with an assortment of all the cookies that were baked, along with what's left of our own cookies after they're divided. Only the people who participate are lucky enough to get cookies. It's a really fun tradition, and it's almost more anticipated than Christmas each year.

Peter was put to work mixing the Monster Cookie dough - looks like he was just the man for the job, they turned out delicious!!

Cookies waiting to go into the oven...

Jonathan freehanded holly leaves & berries on these choco-dipped Oreos. He did a really great job, especially since it was his first time ever using a pastry bag!

Just a portion of the cookies & candies waiting to be divided. There was at least this many more that I didn't get a photo of.

The dipping station. This really cool crock-pot has two sides so they could melt both white & milk chocolate at the same time.

Can you say chilling?

I walked into the the living room, and Mazie was in the playpen. Even when I went into the office to get the camera, she never moved - just lay there and let me take pictures! Needless to say, within a few minutes after the "photo session", she was fast asleep. Love the way she sucks her thumb - she doesn't really suck on it, but sorta chews on it instead.

Bad Hair Day

I love these pics of our Monkey. She's so silly!

Busy, busy, busy

Can't say what I'm up to, but let's just say that I've been super busy yesterday. Christmas is right around the corner, and right now, hustle is the name of the game. More details coming later....

Friends

Isn't it wonderful when your friends can somehow sense that you're in need of a pick-me-up and reach out to you just when you need it the most? Well, I'm blessed with a couple of wonderful friends like that.

Yesterday was a really bad day. Apparently some of my leftover baggage from the past has been roiling around in my subconscience and manifested itself in a horrible dream sometime during the wee hours of yesterday morning . Not just an ordinary dream, but rather, one of those dreams that stick with you all day long. I knew that it wasn't real, but the residual feelings that went with the dream just refused to leave, and I found myself near tears for most of the day. Ukky way to spend the day, right? Yeah.

My sweet friend Shannon called me just to talk, and by the time we got off the phone, I felt much better. She even had me laughing - which was a great accomplishment on her part. I really appreciate the friends I've met through scrapbooking, and the way our friendships have progressed way beyond just getting together to crop now and then. It's amazing how some people come into our lives just when we need them the most. She's like the other half of me. We're so much alike it's almost freaky, but we have so much fun together. :)

Then this morning, out of the blue, Mona called me. Turns out she and her husband were coming into town and we decided to meet up for lunch. We called Mom, Lori and the girls and all met at Beauregard's for some food & fellowship. We had a marvelous time, and now my heart is so full of cheer that I can't imagine feeling the way I did yesterday.

I really am thankful for the wonderful friends that I've been blessed with. Even across the miles, and although we may see each other infrequently, I always know that they are there for me, come what may. These friends, along with my family, are the ones that get me through the bad times and help me to focus on the good. And for that, I just want to say "Thank you. You are loved right back."

Muahhhhhhh!!!

Addictive personality

Sometimes it's a blessing, sometimes a curse, but I'm one of those folks with an addictive personality. I get hooked on things that are fun, but sometimes aren't that good for me. Some addictions, I've kicked, which is never fun, but is really rewarding in the end.

Lately, I've developed two new addictions. Well, three, really. Somewhere online I found a super easy, super simple version of Tetris. So I downloaded it. And now I'm hooked. Then there's this fun game called "Chuzzle". I'm SO hooked on the Zen version. It's relaxing to play.

Last, but not least, someone on one of my online hangouts posted a link for this awesome webcam. I resisted, but finally clicked the link, and yep, you guessed it, I'm SO hooked!! I try to watch it around 10am and around 8:30 or 9pm to see all the animals come out to play. Well, really to get a drink. See, it's a webcam set up at a watering hole on Sabi Sands Private Game Reserve, in South Africa. So far, I've seen baboons (lots of those!), gazelles, water buffalo, frogs, birds & wildebeests. Then just tonight, I heard an animal call that I recognized but couldn't name. And when I clicked over onto the cam, there was an entire herd of zebras! Some of the ladies I talk to online have also seen elephants and giraffes. The girls love to watch this with me, even when nothing's at the watering hole. Just the sound of birdsong is relaxing.

