My Best friend Ann gave me these three awards. Thank
you Ann!

Etta's First Hunting Trip

They didn't get anything, but they had a few laughs just getting dressed and trying to walk through the woods. Etta could barely move!

Jakes 18th Birthday

My sister Chris's son, Jake, turned 18 today. We had a wonderful time at his party. We got to see Uncle Aurthur(uncle Bootsie) and Aunt Linda whom I haven't seen in quite some time. Katie's little boy, Broden, as usual stole the show. Jake is a senior in high school and is going in the Air National Guard right after. He is such a sweet kid. He and Etta actually got along pretty good today. They used to just fight all the time. I guess since he is all grown up and Etta is getting there, things will change and they will get along a lot better.

Cookie exchange

My first cookie exchange party was a lot of fun. A nice veriety of cookies was the order of the day. My supervisor, Suzanne, made some Norwiegian chocolate chip cookies and pecan pie cookies (the top cookie and the one with the thumb print). Mom made cookie bars and lemon cookies (far left and bottom), Ann made peanut butter munchies(the dark chocolate cookie) Judy made no bake chocolate, coconut, and peanut butter,(obvious) and I made Lace cookies and chocolate crinkles(center and bottom right).

My neice brought her little girls. They were certainly the life of the party. The cats of course hid for the evening. Faith was facinated with the train around the village and Emily love all the red decorations and lights on the Christmas tree. I didn't get any pictures of my Mom! But, she was there too. I can't wait to do this again next year. It's nice have a ladies only get together where you get to talk crafts, recipes and all about men. The great thing about the cookie exchange itself is you get a variety of cookies after baking two batches of cookies.

Getting there!

Still decorating for Christmas. Slowly getting done. I really thought this year I would get done way early because I am not trying to work 80 hours a week. I think what happened is I lost my Christmas spirit there for a while. I was tired and just didn't feel like messing with it. I was stressing out because I want everything to be the way I have wanted it for years. Perfect. There were things I wanted, but couldn't find. There were crafts I wanted to do but they didn't turn out the way I wanted. Then it snowed. Everything looked so pretty and festive. The Christmas lights at night glowed under the snow. I got so angry that night at my husband and daughter who were watching TV while I struggled with he lights on the tree. Struggled with the village, and tried new crafts. I felt as if they didn't give a crap. I had the resulting fit, stomped outside, and went to look at the lights. While I cooled off, literally, I realized just how ridiculous I was being and how lucky I was. I have my husband and daughter right there in the house. Many people don't have a family that is together. The holidays are so much harder for them and here I am throwing a fit because things are not going my way. Typical of us red-heads or part red-heads. The German Irish temper, what ever. Anyway, I could feel my spirit coming back as I stood shivering in the snow. I came back inside feeling better. Come to find out, Tom and Etta could see the build up of my temper and just stayed out of my way. They were both going to help with the tree but thought better of it. They taught me a lesson that night. Throwing a fit doesn't decorate a tree. LOL. Well, that's part of it. When the stress gets to you, take a step back, look at what you have, instead of what you don't. Count your blessing and let the spirit of all that is good, wash over you. The beauty of Christmas isn't in what you see. It's the love and joy of family and friends that makes the season warm and bright. Anyway, I got my spirit back. Things are back on track as far as my decorating goes. It doesn't have to be perfect, and I'm not going to stop until its done. I will try to finish each room before my party, if its not, oh well. I don't think my family and friends will love me any more or less if the decorating is not complete. I am taking it easy on myself. I will look at a room and think, OK, that table could use a touch of Christmas, and i go find something to stick on it. No problem. Etta helped with the tree last night. Its not perfect anymore, but that's OK. She did it, and it looks fine. Tom headed out hunting but when he comes back he gets to help with Grandmas decorating and the outside project i have cooking up for him. Hope he remembers the Christmas spirit while shivering out in the cold. LoL

