I'm Done

I'm done, I'm done, everything is ready for Christmas... well almost :) I still have to work tomorrow, and we still have a couple more people to visit, but the stockings are hung, the last package is going out in the mail tomorrow, the cards went out yesterday, we had guests for dinner tonight (my favorite restaurant cooked the lasagna and Ron picked it up on his way home :), and the house is decorated and cleaned (well at least the downstairs :). Looking forward to a couple of days off, but for now, I think I'm worn out, I'm going to bed :)  

Time Flies...

when you are getting ready for Christmas. Instead of it being the week before Christmas, I was thinking I still had two weeks :) Somehow I lost a week and I missed three birthdays. Happy belated birthday, to three great guys.



Big O is 2!



J dog is 6!




MC is 26 and now has a little MC called DC.





Merry Christmas

Newest Grandson

When a picture is out there, on a public space like Facebook-

                                                  anyone can grab it :)
                         This picture is amazing, he is only a month old.



Christmas Lessons

Besides my two favorite Christmas things (the lights and the music), there are always very meaningful lessons and talks given at Christmas time. Two of the talks given at our church today were about service. I wanted to share a brief story that was given. It is not even really a Christmas story, but just more of a "life story".
The gentleman that was speaking told about when he was a boy he would work for his grandfather, hoeing the corn field. He grandfather always assigned 1 boy to each field. He knew that if he assigned 1 boy to 1 field he would get 1 days work from that boy. If he assigned 2 boys to 1 field he would get half a days work from the 2 boys together. If he assigned 3 boys to 1 field, he wouldn't get any work from the 3 boys :) (I'm sure that A1 is lol about now)
He went on to tell, that one day someone asked the grandfather why he didn't just use his machinery to take care of the field, rather than the boys. The grandfather replied, "I am not trying to grow the best corn in the town. I am trying to grow the best boys in the town." I think his plan worked.
One of his main points here was to teach children to work and to serve others. Include them in your holiday service projects. Let them experience the joy of working and also the joy of giving. A story from another talk about service, was about the impression made on young girl by her father including her in a secret Santa project. At the time the young girl didn't really understand the situation, but she understood the good feelings she had from "giving". We would plan secret Santa outings with our children- they always enjoyed those times and I think it provided them with a desire to continue "giving" even now that they have families of their own.

Candy Bar Tree

A while back I saw an idea for a "Best Witches Candy Bar Tree". It was a candy bar tree for Halloween. I'm thinking...I'll bet I can do a Christmas one.

It's a rather messy project.

I hesitate to post this idea, because the directions are pretty vague. The directions for the Halloween tree said, " Adhere candy bars to a Styrofoam cone using a glue gun so that candy bars are staggered like shingles on a roof. Place in flowerpot and decorate with raffia." So, it's a little more complicated than that :)

I bought two Styrofoam cones (can't remember exactly what size)- I bought two small metal pails- I filled them with glass beads (to give it some weight at the bottom)- I glued the cones into the pail- I glued the candy bars on (it took two bags of mini candy bars for each tree. "Crunch" bars that were wrapped in red, green and silver wrapping)- then I filled in bare spots with sprigs of green and white garland (that is the messy part- have you ever cut up garland before ? :) I also glued a small tuft of garland on the very top and some silver curly ribbon. They turned out pretty cute, but it is definitely a test of hot glue on garland and foam (that also tends to melt) and trying not to burn your fingers or melt the candy bars.  This is one of those gifts that looks too cute to tear apart- but that's the only way to eat the candy. Actually I think with a small pair of scissors the ends of the wrappers could just be cut open to take the candy bars out- leaving the wrappers on the tree. But...after I give them away it doesn't matter exactly what happens to them :)
PS- Sorry the pictures aren't better- it's pretty hard to see how the candy bars look.

Going Back to Reality

We just got back from our little, magical, winter wonderland, play with the kids, go shopping, baby blessing, long weekend...

tomorrow we go back to reality.

But it was great while it lasted.