Teamwork

Hubby and I have been busy, busy, busy getting things ready for celebrating Christmas with the kids here. Over the weekend we made cookies, six different kinds as a matter of fact, and the majority have chocolate in some form. Hmmm, I guess I forgot about variety.

Sunday evening Hubby and I worked making a triple batch of Butterhorn Rolls. It sure did help to have a extra pair of hands to help form each roll.

Last year's photo, but be assured, they rolls look the same every time I make them. :)

We decided we make a great team. We got a lot of things accomplished together. I dust, he vacuums. I create dirty dishes, he empties the dishwasher. We go to the grocery store together and he helps carry in the bags and put the food away.

Together, we finally finished decorating  the Christmas tree. I think that's the latest we've done it. We even sorted through some of the decorations. I know I fussed about needing to sort through and then when I was actually doing it, I went and got all mushy and sentimental and couldn't toss very much. Sigh. I think I have a problem.

Here's a few photos I just took with my phone of some of the festiveness.

Sometimes, when we have gone on vacations, we have bought an ornament to hang on our Christmas tree. Here's a shot with just three of those. The top arch shaped ornament is from Sydney, Australia. It's the Sydney Harbour Bridge. (Like how I spelled Harbour there? My spellchecker doesn't.) The star shaped one is from New Zealand and has a Kiwi Bird carved in the middle. (Did you know that the people from New Zealand call themselves Kiwis?) The bottom ornament is from Singapore and called a Merlion. It has the head of a lion and the body of a fish. (Mer meaning fish.) It's the symbol of Singapore. It symbolizes Singapore's origin as a fishing village and Singapura in Malay means Lion City. (Such an educational blog, huh?)

We have several more ornaments from travels, but I just chose these three for today.


This is an ornament some adorable little two year old boy made. (Yes, I got a little teary when I unwrapped it.)

How are all your Christmas celebration preparations coming along?

A Snowy Hodgepodge

 

It snowed yesterday so I think it's time for the Wednesday Hodgepodge! (yeah, I know, random...) Go on over to Joyce's blog and play along. Or you can just read through all those who linked up. Or both.

1. How will you spend 'the night before Christmas'?
Well, that all depends on how "Christmas" is defined. In my world, Christmas is a different day each year and most of the time it is not on December 25th. This year we'll be having our Christmas celebration with the kids on the 24th. So 'the night before Christmas' is on the 23rd. We will all be gathering here and enjoying a spaghetti supper.

2.  What is one thing you are not?
I am not a morning person. But then, I don't think that's a newsflash to anyone who knows me in person, or anyone who has read this blog for any amount of time. (In fact, Sunday morning when I got up, my sweet Hubby brought me a glass of iced tea [yes, I drink it year round] and said as he was walking out of the bedroom, "I'll let you have your wake up time." Smart man. He knows me well after all these years.

3.  Fudge-are you a fan?  Your favorite flavor?
Is there any other flavor than Chocolate? I do like fudge and if it's chocolate with some sort of nuts in it even better. I don't eat much of it because it is super sweet. I don't remember having ever made it myself.

4. Did you attend any craft/vendor fairs in the month of December? Do you prefer homemade goodies or the more professional stalls? Are you giving any homemade gifts this year?
I have not attended a craft fair in a very long time....as in years. I'm only giving one handmade gift and I probably better not say what it is. I will say, I got myself all sidetracked with making those quilts for those adorable twins that I didn't do more handmade things like I thought I might.

5. What's your favorite type of holiday gathering?

My favorite would be when I am with our kids. Last year we celebrated Christmas with them on New Year's Eve or what I called: Happy New Christmas Merry Year's Eve Day. It was a really fun day with them.

6. We're approaching a new year...what's going to be different in 2013?
I know some things I would love to be different, but I have no idea if it will be a reality....

7. Share a favorite scripture, quote, saying, or song lyric relating to peace.

“God can't give us peace and happiness apart from Himself because there is no such thing.”

-C.S. Lewis

8.  Insert your own random thought here.
Snow on the ground means snowmobiles zipping around the field next to our house. Blech.

That Big Project

Last week I wrote about a big project I was working on.(Remember....the one where I ran out of thread and Hubby ended up driving me 120 miles round trip to buy some more?)