So there are my three latest addictions, maybe you'll be inspired to get hooked on at least one of these as well! :D

Now I'm going to go take care of my fourth addiction/necessity - SLEEP!! Have a good one, and if you read all the way to the bottom of this post, please leave me a comment!

It's almost Christmas time!

And I'm SO getting into the Christmas mood. Finally! I've got the Christmas music going 24/7, mailed the bulk of our Christmas cards out yesterday (all handmade!), and we did the last of our shopping today.

We're listening to commercial free Christmas music while wrapping gifts, and I even got the bug to make some super easy gift tags to put on our gifts. I have my list of which gifts go where and I'm checking off as I wrap. Can't wait to see if the gifts I got everyone are as perfect as I'm hoping they are.

It's going to be a bit of a lean Christmas here, but that's all good - it's the joy in the giving, not the amount you spend, that is the real reward, right? I've been buying through the year, and spent yesterday scouring the Sunday advertisements and we went around town in a circle today and in less than 4 hours, we got everyone covered. That feels so good!

Last year was sorta a bust, I'd just had 2 surgeries and spent almost a week in the hospital and got out of the hospital on the 18th of December and felt like twin Peterbilt's had run over me!! I had to rely on others to buy the bulk of my gifts for me and I just didn't ever get into the mood for the celebrations. This year, I'm SO into it - I'm excited, and looking forward to being with family and loved ones. Just the anticipation of seeing the girls' faces when they open their gifts is thrilling, as well.

I'm also looking forward to tasting the once-a-year treat that is one of my favorite customs - date/nut pudding. It's super duper easy to make, but for some reason, it's reserved for Thanksgiving and Christmas. It's been a favorite of almost everyone in the family for years, and without it, it just doesn't seem like Christmas. I'm planning to make a bowl of it to take to our Christmas Day gathering at my niece's. Can't wait!!

Soooo, are you almost finished with your shopping?? Are you in the Christmas spirit yet? What's your favorite Christmas tradition? Please leave a comment and tell me about it!

Awesome Secret Santa!

I participated in a Secret Santa on a site that I've been hanging out on for years. I received a GC to CMK and added just a few dollars to it. I got my order today, and this is a pic of all the yummies I got. Now I need to scrapbook so I can use some of it! :) Thanks, Bons!! You are the best. Muahhhhh!

The Pied Piper

The babies love being around Peter. He came into the room a little while ago and all the girls stopped playing and immediately went to him. He'd been home for a few hours, and had been in the room with him, but for some reason, whenever he's around, they're practically right on top of him. Guess I picked a good one when I picked him. :-) I couldn't resist getting a shot of them together this morning.

Long time, no see

Wow, didn't realize that it's been so long since I updated. Sorry for the lapse. :(

Not a lot has been happening here. It's been a weird couple of weeks. Neither of us has felt like actually doing anything, so here we are. We finally caught a wild hair and did a few things around here today, which felt really good. Tis the season for the blues... LOL

We got our plumbing fixed - called another company and had to pay them to get it fixed, and it seems to be done right this time. We never heard back from the other company. I will be asking for a refund, since they were out here twice and didn't fix the problem. And it's not like I had the funds to just basically pour down the drain, anyway. But at least we can wash clothes and take a shower without ukky stuff bubbling back up into the bathtub. Yay!!

Peter and I went to a "Card Buffet" this evening. We had fun stamping and assembling Christmas cards. I had already made 40 cards last week, so I'm prepared for next year already. Yay me!! We had a blast, and just for the record, Shell TOTALLY rocks!! :)

Tomorrow is our annual Cookie Day. We all get together at my sister's house and spend the entire day baking cookies. Last year we made around 250 dozen cookies. Everyone brings home an assortment of all the cookies made, which is always fun. We have so much fun but are always so ready for bed when we get finished. It's something that the whole family (well, those who usually attend) looks forward to each year.

Hannah's here for the weekend, she got to go to Card Night and will be going to Cookie Day with us. She's talked about these two activities non-stop for the last week. Love that baby and she's just so much a part of our lives, I can't imagine life without her in it. :) We're so blessed to have her (and the babies) to lavish our love on.

So that's what's going on in our world. What's going on in yours?