Covid for Christmas

The week before Christmas, the Andersons got Covid. 😒😓 We were planning to have a big Christmas Eve dinner/party at their house. That had to be canceled. Dinner on Christmas day was supposed to be at our house. The Petes and I cooked that... we dropped off food at the Andersons and then dinner was just us and the Petes. We had a few gifts to open and we got everyone else on a zoom meeting to watch me open a gift from everyone. It was a book that Annie put together about our house and our life at Bandera. (Kind of one of those "HappySad" things.) Then Andersons and us stayed on the zoom, long enough to open "family gifts". I had asked Doug to come here for Christmas, but it was better that he didn't try to come considering the situation. Ron and I had a super quiet Christmas day before dinner. The Andersons still had a great Christmas despite Covid. They had mild illness during the week before and were still quarantined Christmas weekend, but they had a fun Christmas "home alone". Sam got a new piano and Audrey got a new tree house! Audrey had been trying to convince Sam to build a tree house for several years. She finally prevailed and it is magical! The Petes got some help with Christmas gifts this year. I am pretty sure that they ALL believe in Santa Claus now. Here are a few Christmas pics. (I will have some tree house pics for the New Years Eve post). 

Other December Birthdays

We did a little family party for Hazel and Jaden on Sunday evening, December 19. Jaden didn't really get another party, but he went to a movie with his friends and did a couple of other friend things the week of his birthday. We just had a couple of small cakes on Sunday evening... at least something to put candles in. I also grabbed a couple of pics from Annie's blog for Owen and Savannahs birthdays. 

Hazel Loves Tacos

 Ashley went all out this year for a birthday party for Hazel. She based the idea for the party from two books about "Dragons Love Tacos". And actually Hazel loves tacos too. It was a fiesta (late) lunch on Saturday, December 18, which was the same day as Hailey's kid market. The weather was rainy that day... so the party needed to be inside, instead of out in the backyard as originally planned. It was a fun taco restaurant, including menus and waiters/waitresses. Lots of family, friends, food, and gifts. The kids did do a piñata outside, but everything else was inside. Ashley had asked me to make Churro cupcakes, Dragon cupcakes, and Sombrero cookies. Another lady made strawberry cheesecake tacos. They had lots of choices for tacos and taco salad. The Dragon cupcakes had dragon spikes made out of pieces of airhead candy. The only problem was that I made those the night before and put them in the refrig. The candy pieces got soft and wilty 😂😒 But here are all of the pics... enjoy. 

Christmas Decor

Getting out my Christmas decorations was a bigger job than usual this year, because it was still packed in boxes in the garage. I had to unpack and then decide what to keep (I still had too much stuff) and where to put it. Deciding what to keep and where it to put it took me longer than usual. I donated some items to the Good will store. Here are the pics of what I ended up with... still a bit cluttered for my personality 😉 I didn't take any pictures of the front yard. I put out the wooden elf, put lights on three bushes, put a small tree on the porch, and put out the Christmas strobe light, to shine on the wall near the front door. It wasn't great, but at least our yard wasn't just "dark". 

Four Other December Projects

 Besides helping Hailey with her dog bandanas, I had four other projects in December. I added a few new items to my bathroom. A new piece of wall decor, some small winter decorations, and a white shower curtain. I made some small stockings for the Christiansen kids. When we were there Thanksgiving week, Emmy saw a cute black and white stocking in a craft store that she liked. I bought it and used it as a pattern to make 3 red ones and 2 blue ones, for Alison to put "cash " in for the kids. I made some cute treat cups with a Christmas ornament for our primary class kids. And I made some cute little snowmen (or snow women) for some of the ladies at church. Those were made out of glass salt shakers. 

The Swaggy Dog

 I had several "projects" in December... one of them was helping Hailey make a bunch of dog bandanas to sell. She named her business "The Swaggy Dog". She had signed up for a kids fair, where she could set up a booth and sell items. She had the dog bandanas and some clay jewelry that she made. (Her jewelry business is called, "Hailey's Clay Co.") The market was on Saturday, December 18. We spent a couple days before that doing our bandana sewing assembly line 😉 We had a good selection of various sizes ready and packaged. The weather at the kid fair was pretty good for about an hour... then 30 minutes of heavy wind and rain, which caused most vendors to pack up and go home. She did make some pretty good money though and had orders for items from other family and friends. She is talking about setting up an Esty shop soon. She is quite the entrepreneur. Luckily, I have clear plastic bags and labels... they looked pretty professional. And... she is getting pretty confident using my sewing machine. 

Kitchen Update

 Here is what Daniel did in my kitchen while we were gone. (He and Ashley picked us up from the airport on Friday afternoon, Nov. 26. Ashley had even packed us a lunch... leftover turkey sandwiches 😀) Now my next project is to paint what he did, the Jasper Stone color.