I have shared that my niece had twin girls the end of November. About a month before the babies were born, I got a brain storm to make them some quilts. I spent a morning looking for ideas for a quick, but cute pattern. I found one that I had pinned on Pinterest  It's called Around the Block. Basically it's a giant Log Cabin block. It was pretty simple to put together. It probably took me longer to cut out each piece (because each one is a different size) than to sew the whole thing together.

I shopped for the fabric when we stopped at the Missouri Star Quilt Company before Thanksgiving. I had asked my niece about the colors in the babies' nursery. My goal with the fabric was to have the same fabrics in both quilts, but arrange them differently and do the backing in different fabrics. The girls are twins, but not identical.

I borrowed this photo from my sister's Facebook page. :)

I learned from my niece that one of the girls is already showing to be a bit more feisty that the other one, so for that quilt I chose some monkey fabric for the backing.

And of course, no quilt is complete without the label:::

I prayed for those sweeties to know the love of Jesus as I made the quilts. I hope they get a lot of good snuggle time with these!

Adventures in Smaller Town, Minnesota

A few weeks ago I received a postcard from the state telling me that I need to renew my driver's license. I plopped it on the side of the refrigerator with a magnet and promptly forgot about it.

Last week Hubby reminded me that I needed to get my license renewed, so I looked up the website listed on the card to figure out where I needed to go.

Today, I got myself all gussied up (meaning I actually put on make-up and fixed my hair all nice and everything) and headed to the local mall. (Just to clarify... the "mall" is more like, as my son would say, "a few stores connected by a giant hallway.") Why the mall? Well, that's where I thought the website told me to go and I remembered seeing a somewhat official looking office the few times I have actually been in this mall. I walked up and down the mall, and did not see anything that said License Bureau or DMV or anything. The "Official" looking place I remembered was a Social Security Office. I didn't think they would renew my license there.

So I stomped (annoyed with myself) back out to my car trying to think of what to do next. I considered calling my hubby at work to have him ask someone, but I never know if I can get a hold of him while he's at work and I really wanted to get this done today. So I pulled out my trusty smart phone and went to Ask.com and searched for where to renew my driver's license in Smaller Town, Minnesota. (No, that is not the real name of the town I live in. I'm just not keen on blabbing on the world wide web exactly where I live.) Huh, there was an actually place in the down town area called a License Bureau. Who knew? Obviously not me. I've lived here for two and a half years and have never seen this place.

So I followed the directions on my GPS and even then had a hard time finding the place. It's in a pretty obscure place.

Anyway. I ended up filling out the paperwork, taking the eye exam (last time I renewed my license I could pass the exam with no glasses...no such luck this time), and paying the fee and smiling pretty (they even let me approve the photo) all in less than ten minutes. I now get to carry a piece of paper around until the hard copy comes in the mail.

I know this isn't the most riveting blog post. It's just a glimpse of how non-riveting my life in Smaller Town, Minnesota is.

(Besides, I have been known to write long blogposts about such exciting subjects as Potato Salad.)

Wind Gusts of 37 MPH

On this Sunday night we are tucked in our warm house as the wind is howling outside. And let me tell you, that wind sure can howl! We are having wind gusts of 37 mph. Now, I know that's no where near what Sandy dished out on the East Coast, but Caesar is making a valid effort. Who is Caesar, you ask? I guess someone somewhere decided that snowstorms needed to be named this year. Maybe someone in the middle of the country has been feeling left out that all those hurricanes and tropical storms get names. Me? I think it's a bit silly. Pretty sure people around here will still call it the Storm of December '12 or whatever... at any rate, the wind sounds wicked. The screens on this house really rattle when the wind gets going.

It's making me relieved that we had a huge tree on the west side of our house taken out this fall. It was this tree:

 These photos are from a couple of summers ago. It had grown even more and was leaning more towards the house.

 Part of it was looking sick. We had an Arborist look at it and he said there were actually two different trees growing together and pushing on each other.

The part on the left was an Elm tree and it had Dutch Elm Disease.

While I'm off on this rabbit trail I'll show you some photos of the guy cutting the tree down. (It's better to think about when it was warmer outside and to get my mind off of Caesar's howling.)

This one guy worked by himself for six or seven hours. He was very methodical in what he did and it was interesting to watch him.

He used a rope to pull the trunks down into the field. He wanted to wait until after the corn was harvested so he had ample room to take the tree down.

 The stump was cut down to ground level. We decided to not pay the extra $400 to have him totally remove it. I bought a crab apple tree to plant in that area. It was super cheap to buy one in mid-October.

