LET THE DECORATING BEGIN

We've never rushed into decorating our house for Christmas. I think this year is different since the kids came for just a few days at Thanksgiving and we had a day to rest and then were ready to do something! I'm hoping that since they're closer this year that they'll be here to see the decorations more than one time too. Anyway, we started yesterday getting out some of the decorations. A few weeks ago I purchased a new 4' tree for upstairs. Since we had an extra tree, I decided to put it in the girl's room with just lights and some plastic ornaments and ribbon. It has the angel that was on top of our tree every year while the kids were at home. I hope they like it!!


We have a small 2' tall tree in the breakfast room. This tree has mostly homemade ornaments. I made some but my mother made most of them. I love this tree because of the love that went into making the ornaments.


The last tree that we put up today was in the bonus room. Over the years we had added quite a few ornaments to our collection. It seemed that over half of our ornaments were gold in color and I decided to change our large tree to all gold. We still had a lot of sentimental ornaments that would not work on an all gold tree. So, this little 4' tree holds all of those special ornaments. Quite a few of them were bought by my parents even before I was born. Some were bought by our kids thru the years and there are even a couple that were painted by granddaughters, Kate & Gabby.


We still have the tallest tree that goes in the living room to put up. Hopefully we'll get it all up this week. I'm still debating on putting up a couple of more trees, but I haven't decided for sure just yet. Since we've gotten such an early start, it may just happen!! We'll see!!

We are so Blessed - A Great Thanksgiving Weekend

We have had a great weekend. The Stace family came in about noon on Wednesday. We "treated" the grandkids to McDonald's for lunch and the adults got (had) to eat hamburgers too. We always enjoy our time together but holidays are so much better when they're around. We get to read a lot and watch all of the funny things the kids do. (Sorry it's sideways!) Handyman made chili for supper. Nephew, Ryan, got in about 7 pm. That was different to have him here a little longer than usual. Normally he comes in with his parents on Thanksgiving Day. I think he & son-in-law, Justin, enjoyed their conversations with one another. Thanksgiving morning started early -- I was up and in the shower at 5:30. Once I started making noise in the kitchen, the rest of the gang was up too. Turkey was in the oven by 6:20. The day was spent cooking, eating and enjoying family. All too soon, my brother and all of his family took off for his in-laws in Alabama. Exhaustion set in after all of the cleanup. I wasn't worth much for the rest of the day. After lunch on Friday Kristy & her family took off for home. Thankfully the trip is only about an hour and a half on a good day. So much better than the 10 hour trip to Kansas!! Today, Handyman & I drove up to the cabin to pick up a few things we needed at the house. Traffic wasn't bad and we had a nice drive. I finally made it out to one store to do some shopping today. Handyman drug a lot of the Christmas decorations out of the attic today and we put a lot of it out today. We haven't started on any trees or outdoor lights & wreaths yet. Normally we don't even start any Christmas decorations until December, but since the Thanksgiving company had left and we had a day of rest, we thought it would be a good time to decorate some. Then for supper we pretty much finished up the Thanksgiving food. We had some squash, a little turkey and some gravy left over to throw out, but I think that's it. I'm ready for something other than turkey tomorrow!! I hope everyone enjoyed their holiday as much as I did. Tomorrow, it's off to church for the 1st Sunday in Advent and decorating the church!

Here's the start of our decorating.

FROM THE OVEN

Preparations are continuing for the big day on Thursday. I've been making my list(s) and checking them twice (or three or four times). Some things just can't be done ahead of time. Last minute groceries will need to be bought, bathrooms will need to be cleaned --- again, and lots of food cooked. One of the few foods that I felt like I could do ahead of time were cookies. The most often made cookie at our house is chocolate chip, but that wasn't on my list for this weekend. The first batch of cookies that I made were Filled Raisin Cookies. These are most certainly NOT my favorite. When I was a child, my grandmother would make these cookies and most of the other people in the family would just rave about them, but not me, I just didn't care for them. I remember my cousin, Susan, carrying a bucket of these cookies around. Today I can eat one or two when I bake them, but that's about it.

My mom had continued the tradition of making raisin cookies using her mother-in-law's recipe and now that she's gone, my daughter, who likes these cookies,and I have both continued the tradition.

When I was growing up my mother made lemon crisp sugar cookies every year that were shaped with a cookie press. Now, Christmas at our house just wouldn't be Christmas without these little cookies. Since my brother isn't usually around at Christmas, I made him some Christmas cookies for Thanksgiving since that's one of the few times each year that I get to see him. I painted him a cookie tin one year that says "Terry's Cookies." He usually returns it to me to refill for him. Right now I don't know where that cookie tin is. I hope he has it and can bring it so he can get a refill since I made the cookies.

