Bittersweet Holidays

So, so much to catch up on. Have been very busy, sick , busy and still sick. I think the best way to cover it all is in short bits, so here we go...

*December 22- Scott and I took the kids to the Nixon Library. Very cool. Train exhibit. Brendan loved it! Ms. K did too. Loved the Presidential Helicopter. Would defin. go again. Great-Grandma is put in the hospital for an infection, we are all worried.

Conversation overheard while sitting on this couch:

Mr. B: Sissy, are you going to take your shoes off?

Ms. K: No Brendan, this isn't our home.


*December 23- Spent the day wrapping, cleaning, resting (everyone is sick)


*December 24-last minute gifts (so not me), last minute wrapping (again so not me). We didn't make it to church because we didn't want to infect everyone at church (we were very disappointed, really affected the Christmas spirit). Found out Grandma's not coming home for Christmas (even more disappointing). Did have a nice night with Scott's family. My mother -in-law knows me very well. Got me great gifts but we were laughing because everyone else was looking at us like we were crazy. she got me an vintage window frame from an old house, so very cool (I already know what I am going to do with it!)

I am going to do Christmas in the next post because I don't have all my pictures with me.

*December 26- Great Grandma came home from the hospital. We found out on Christmas that she is in the final stages of COPD. They told us it could be 2 days, 2 weeks or a year. They just don't know. Kind of a shocker on Christmas. There was also good news on Christmas but I want to wait to share it until I have my pics.

*December 27- Off for an 8 hour car ride to Gardnerville, NV to visit my dad's parents. when we arrived it started to snow. Very fun! Will be here for a few days sans my Scott (he has to work). Here is the view from my Grandparents place...




Hope everyone had a nice holiday!
Okay more later...

100th post!

I thought I would never get to my 100th post!
Lots to catch up on since we have all been sick this week and still can't seem to shake the loveliness that my hubby shared with us all. Ms. K was running a fever of 103.2 degrees on Thursday. That was loads of fun!

Anyway, let's back it up day to Wednesday when Ms. K had her Christmas program at school. They hadn't had one in many years so it was packed with parents. When I say packed, I mean the fire marshall would have shut it own there were so many people crowded into the multi purpose room. The students were very cute and they did a great job singing their songs. Ms. K's class went first and since she is tall she was in the back row. They had all the children set up s their heads were in between each other but my sweet girl decided to move over. All we cold see was her hair bobbin' around because she was being blocked by someones Santa hat. Oh well, she was still cute! I took a video, I apologize for the shakiness but i was sick and had no tripod. After the poem it gets steady so bear with me until it gets to their song...

I can't believe it's almost Christmas. I was telling Scott the other day that I am sad because I just don't feel in the Christmas spirit this year. usually I am jumping out of my skin with excitement but this year I am just blah. I think it's because we have all been sick but still I am disappointed. We did some Christmasy things this weekend but I am going to split it into 2 posts otherwise it will be WAY too long. Here are a couple pictures of Ms. K after her performance. She has red puffy eyes because she was crying. Still not quite sure why she was crying. I think it was a combo of her starting to not feel good and she didn't want me to take her picture. Hello, I am her mother she knows there are going to be lots of pictures involved! So I took pictures anyway and she can look back on them and laugh (she wasn't the only one crying, there was 4 of them crying!)

Laying Low

for the weekend. Scott is still sick, Mr. b is coughing and now I am not feeling so hot. I already told Scott I am going to be really mad if I get sick this week because I have so much going on and I have to finish Christmas shopping. Hoping the rest will do us all good.
Oh yeah... this is my 99th post so next post will be my 100th! I would have a little party and maybe a little giveaway but no one likes to post comments! (hint, hint!) More later...

