Eggnog, Garfield Style!

We love Eggnog...during the holiday season we make Eggnog lattes rather than anyone of our other favorite lattes. Seems like Garfield and Jon love Eggnog too! So, here is our Santa Eggnog picture for 2006. We agree with Garfield and Jon, Eggnog tastes better in Santa hats!

Christmas 2006 has come and gone. Christmas Eve we spent with our kids here in town: dinner, games, movie and then the reading of the Christmas story. This year Kaitlyn and Tristan shared the responsibility- each reading half. Each year the children take turns reading, this has been a family tradition since our own boys learned to read and is now being passed on to the grandkidlets. Always warms my heart to hear them as they read the story.

Christmas Day morning Ed and I got up bright and early and spent most of the day with Momma~gave her her packages (camera battery died as soon as I turned the camera on!!! grrrrr!!!), we went down to the dining hall for a nice ham dinner, back to her room to watch Elf (her favorite part was the singing in the bathroom part - if you haven't seen the movie I will not spoil it for you). One of her gifts was a digital photo frame that I had loaded with 100's of pics (gotta love those 2.0 GB disks!) that she seems to enjoy oohing and aahing over. She kicked us out about 3 p.m. I think she was ready for a nap but we teased her telling her she was tired of US!! It was a good day for her and her spirits were up....always a good thing for me as I get so emotional when she is down.

4 p.m. dinner at the kids house. Dinner, games, football, laughter...more games and lots more laughter. Around 8 p.m. I started to feel "wierd", wasn't sure what was going on but knew I didn't feel well...we left at 9, a bit early for us but, I just needed to be home...I went to bed and did not wake up until 3 p.m. the next day. Achy body...headache...slight fever. It is pretty much gone now but it knocked me out for a while. I missed a whole day of my life!!! good thing it hit after the holiday and not before!

Yesterday I worked through the morning but did not return after lunch, was still a bit tired and business was slow so the boss said he would handle the office alone (do you all see as many red flags as I see in that? LOL). Today and tomorrow I am using up the last of my use it-or-lose it vacation time and will return to the office NEXT YEAR LOL.

We were suppose to go to Diamond Lake today but I feel the need to stay home one more day so will go tomorrow if I am feeling up to it. The kids are all going up tomorrow afternoon. How fun to ring in the New Year sledding, making snow angels, having snow ball fights and laughing with the grandkids! Today will be spent preparing easy meals to toss in the oven or microwave so that we can spend as much of the wknd outdoors as possible. (Overnight breakfast casserole, meatballs for spaghetti dinner, etc.) Will take the crock pot and keep redhot punch going all day for warm ups between outings.

Happy New Year to all!

MM MM MM MM Can you smell it???

Oh the smells of Christmas! Is there anything better than the wide variety of Christmas smells all around us?

Wassail, peppermint, ginger, sage, cinnamon, coriander, pumpkin pie. Candles burning with their new and various scents. Can you smell snow in the air...me either, but I can smell the Christmas trees, wreaths and greens all around.

I love the smells of Christmas!

Sunday afternoon Ed took over the kitchen for "Ed Bread Day". OH MY....Christmas really hits home when the first batch of Ed Bread hits the oven...the house smells so wonderfully yummy and Christmasy!

The first year we were married my DMIL sent us a bread recipe and insisted we try it, well...Ed and I thought the mix of ingrediants were just too way out there for our tastes so we passed on making it up. (DMIL always had a MUST try recipe up her sleeve!!!). Finally Ed made up a batch just to tell his mom that, yes we tried it (we knew we wouldn't like it). LOL doesn't it figure that it has become Ed's specialty bread, and our pal Bruce dubbed it "Ed Bread". We love this bread!

Each year Ed bakes many many round loaves of this bread, varying the size of the loaf to match the size of the family we give them to. A small round for our widowed neighbor, a large round for our friends who travel to Wilsonville each year to spend the holiday with a group of family members, medium loaf for others. In years past Ed has baked as many as 30 loaves...the list has narrowed and he doesn't bake nearly as many now.

When the boys were little we would pack all the bread in boxes...I would make a list of who was to get what size and off we would go ~ delivering bread all over town, one of the boys would run to the door hand the bread over with a hearty "MERRY CHRISTMAS" shouted as they ran back to the car and off to the next house we would go...how fun to share the gift of giving with our children. After getting their licenses the boys would go through the list and pick a few people they wanted to deliver to and off they would go bread and list in hand to deliver a bit of Christmas cheer and their dad's Ed Bread, Ed and I would deliver the rest. While the boys were in college, and home on break, they would grab the list and boxes of bread and would be gone for hours and hours as they delivered bread and visited with those they had not seen for months, frequently we would later hear from the recievers how much they enjoyed visiting with the boys (oh the pride of a mothers heart).

It's Christmas at our house...no tree, no lights on the house but can you smell it??? Ed Bread, yummy!!!

Like Chopping Wood ~~ Warmth X2

I am working away at getting Gramma's Aprons (Novemeber 6th post) quilted....and loving the process, it's been a long while since I have completely handquilted a quilt.

I had a heck of a time finding any stencils that I wanted to use for the border quilting, finally decided on three different ones that I liked somewhat equally ~ mixed and matched and came up with a plan to use all three! I knew I wanted to put flowers on Gramma's Aprons...thought I might want something vine-y with leaves between the flowers...really like cabling so played around with what I had and what I found and am really liking how it is all coming together... even if it would make some seasoned handquilters gag from using all three of these stencils on the same quilt!! LOL

Just like chopping wood for the winter woodpile, this is keeping me warm while working on it and will keep me warm when it is ready for use. While working on it each evening it is draped over my legs...Akira usually is content to wiggle his way under it and lay on my lap..which is much easier for me to quilt since he is not laying on my bossom, his favorite place to nap!!!

Today is KatieBugs last volleyball game of the year....wrestling is about half over for Rex and Tristan....basketball is just around the corner (all 3 grands)...always hopping with the grandkids, and we try really hard not to miss a moment of any of it.

Christmas gift purchasing is pretty much done at our house, an easy year for us, we knew what we wanted to do for almost everyone early on and had pretty much finished our shopping even before it was time to get started! This afternoon we will get boxes ready to be mailed out on Monday. Still no tree up at our house...at this late date I am thinking it will not happen. Decorating didn't happen either. I do have a few things out that are out only at Christmas but we are not decorated like usual, Ed usually does a fantastic job of getting a nativity display on the lawn and lights on the house, nothing this year. As I mentioned in an earlier post, between his continued recovery from back surgery and my so very graceful fall off the deck (landing on my right shoulder) neither one of us is in any kind of shape to do any of the lugging and toting around that it would take. Next year! Next year!! Next year!!!Here is a pic of my Christmas quilt, it went on our bed this morning. This was finished in 2003, but I think I started it in 2000...got the top done but couldn't make up my mind if I wanted to do the applique Before or After the machine quilting so we used it on the bed for 2 years as an incomplete top. I finally decided to do the applique AFTER I got it back from my machine quilting lady. She did an absolutely wonderful job! The quilting is holly leafs and berries, makes me smile. There are usually 10 or more bears dressing in their holiday attire on the bed as well..but they are packed away, waiting for next year!

Jack-dolph

And today was Antenna Ball Changing Day...so here is a pic of the one coming off...I warned Jack-dolph to keep his eyes closed but he must have peeked at some point while the car was speeding along and now I see he has lost an eye...poor Jack-dolph!! Jack-man is currently on the car, but I don't have a picture to show you...soon...I love Antenna Balls!!!

There you have it...an update for what is worth!

What are you up to???