Christmas at Our House

Litte Mister Twister

So we all have to admit it... Daughter A can wear ANY hat she wants too and still look cute!

Little Miss A in her Christmas Dress

Three little ones wondering when we will open those presents?

Little T showing off his aminal!

This one's for you Russ!, here's Baby M in all his sweetness!

Waiting to get the food!

Sis. K , Bro. D and Daughter L in their jammies!

No Christmas tree for us this year! Our Christmas "bench" made it's appearance once again!

Awww! So sweet!

Here's another one for you Russ... Bro. D is getting all the food!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, full of love and family and good food! Here at our house, things are winding down. There are still a lot of boxes to recycle and we still have two church tables in the computer room, with borrowed chairs from our Christmas Eve dinner. There are a ton of goodies hanging around. Ack! And we still have New Year's Eve to look forward to. I can't believe it's going to be 2009. We are nine years into the new century. I remember ringing in the new century with Bro. Tom who is now gone from us and awaiting his heavenly home. That was a very special evening and now it seems like so long ago.

There have been quite a few changes around our house lately. We got rid of our "land line". Now we just have our cell phones. For three months, if you call our old phone number, it will direct you to my cell number. It feels weird to not have our "land line". At first I was paranoid that I would miss a call. Or that cell phone service would go away and then what would I do? But I'm calming down. Really, our "land line" hardly ever rang. So now there is one less bill to pay! The biggest change is that two of my youngest three kids moved out and into their own shared apartment. I've had to be careful to not write about this until I could collect myself. I'm ok now, really. Most of the time anyway. It's hard to have that gaping hole of my daughter's room staring at me, and wonder if she is coming back. Do I move on and make it into my sewing room, or should I leave it empty... just in case? And should our youngest son spread out in his room, or should we keep space for our missing young man, just in case? Big sigh. These are questions that haunt me. I'm happy for my two little nestlings that have flown the coop, they are so cute in their new home! I'm trying to concentrate on that part of it, so I don't ruin it for them. You know, by making them worry that I'm too sad over here... in my almost... empty... house. Our youngest is half way through his 16th year, so I'm in no danger of being an empty nester soon. But it's looming on that horizon and I'm kind of feeling like I want to turn back the clock several years.

Enough of that! I'm going to get organized and set my sewing machine up and finish some UFOs. (that's "unfinished objects" in sewing/quilting talk) I only have two days of work this week, and so that will leave me 5 days of getting things set up and figuring out where to go from here before the new year really starts.

Secret Sisters-Revealed!

So yesterday after church our sister's revealed who they had as their secret sisters. This is always so much fun. We take turns standing up in front and guessing who had us. Our dear Sis. "double R" got all of us girls these beautiful little fabric boxes in which she put our names back when we first drew names. (maybe in some of the pictures you can see the boxes), we were supposed to find a last present to fit in these boxes when we revealed ourselves. That was so much fun! Last year, she got us all these beautiful angel pins and she had our names on the back. We wore those pins all during secret sis time and then at the end we revealed ourselves by giving our secret sis her pin with her name on it! Sis. "double R" has such great ideas! So, without much further ado, since I'm pressed for time... here are the pictures!

Spending the Night w/ Grammy and Poppa

I am so excited today! It was Son J2 and Daughter M's anniversary recently and so they are taking off to spend some alone time. So, this will be the first time that the grandkiddies get to spend the night with us. The Dad and I are taking Miss A and Little Man J to the Light Parade here in town tonight! Maybe we'll take them to DQ first for a special dinner? It's going to be frosty cold, but perfect otherwise to stand by the side of the streets here in our small town and marvel at the homemade floats all lighted up for the season! Who knows? Maybe Santa will be on that last float waving to the crowd?

So first of all today I "get" to go to the quilt shop here in town and pick out fabric to make my dear friend, Gloria, her special quilt. I have the perfect center piece already, but need those other two materials that will make it her own. Too bad... I have to go to the quilt shop!