Well, that was a nice rabbit trail. Nice to look at those photos and see blue sky. I forget what blue sky looks like here in Minnesota in the winter time.

Since the weather is so yucky today, we didn't go to church this morning. A 45 mile drive in the country just didn't seem like a smart idea. Hubby got out the Christmas decorations and even put up some lights outside. (That was before the wind picked up, of course.) So, the front porch looks a little festive and the Christmas tree is up with lights on it. (The old tree, since the hunt for the perfect replacement goes on...) I'll work on the rest of the decorating as the week goes on.

After 29 Christmases together, we've accumulated quite a few decorations and I'm feeling the need to sort through and pare down. Any one else who has been married a long time go through that?

Wednesday of last week I spent the day in a little bit bigger town that's an hour away finishing up my Christmas shopping. I scored some pretty good finds and ended the day at Olive Garden with my book (The Hobbit), so it was a good day.

Thursday of last week I was furiously working on a project in my sewing room (details later this week) and looked up to see the spool of thread almost empty. That's was not good and the scream that came out of me was evident of my frustration. I was super worried about what to do. I was using a specific color of thread and there is NO place in this town to buy thread. When Hubby got home from work we decided to make a road trip to that little bit bigger town that's an hour away so I could look at a quilt shop or a couple of fabric stores. So off we went...second day in a row for me. I was able to find the thread I needed and enjoyed a dinner out with my hubby. That guy is seriously my hero. He was awesome to drive me 120 miles for a couple of spools of thread.

Tomorrow is supposed to be a very cold day. I think I'll just stay in and work on those decorations and wrapping some presents. Probably will have to dig out the wool socks, too.

A December Hodgepodge

A little Wednesday Hodgepodge for this December day. Go on over to Joyce's blog and play along. Or you can just read through all those who linked up. Or both.

1.  Share your traditions surrounding the Christmas stocking.
When I was growing up we spent most Christmas Eves at my grandfather's 1919 farm house.There was no fireplace, so we hung Grandpa's socks (with a red heel and toe -- think sock monkey) in the drawers of the built-in buffet in the dining room. We would wake up early and try to sneak down the squeaky stairs. We knew the outside edges of the stairs weren't quite as squeaky and tried to descend by walking along the edges. The stockings always had an orange and a chocolate bar and sometimes a silver dollar.
When I was in junior high, my mom made some stockings for us four kids for their house. She used red felt and scraps from all the clothing she (and us girls) had made over the years. A few years later I made some for my mom and dad and then have made umpteen more as the family grew. My sister has taken over the last several years. Here's a picture of my parents' fireplace. You can see how packed that fireplace is behind my great-niece. (Or is it grand-niece? I still don't know!)

I believe there are twenty-five stockings hanging there.
Here's a closer up, but not very good because it's cropped photo. The girl stockings have mostly flowered fabrics and the boy stockings are checks and plaids and stripes.

I made stockings the first year we were married. The names are candy-cane designed letters crossed stitched on.

 I have enough of that red fabric to make one more stocking...just in case.

Sometimes we don't just hang our stockings on the fireplace.

We haven't always had a fireplace to hang them on. For years we used a peg board (that we are currently using to hand our coats on in the mud room). We have even packed these in a suitcase and taken them to Christmases we celebrated in New Zealand and Australia. I always put a candy-cane in the stockings and we wrap the little gifts (mostly because it's way too tempting to peek inside). We typically open our stockings the night before we open presents. The specific day we do that changes every year. We haven't continued with the stockings with the kids since they were married. I'm the one who made that decision and recently, I've been wondering if that was the right decision. Maybe we need to have a family talk about that this Christmas when we are all together.

2.  How many hours of sleep do you average at night?  Is it enough?
I get anywhere from 7 to 9 hours of sleep at night. The closer to 9 hours of sleep, the more rested I feel. I am blessed to not have to get up early for anything in particular, so I typically sleep until I wake up. I spent a lot of years getting up early with my kids and since I am nothing close to a morning person, the fact that I get to sleep until whenever in the morning is bliss.

3.  If you had to give up one thing for the remainder of this year what would it be?
Give up something this time of year? Isn't that what New Year's resolutions are for?

4.  The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (or Wills and Kate as I like to call them) have announced they're expecting a baby. Do you follow news of the Royals?
Not really. (Sorry, Joyce.) I just hear whatever is said on the news.

