Holiday ready!

I broke down and put up the Christmas decorations on Sunday - it's the minimum I could get away with but it's done! I figured while I was cleaning and moving things around to vacuum under them, that I may as well move them and do it all at once. Kelleigh helped so it went fairly quickly. Today the fabulous nut rolls that Peggy makes came much to everyone's delight! These are very time consuming and its a tradition that always kicks off the holiday season for us - thank you Peggy! The boys are at the year-end JV football banquet; seems as if football just began. I have had a migraine for two days so I begged off in order to have a couple hours of quiet time. Sad but I am already counting down the days until the Christmas break begins!

I hope each of you had as nice a Thanksgiving Day as we did. Ryan told us it was his favorite meal of the year! Despite making a 24# turkey, there is very little left and only a bit of the side dishes. Kelleigh doesn't like any of the items so she had two cheeseburgers and was a happy, happy girl! She was a huge help this year as she peeled the potatoes, cut them, and helped with the pineapple casserole.

Earlier Thanksgiving Day, Mark and the boys went to see The Blind Side - a truly fabulous movie and one I highly recommend taking your family to see. Ryan and I went yesterday to see it and at parts I cried as the parallels between the movie and the two of us were many. Given our struggles lately, I pray our end result is as positive.

I did take advantage of the Black Friday sales but, alas, not at 3am! The online stores offered the same prices and free shipping so why fight the crowds? I only have two items left to buy and am thrilled. Today I forced the kids to suffer through two photo sessions so I could get the holiday picture ordered so that task is done too. I will put our annual letter on this blog so folks will have to go there to read it and help save a few trees.

Ryan successfully completed his on-line driving 'class' and is busy practicing for the written test at the DMV. The fail rate is 50% so he is working hard to pass it the first time! We have let him drive in the school parking lot and he's doing very well. Of course he would drive to the bathroom if he could! Once he passes the test we can schedule his first behind-the-wheel and he can venture further since he'll be legal!

I am loving my new Kindle and recommend it to anyone who loves to read and enjoys having it handy on-the-go. Definitely one of the best, and most used, purchases I've made lately. Off to get the laundry out and hoping to get inspired to drag out the Christmas stuff ...

Some holiday cards

It's been nice having a little time to play knowing that all the chores don't have to get done over the weekend! I had bought some new Cuttlebug embossing folders so decided to create a few cards using them. The tree is probably my favorite and looks prettier in real life.

Happy Birthday Christopher!

Happy Birthday to my brother who is celebrating his last birthday in his 30's today! Seems as if I was just changing his diaper so not sure how so much time has gone by! Hope you're having a great day and got my text.

I have a couple things to share now that the items have been distributed! Neither of these items are an original as I saw them on another creative persons site and loved them so had to order the stamp and create the gift bags. The first is the Thanksgiving card - the cat cracked me up so I veered from my serious, traditional style for this holiday for something funkier. You have to admit it makes you giggle! The second is a mix that I passed out to a few friends at work. It was a challenge to find the "bugles" in the grocery store as I've never seen or bought them before. The end product was clever and the recipients enjoyed them.

Sunrise

I keep forgetting to post this sunrise picture Mark took on Thursday. Beautiful isn't it?

Card class

I had a great time at the gold leafing class I took Thursday night. It was fun seeing my friend again as she teaches at another school so we don't get together very often. It's quite a process but I was able to do six cards and they are all stunning in person. I've scanned a few in but it doesn't do the gold leafing justice.

While I love having the sun in the morning, getting used to such long evenings of darkness are always an adjustment. The best part is the kids never seem to mind going to bed as the evening seems to have been forever! Ryan's football practices are now under the lights which is somewhat of a novelty for the JV team.

I signed up today to do a stamping technique class tomorow night at a local store where a friend teaches classes in the evenings. It's using a metallic paste and gold leafing which I've never tried. Will share with you the results! To say I am looking forward to an evening out is an understatement! Need to get working on my Thanksgiving cards before that holiday comes and goes like Halloween did ...

An eventful Halloween

I'll begin with a beautiful sunrise from Friday morning.

Yesterday was fairly eventful. It began with Kelleigh being given the ultimatum that her room would be cleaned or she would not go trick-or-treating. I draw the line when no carpet is seen when you walk in. She has a habit of slamming her door when she's angry and was told to knock it off. After checking to see her progress and pointing out areas that still needed dealt with, slam went the door. Mark walked into the garage, got the hammer and screwdriver, and we proceeded to remove the door ... as she screamed and ranted. Too bad. The door will come back at some point in the future when she starts acting appropriate. Of course she attempted to use other items in her room as a door resulting in more screaming as they were moved. Eventually the room got picked up enough to suit me but not without lots of drama.

Around 5pm we were starting to get things ready for the evening when there was an enormous crash. After checking to see if it was something indoors, we looked out front to see the water hydrant gushing water. Our neighbor was hanging decorations when a small car rounded the bend (going normal speed and no other cars in sight) and crashed into the fire hydrant, blew the front tire, and ended a couple houses away (the whole front end was smashed in too). The pressure blew the cement 'block' out as well as the lawn surrounding it. When the neighbor told the girl she may want to call her parents as the car wasn't drivable, she said "I can't, they don't know I have the car". She apparently didn't have her license either! Soon three patrol cars arrived, neighbors from down the street were coming up to see what happened for that amount of water to be gushing down, and finally the water department arrived to cut it off. The girl's father showed up and was not a happy man. It took quite some time for a tow truck to arrive but at least things were dry by the time kids starting coming around. She was a lucky girl to have only hit an object rather than a child. (The picture really doesn't do justice to the amount of water that was gushing.)

Here are my trick-or-treaters. Ryan was kind enough to take Connor to quite a few houses as Kelleigh and I only did the immediate streets.

Kelleigh tried hard to turn Buddy into Super Dog but he was having none of it!