Packing up, planning ahead, and drinking coffee

I'm getting ready for the New Year...putting away the Christmas stuff. We made these clothespin soldiers one Christmas with Walker. We had so much fun last night looking at the faces on each one, and trying to figure out which of us painted each one. These guys are so durable, all the kids who visit at Christmas play with them. March back into the Christmas box until next year!

This is the noteholder I made from a vintage paperback book. I used it to display Christmas cards this year. I really need to send out more cards - so we get a few more!

Another angle on it. Maybe next year I'll make cards...maybe...if I do it in July!

I got a tip from another blog I visited, to go to World Market and check out their "better" gift wrap for beautiful crafted papers for paper projects. I did it and found some gorgeous paper at a good price. I'll pack away the Christmas wrap and ponder a project to use these on...

This may be my new motto, only hopefully I won't do stupid things faster, but craftier things faster with more energy, or housework faster with more energy...I do love my coffee!

A Happy New Year to you!

Happy Birthday!

December is a month rich in birthdays!

Here is one more.

My grandson Solomon.

Happy Birthday to you!!! Today we went to see the movie "The King's Speech".

It was great.

Interesting, historical, moving...

We really enjoyed it.

The little things that make it special...

Some random snippets of holiday cheer around our house...

Christmas Day 2010

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve and Birthday celebration

Merry Christmas to all and to all a Good Night!

December 23 - my middle baby's birthday!

Happy Birthday to my dear boy! He has become such a thoughtful and generous man, I'm so proud of him! (He's 35!!!) On Tuesday I picked up my "recipe exchange" pages from Sharin Memories. Here are a few of them:

I have 15 double spread pages!

It is funny, so many of them are Tex-Mex type recipes...including mine!

Everyone had great ideas and now I have a book full of recipes and ideas for a cookbook I have in mind to make!

Very creative, and it didn't cost me anything but the cost of making my 15 copies of my recipe pages.

I have two big batches of cookie dough in my fridge. I've been cooking them one pan-ful at a time.

These are cranberry-white chocolate chip. They taste so good! Very sweet and vanilla-y. You can't believe it until you taste them.

And a fabulous gingersnap recipe I got from a friend (Elaine). These are definitely a favorite. I can't believe they are even edible with the amounts of cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg in them!

. . .

Christmas is almost here. My shopping is done. I just have some wrapping and arranging to do now. It's a downhill slide into a lovely celebration now.

Winter solstice - 12-21-10

December 21 is my favorite day of the year! It is the day the days start getting longer again! I look forward to long days and the sun going down later and later every night! It is also my father-in-law's birthday. He was born 12-21-21. He is 88 years old today. We took him to dinner at a Chinese Restaurant near where he lives. It was fun. He was pretty surprised at getting served family style! He couldn't imagine we could eat all that food, but with Walker and Phil on board - no problem!

He may not remember a lot of the evening, but I know he had a good time and he enjoyed himself.

I spent the morning with Missy V today too. I think I wore her out yesterday, because she just wanted to loaf around on the sofa and watch Despicable Me again. We also played four hands of UNO!

Tomorrow I FINISH my Christmas shopping! Really!

Today I had the pleasure of having Missy V's company most of the day. I am helping supplement "daycare" while school is out for Christmas break. We came to our house and made breakfast together. . . We did so many things: Watched a Christmas video; Played UNO; watched Despicable Me; baked gingersnaps; had a tea party; made a birthday card; listened to Christmas music; played trains with grandpa.
Here she is unpacking the tea things.
We convinced Phil and W to come to our tea party, by bribing them with fresh baked gingersnaps!

She totally set up the table - pretty huh?

She doesn't really like me taking her photo, so its special when I get such a cute shot.

. . .

Nutcrackers and partypeople

What an exciting day. We went to see Miss V perform in "The Nutcracker". This was a beautiful and professional production! Our seats were up close and we could see everything very well. Missy V even saw us sitting there. We took her this bouquet of two roses and a Mouse King. A little fuzzy, but this was the program. I can't emphasize enough how professional all the sets and costumes were. We enjoyed this more than the Maurice Sendak production in Seattle a few years ago!

Here is our little Drosselmeir...We couldn't use flash, so I got this with available light!

Here are Clara and Fritz fighting over the nutcracker...the boys all did great jobs at acting naughty!

And the girls were all very girly. Here they have each gotten a dolly, except Clara, who gets the Nutcracker...

Then we had to hurry home because we had company coming at 3:30. We had a small family soup and pie party. That worked out very well. Delicious and easy on everyone.

You wouldn't think soup would be so filling! We had a pot of vegetable soup, a pot of Mexican meatball soup, and mulligatawny over rice. Lots of breads and rolls and Jonny's cornbread with butter-maple spread was a huge favorite!

I caught this shot of my dad through the Christmas tree. For dessert we had "chess pie", Mincemeat pie; Lemon meringue pie, lemon bars, whipping cream and ice cream! enough!

Here's the family. Isn't W's Hawaiian shirt a nice touch?