Pull up a chair

and join Mr. b and I for our Friday date. Since we go to the same place every week and sit and the same table we are easy to find, so join us. It's "the usual" for both of us today which entails a pumpkin muffie and OJ for Mr. B and I will be having an asiago cheese bagel, lightly toasted and a coffee (but today I switched it up for a hot chocolate). would you like a bagel and some coffee also? It was cold here this morning so I hope you brought your jacket. It's 43 degrees and you will need it! We're sitting near the window so we will have a nice view of the 18 foot Christmas tree right outside. The Christmas music playing makes for a perfect December breakfast date. Mr. B is very messy today, there are crumbs everywhere! Time to go run the rest of our errands, Daddy's home sick and we want to get home to check on him. Thanks for joining us on our Friday date!

Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly...

Welcome to our house for Christmas. Usually the decorations are all hung the weekend after Thanksgiving but it just didn't happen this year. So here's what I do have up so far. some are the result of our crafty weekend. I didn't put up all of our decorations this year. There has been a lot of handmade stuff going up. Here we go...

The cones are hanging on our tree. We have no ornaments this year. Only the paper cones, flowers and I took our favorite pictures and mounted them on chipboard with ribbon to hang them on the tree. Turned out very pretty. I see the start of a new tradition. The kids love seeing themselves on the tree. At first Ms. K complained about no ornaments but she gets very excited to hang a new picture.

These usually house pictures of the beautiful babies but at the moment they are holding enlargements of vintage postcards. Love looking at them above the fireplace.

Homemade tags on every gift. Not the best picture but it was late last night and I was tired.

I love having bowls of ornaments around the house. It always makes me smile as I walk by.

Here's a vignette that I made during our crafty weekend. It is actually three pieces hooked together. I love how it turned out. It was one of those projects that just evolved and had no beginning plan.

Here's my garland made from bingo cards. The chipboard letters are Making Memories, the stamp is Tim Holtz, and the paper behind the letters is Cosmo Cricket. It spells out Merry Christmas. Love it!

hope you all are having a great day today!

All I want for Christmas...

Me: Mr. B what are you going to ask Santa for?

Mr. B: a baseball stadium

Me: a baseball stadium! Oh is that all? Is there anything else that you want?

Mr. B: No, that's all just a baseball stadium.


We're in trouble!

Ahh the busyness of the holidays

I had said I would post pictures of our Christmas craftiness and I never did it. Sorry! As in everyone's house during the holidays, the craziness gets to be a bit much. This last weekend Scott had his holiday party for work. His very generous boss flew us all to Las Vegas for the weekend. So nice. Scott and I were able to spend the whole day together on Sat. Just the two of us. Amazing right! When you have children that never happens! We had a really nice day. Not only that but we didn't put a penny into any machine or on any table. We went to the Bellagio and saw the beautiful decorations. Pictures to follow. From there we walked to the Venetian and went to the Modern Masters exhibit. I highly recommend seeing this if you are in Vegas. Here's our pictures from the Bellagio...

After the Art exhibit, we walked over to Caesar's and the Forum shops. We ate at a deli in there that had THE BEST onion rings ever! They were SO GOOD! We couldn't pass up FAO Schwartz while we were there and can I tell you how much fun it is to go to toy store with no kids. We got to browse and not have to say "put that down" or "stay here". We had t take a picture in there for Ms. K because she loves Groovy Girls and they had a whole wall of them. I couldn't get them all in the picture so here's the part I could fit.

I also got to experience my first fight while we were there. I had never really watched boxing and I didn't think I would like it but the Mayfield/Hatton fight was fun to watch. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time.

It felt good to get home though and here is what we were greeted with when we came out of the airport...

So beautiful! The picture does not do it justice. Okay this post has been long enough so I will make the craft post a separate one...

It's Here!

Hooray!! December is here. Have been busy crafting for over a week now and I have no finished projects to show for it. Love, love, love making Christmas projects. A little ambitious this year and I am trying to make all the tags to go on my presents. The problem is, we have so many presents to give that I might not get them done. I will defin. post pictures this weekend because today my sister is coming over and we are going to craft the day away. Our boys and our Dad are golfing in the church golf tournament so we have a whole day of glue and glitter ahead of us. It's the perfect day to do it because it rained all day yesterday (poured) and today it's still not sunny. That leaves the the perfect combination to have a movie/craft/popcorn/warm drinks/present wrapping day. Love it! Can't wait to stay in our sweats while the kids are bundled up under blankets watching Christmas movies. I wonder what's on the Christmas movie menu today... Rudolph (requested by Ms. K), Shrek the Halls, How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the cartoon). Okay, more later gotta get the glitter ready...