5.  For me,  the sound of childhood is__________________.
LEGOS clinking together, coloring, laughter, a boy bounding down the stairs, a girl humming, grilled cheese sandwiches cooking (and likely being burned on one side), macaroni and cheese being stirred,  a piano, saxophone and trumpet being played, snuggles on nights filled with thunderstorms.

6.  Fruit cake-yay or boo? What's your favorite dessert made with fruit?
Yay! My mom always makes fruitcake and I really like it. She forgets that I like and thinks my brother is the only one who likes it. :) I hope she makes it this year... (Mom?) I should look to see if it's in our family cookbook. If it isn't, then I need to copy the recipe next time I am at my parents' house.
Favorite dessert made with fruit.... I made a cherry pie a few weeks ago that was particularly yummy.

7. What is one thing you want to accomplish before 2012 comes to an end?
I want to read The Hobbit. Hubby has convinced me I need to read it before we see the movie. Today I just finished the last book in a series and set The Hobbit on my nightstand. I have ten days before the movie comes out.

8.  Insert your own random thought here.
Here's my son and sweet daughter-in-law showing off their Hobbit feet. Maybe I'll know more of what the heck they are talking about when I get done with that book. (And see the movie.) (See previous question.)

Weekend Tidbits

Just a few tidbits to highlight our weekend:::

>>Hubby and I spent the weekend in the Twin Cities and conquered our Christmas shopping.

>>I like doing the bulk of our shopping together. I like that we can talk through ideas and come to some good answers. (I guess the gift recipients will truly say whether we came up with good answers.) I like that Hubby likes to shop along with me.

>>As far as doing shopping for each other goes, we have a good system. Hubby got up early on Saturday and went out shopping for me while I got to sleep in. Win-win! Later that day I dumped him dropped him off at a Panera for a couple of hours while I tackled shopping for him. It was a bit funny trying to hide the packages from each other. I wasn't allowed in the back end of the car and he wasn't allowed to look under the quilt in the back seat.

>>The movie theater in our teeny-tiny town closed last summer. Ugh. Now, in order to see a movie, we have to drive at least and hour to do so. So, while we were in the Cities (that's what all the cool people in Minnesota call the Twin Cities), Hubby and I saw two movies. Saturday night we saw Lincoln. My word for that movie is: SUPERB. It's a long movie, but it really doesn't seem like it. What an impossibly hard period of time to be president. The movie gave me a new respect for Abraham Lincoln. Go see it. The other movie we saw was Skyfall. You know: Bond, James Bond. I always enjoy Bond movies. I'm not crazy about all the shooting and chasing and oh-my-goodness-this-scene-needs-to-over-so-I-can-breathe-again moments, but Bond movies are always good. (That movie experience would have been so much more pleasant if someone from the family sitting next to us hadn't got up and walked in front of us TWELVE times throughout the movie...!)

>>We had sometime to kill before one of those movies, so we wandered in the mall and enjoyed a snack of ice cream. We had just eaten supper, but isn't there always room for ice cream? Especially with a name like:

Yum! Yum!

>>Hubby and I are on the lookout for a new artificial Christmas tree. We'd like one with LED lights and on that doesn't look obviously fake. We are weary of stringing the lights and then not having half of them light up. (And by we I mean hubby, cuz he does all that work.) We looked at a few, but there just doesn't seem to be many pre-lit LED trees, or maybe we don't know where to look. So it's looking like we'll drag out the old one and string up those lights again and hope for the best. Oh, and I am over having a real tree. I love the smell and I love the memories we have of going to a Christmas tree farm with the kids and picking out our favorite, but the falling needles and the watering and the fear of it bursting into flames isn't enough to make me want to continue getting real ones. I bet I could find a scented candle to bring in the fresh Christmas tree smell.

>>We just love being in a big city where we can choose from so many restaurants. Sometimes we even get a smidge overwhelmed with all the choices. Sometimes we try new places, sometimes we go for old favorites.

>>Sunday we were able to meet some dear friends for lunch. Always good to reconnect with them. We met in a place that had a large variety of ethnic foods. I enjoyed some yummy and just-right-spicy Pad Thai.

>>Hubby and I picked out some new drinking glasses at Target. Somehow in the last two years we have managed to break five glasses. (And we don't even have any kids at home doing the dishes we can blame it on!)

>>I am thankful for a wonderful weekend with my sweetheart. He's just a blast to be with.

(Wait, November is over....I don't need to end with the whole "I'm thankful" thing!)
(But it's still a good thing to focus on being thankful!)