I'm looking forward to Thursday and having all the family here and yummy food!!

PREPARATIONS

Does this room look ready for company?

Thanksgiving is one week from today. Does my house look like we’re prepared for guests? Ha!! We decided to get the carpets cleaned before the holidays since we wanted our home to look it’s best for our company. I got on-line and scheduled the date for Tuesday – this past Tuesday, November 16^th. The dates that were already taken were grayed out and I picked a day that was available – we thought. Handyman didn’t want to leave things until the last minute since we’re having three rooms and a hall cleaned so he jumped right in and emptied one of our guest rooms into the other guest room and then moved a lot of our living room furniture into the sunroom. So now four of our rooms are either messed up or empty. The carpet people finally called and said they didn’t get the information from the website until the day we wanted was already booked, along with the rest of the week. So now they have rescheduled for next Tuesday. I guess I should be relieved since that is before our guests arrive – not while they are here OR after they’ve left. It’s just going to push it a little closer getting everything put back where it belongs.

This room has been completely emptied

and all of it's contents put in this room.

The living room is missing all of the tables and some chairs will

be moved the day of the carpet cleaning.

I will be glad once the carpets are cleaned and we can put everything back in it's place!!

VETERANS DAY

President Woodrow Wilson first proclaimed an Armistice Day for November 11, 1919. In proclaiming the holiday, he said

"To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with lots of pride in the heroism of those who died in the country's service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations."

In 1953, a Kansas shoe store owner named Alfred King had the idea to expand Armistice Day to celebrate all veterans, not just those who served in World War I. He began a campaign to turn Armistice Day into "All" Veterans Day. A bill for the holiday was pushed through Congress. President Dwight Eisenhower signed it into law on May 26, 1954.

On June 1, 1954, congress amended the act, replacing "armistice" with Veterans.

(Information from Wikipedia)

A special thanks today to the men in my life who have served our country in the armed forces.

MY HEROS

My daddy, who served in the US Navy, World War II

My husband, who served in the US Army, Vietnam

SUCKERS

As a child growing up in the 1950's suckers were a normal treat. You got them at the doctor's office, the bank, and many other places. We rarely had chocolate candy. I don't think they had invented the mini-candy bars yet. If you got a candy bar, it was BIG! We had a lot more hard candy. Suckers have always been a staple for Halloween candy. They were cheap, not as messy as chocolate and kids liked them.
About twenty years ago, Handyman's dad was making wood crafts. For Thanksgiving one year, he made wooden turkeys. They have holes drilled in them where you are supposed to insert suckers. The suckers are there for their tail feathers. Several years ago we started having a little trouble finding the suckers at Thanksgiving, but if you went ahead and bought them when the Halloween candy was out, you were all set. Several years we forgot to buy them at Halloween so the turkey stayed in the attic. I was on top of it this year. I put suckers on my shopping list so I could get them while the Halloween candy was on the shelves. I looked at Walmart, Kmart, called the candy store in the mall, but no one had plain suckers. They had fancy lollipops, lots of Tootsie Roll Pops, Dum Dums, chocolate covered suckers, but no plain suckers. I did find some on Amazon, com and at Oriental trading, but with an $8.95 price tag plus $6.95 shipping I decided to pass on them.
I finally thought about the Dollar General Market and stopped on my way home tonight. They still had their Halloween candy out, but the only suckers I found were orange with white pumpkins imprinted on one side. I had about decided that they would have to do when I found a candy display section that had, no not the plain suckers I was really looking for, but suckers that would do.
There was an extra sucker in the package without a stick, so I decided that I would eat it --- YUK! They are the worst tasting suckers that I have ever had. Oh, well. They'll still look good on the turkey!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HOLLY

Holly thru the years

I can hardly believe that it has been 30 years since our youngest daughter was born. She was early to walk (9 months) but not much with talking (and still isn't). She's the quiet one, the loner. She was always happier when everyone just left her alone. I'm not sure what she does to pass the time. She loves to read and watch movies. When she moved out to her first apartment, we thought she was gone, but like her sister, she kept coming home. It was always nice to have her back. Then she bought a house and returned no more. She likes her job at the police station, but because of her hours, we hardly ever see her. I go to work at 7 am, but she gets off work at 7:30am. I get off at 3:00 pm, but by that time, she's gone to bed. She gets up to get ready for work about the time that I'm going to bed. Her days off and mine don't coincide so there just isn't much time to get together. I miss having her around.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HOLLY!!
WE LOVE YOU!