Time flies when family is visiting

My aunt from New York was here for the week and boy did we cram a lot in! It's always crazy at thanksgiving! So much fun! Thanksgiving was nice. We had two dinners on Thanksgiving. My hub's parents came over during the day. I lucked out and didn't have to cook any of it. After eating lots there we headed over to my parents house for another meal. Can I tell you what a great cook my Mom is! Wow! Homemade skillet creamed corn, pineapple casserole (my favorite), stuffing with apples and cranberries, mashed potatoes, the list goes on and on. Here are some pictures of the overeating...

Gigi and Brendan

Friday my Mom, Charsie and I got up nice and early and headed out to the stores. This year we went to one store and then went to breakfast. After breakfast we headed back to shop and it was so nice. Not one line! How did we avoid all the lines? We got some really good deals. Can't wait to get them wrapped!
That night we all went to the Mission Inn for the festival of lights. It's a historic hotel in the next city and every year the ;lights are unbelievable. There are so many lights and they have animated people singing carols. Wow is the only word I can think of. we had never been to the lighting and we defin. want to go back next year. The had the streets blocked off and there was an ice skating rink, food stands, and all the stores had a window display contest. Lots of the stores surrounding the hotel are antique stores so of course their displays were fabulous. My camera batteries died before the show started so I was not able to get pictures of the firework show but I got lots of pictures of the window displays we saw before it was dark.

I think we are going to go back again so we can really enjoy the lights when they aren't thousands of people there.

Ms. K went back to school yesterday. Mr. B missed her so much he was crying while we were running errands. "When can we go pick up sissy?" "Is it time to get sissy yet?" That's what I heard the entire time she as at school yesterday. When we picked her up he was SO excited. He was walking next to her with his arms around her waist.

I know I have been a bad blogger this month. The whole tearing stuff in my foot and being on crutches messed everything up this month. I have to say it was an experience to teach a three hour scrapbook class on crutches. Not something I want to try again anytime soon.

Gotta run, Mr. B is pulling pictures out and spreading them everywhere!

My funny boy

He makes me laugh every day. Yesterday this conversation came about during the day...

Brendan had hit Ms. K in the head with his baseball bat (not to worry, not wood or aluminum).

Me: Brendan, you need to go apologize to your sister for hitting her with your bat. How sad, now it's in timeout.

Brendan: (crying) okay

he runs down the hallway with his two year old run that's still sort of a waddle and his arms a pumping to get him along (love that run!)

(overheard when he gets to his room to apologize)

Brendan: Okay, hold on I have to get my tears out of the way (wiping his eyes)

How can I be mad when he says cute, funny things like that?! Good thing I was out of sight because I was laughing!

Later on in the day Ms. K and I were in my room and I hear him coming down the hallways ( because he has to bring an armload of toys with him everywhere). This is what we hear...

Brendan: Here comes the man!

Glad he feels the need to announce himself. Not just "here comes Brendan" but "here comes the man". guess we won't have to worry about confidence right!

Plans have changed

now that I have to wear this dumb cast (soft) on my foot. It's really hindering our vacation plans. We did manage to go to the American Girl store as planned. It was really fun! We went with Mom, Julie and the Peters. The girls had a great time and I think they would have taken everything in the store home if we let them. The Grove was getting it's Christmas decorations up so it was starting to look very festive! Here are some pictures for the day...

The dolls were set up in displays with their accessories according to the books. Very cute!

The kids wanted to ride the double decker bus so the Kennedy rode while Mom stayed with Brendan and I because he was asleep and I couldn't get on it. Here they are getting off...

The stores had so many cute projects that I want to make. I took pictures of the ones I am going to duplicate! Can't wait to get to work. It's going to have to wait till I am done teaching my classes this month. I have one mini album class left this Friday. It should be fun.