Goodbye 2008 - Hello 2009!!!

As this year ends and a new year begins,
I want to wish you and yours many blessings and love!(Our old house looking from the road up the driveway)

Sweet Hubby and I will be leaving first thing in the morning for St Louis. We'll meet up with some family and just get away for a coupla days. We will be playing at City Museum & eating at The Olde Spaghetti Factory at Laclede's Landing. We hope to wander over to The Hill as well.

Pink Girl and Christmas Cookies

It's time for another PINK SATURDAY thanks to Beverly at http://howsweetthesound.typepad.com

I've begun to notice that I don't seem to have a whole lot of PINK things.
But I don't have a shortage of pink girls!

Here's H decorating Christmas Cookies:

She sure felt like a big girl doing all the work herself. Of course, the very first cookie had a two inch mountain of colored sugar... oops. But she soon got the hang of if!

Baby Jay sure approved. She kept wanting her cookie reloaded with frosting.

H has been very busy with several crafts.This has nothing to do with PINK, but the girls love this cabinet.

Usually it's H who wants to set the table with the plastic ware.

But Baby J has discovered this cabinet and she had a blast. Very busy!

And H likes to play her "ABC" game.

It's a Scrabble-like game and she plunks away and is so proud of herself!

Here's some more PINK.

H and her sweet momma are modeling the masks that H and I painted!

Happy PINK Saturday!

Merry Christmas To All!

The little ones have left to go visit the other side of the family.
The eldest and her little family are cozy in their home in upstate New York
and I am sitting here reflecting in the quiet.

The frenzy of the little ones running underfoot is thrilling and fun.

Enjoying the light in their eyes is priceless.
The messes to clean up later today are worth it.
More about the last few days and weeks to come at a later date.
But Christmas is really about God sending His Son oh so many years ago, and we celebrate at this time of Winter each year. Don't forget that the Birthday Celebration is really just the beginning of the Story
...of Calvary and Easter!

Christmas Blessings from Our Home to Yours!

Made with My Cool Signs.Net

Angel or Star or ???

Which do you put on top of your tree?
Way back when, our First Christmas in 1977, I found the most beautiful angel treetopper at a local boutique. She was gold and sparkly and had a burgundy velvet dress.
~sigh~
There was no way on Earth that we could afford $40 for such a frivolous purchase so I decided to make an angel just like the one I'd seen. (photos from 2007)
Um, that proved rather difficult.
Oh sure, I can sew (Home Ec degree y'know)
and I craft lotsa things,
but finding an innocent doll proved to be
the largest obstacle to overcome.
I looked and looked and finally found the "Sunshine Family".
A rather hippie looking 4-some but the Momma was just fine.

So I snipped and glued and there was my angel.
Sweet Hubby configured a cone shaped form for the skirt out of a large yoghurt tub after dismembering Momma Sunshine's legs! Hee hee!
I made wings out of white lightweight cardboard
and covered them with clear glitter.
Had to pierce her head for the halo!
I chose a nice sized pretty box that
our wedding invitations came in for her off-Holiday home.
After the kids each came along,
they took turns
placing the angel atop the tree
when all the decorating was complete.
The year and name of whose turn it was
is still written inside that box lid.
One of her arms keeps coming off. She IS 31 y'know!
A year or two ago, tif requested either MY angel or one like her.
The hunt to find an innocent doll began again.
This one is a little more innocent than Mrs. Sunshine
and also a little smaller.
Unfortunately, I kinda got her angel halfway done
and then scooted the box under a cabinet and forgot about it.
I pulled it out this year and was determined to get it done and have.
I used storebought craftwings this time
and just mailed her off to New York this a.m.
I forgot to take a photo of the new angel,
so will depend upon tif to snap one when when she arrives.

Christmas Blessings!

Exterior Experimentation

Here's the STAR that Sweet Hubby built. This year it is an experiment. We decided it needs to be angled a little. No one can see the star except the neighbor directly to the south. Cant's see it from the road, can't see it from the valley, can't see it from across the lake, only the neighbor. We have 4 lit trees on the bank and dock.
You can see them from our bedroom windows,
from the dam,
from the neighbor's,
from across the lake.
We hope to add to the lights each year.
Have any suggestions?

Charlie can never figure out what I am doing when I pull out my camera.
I had the white rockers nicely flanking each side of the porch
when Sweet Hubby pulled the dog igloo up onto the porch for the pooches.
Ah, well, now they are warm at last.

Happy Christmas

lightbulb moment

Do you ever have one of those obvious observations that just HIT you all of a sudden and you wonder why you never noticed before? That happened to me last week. After scraping and scraping the windows so I could see enough to make it out the driveway to get to school, a little ways down the road I noticed...

...that my side view mirrors had defrosters. Cool!
shut up Jay!

Holiday Decorating!!! as if

Christmas Blessings to All!!!
I know, I'm late to the party.
Too much going on and house too messy to do much.
I have wreaths on the front windows and the front door.
This is obviously the wreath on the front door from inside.

Entertainment center in the living room.

Cloche inside near my front door:

A little cloche detail:

Umm, this is where the Christmas Tree will go...
when we get around to getting it.
Usually the 10th is the day.
Right now there is
snow and ice on the ground
and I'm not venturing out
and risking my life just for a tree.

My dining room:

Wreaths on the kitchen windows:

Outside the kitchen, a little Holiday Spirit!:

This is just a little computer rendering
I did to show Sweet Hubby what I wanted for outside
lighting this year.
There's also a tree on the dock.
We didn't quite get any up on the roofline
but did get a star on the chimney.
See it below when Sweet Hubby was constructing it.

Isn't he just the epitome of Holiday Joy?

That's it for now!!!!
Go to these gals for
more Holiday Home Tours:
Julia
http://hookedonhouses.net/2008/12/14/hooked-on-holiday-house-tours-let-the-party-begin/
Kimba
http://asoftplacetoland-kimba.blogspot.com/2008/12/kimbas-open-house-party.html
&
Rhoda
http://southernhospitality-rhoda.blogspot.com/2008/12/deck-halls-2008.html
(sorry, couldn't get the links to redo or whatever it's called)