Thanksgiving at Mom's

I have always loved thanksgiving. Not for the food or the football game, not for the parade or for the traveling, but for the time spent with family. Even though most of us live fairly close, we rarely see each other. Some of my happiest, and funniest, memories are of thanksgiving.
I got to Mom's house early to help with setting up and the meal in general. Preparing the meal with Mom, Wade, (mom's boyfriend) and Etta was very nice, very calming. We laughed and joked while pealing potatoes, making appetizers, and decorating. The smells of thanksgiving in the air. The spiced cider I had going in the slow cooker and the turkey made for a yummy and very appetizing combination.
After everyone got there, everybody had their advice for the perfect turkey. Mom, who has not roasted a turkey since us kids were little, had asked me for my advice. I told her how I season the turkey under the skin, put a very small amount of broth in the pan, keep the lid on and don't bother basting. The birds baste themselves right? Well, everyone was shocked when Mom said she didn't baste the turkey. "oh you gotta baste it. it will be dry. you will burn it" Despite my advice, Mom decides that she has to baste this turkey. She opens the oven, and there is turkey juice all over the oven. she pulled the rack out and turkey juice is all over the floor. She grabs a towel, throws it on top of the stove to take the turkey out, slipping and sliding on turkey juice she attempts to move the turkey. Not a good move. The turkey didn't hit the floor, but it was a near thing. Suddenly, there is a fire on top of the stove! Hot burner, towel, not good. Wade throws the towel in the sink, runs water over it. That's taken care of. Meanwhile there are now towels all over the floor to clean the turkey juice. While cleaning up this little mess, I ask Mom how much broth she put in the roaster. She tells me that she felt a small can of broth was not enough. She went on and put a REALLY big can of broth in. Plus, the same size can, filled twice, with water. Good god! this was a 21 pound turkey. They make a lot of juice on their own! I guess that it is a good thing that everyone convinced her to baste the turkey or an hour later we would have had a bigger mess.
So, once we got the mess cleaned up, we had an amazing meal. My sister made the most incredible cranberry sauce, we had all of the staples of thanksgiving including green beans, corn, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing. We also had incredibly moist cornbread made by Wade's sister and this totally sinful chocolate fudge peanut butter cream pie made by my brother in law. Absolutely incredible!
We played pool, painted Christmas ornaments with the kids, and showed them the joys of the old metal Slinky by making them walk down the stairs. Etta played her violin for everyone. She is getting so much better at it.
It was a great day. A lot of fun and great memories. I'm sure the story of this years turkey will be told, and laughed over for many years to come!
Pictures from top to bottom:

My sister Katie and her daughter Courtney

Katie's son, Broden

Painting ornaments

Etta, Mom and Wade

A decoration I put together for the appetizer area

The party is done!

You know, my husband had the right idea. He headed for the hills, literally. He went hunting instead of staying home for OUR daughters birthday/slumber party. I never really had a slumber party growing up, so I didn't know what I was in for. He has two sisters, whom I know for a fact, had slumber parties. He failed to tell me what I was in for. He knew. I swear he did. He can't tell me any different.
The girls had a wonderful time tearing through my house. Throwing the confetti my Husband thought would be a wonderful addition to the party, wrapping my daughter like a mummy with an entire roll of toilet paper and a leftover roll of streamers, and generally torturing the cats until i had to put them in the bedroom. Poor things. They ventured out after the girls went to sleep and looked at me as if it was all my fault. One girl, as she was running by said This is the best birthday party I have ever been to. Why, because you can't act like this anywhere else??
They made slipper socks which went fairly well. No mess from that. I was shocked. Then we made cinnamon ornaments. My little girl, the apple of my eye, made a turd with her dough. Of course, that generated much laughter from the girls and a little head shake from me. However, she did make some cute ornaments in the long run.
All in all, the girls and I had a great time. They were wonderful kids, no worse than you would think a group of girls would be with a sugar high. Amazingly they crashed at 10:30pm. Not too bad. We had home made waffles for breakfast the next morning. They loved that. and they were gone by 8 except one. She left at noon which I told the parents ahead of time it was OK.
I can tell you this, i don't think I will have another slumber party for quite some time.

Busy Busy

For Etta's birthday, we thought it would be nice to take her to her favorite restaurant for dinner. Due to the way our schedules were for the day, Tom and I chose to meet at the restaurant instead of driving together. Turned out, some of my plans were canceled, so I decided to shop for Etta's slumber party and pick up a few things for Christmas crafts. Which then turned into Etta needing shoes, me needing a sweater or two, oh yes, we needed to take a trip to the local Sam's Club. I got a 2lb 2.5 oz can of coffee at Sam's for $5.00, and at the grocery store, the same can is $9.97. How insane is that?? Needless to say, I will make the trip into town to STOCK up on coffee from now on. Etta also picked her cake while we were there. She chose this butt ugly cake with chocolate icing that looks like it is flavored chocolate and died a muddy brown with squiggly lines all over it. ugh. If I had the time, I would have done it myself and had real chocolate Frosting. The sad thing is, I had something i needed to pick up. The specific reason for going to the Dollar General store. We got the party favors there, ended up with some we didn't plan for. I couldn't for the life of me remember what it was. Oh crap. I wondered around the store, hoping to jog my memory. No go. oh well, there is always tomorrow. Anyway, we finally get to the restaurant and had a wonderful meal. Etta just loves the Hibachi grill. For a kid who hates every new food you put in front of her, she can pack it away at a grill. Even shrimp. She will not even look at it anyplace else. Driving home with our tummies full Etta says, Mom, we forgot balloons. Jeez, That's what i couldn't remember. like i said, there is always tomorrow.

Planning my daughters slumber party

She is turning 11 friday and is having her first slumber party. Oh good lord. 6 pre-teens in my house over night. Keep them busy is what I say. I'm thinking rent a few movies, come up with a couple crafts. I do know we will make the cinnimon ornaments. Very easy and a little something for mom.
To make:
Mix together 1-1/2 cups cinnimon, 1 cup applesauce and 1/4 cup white glue. This will make a dough that smells good enough to eat. I don't recommend eating it. Cover it with a towel while you clean up the mess for 30 min. (you may end up with cinnimon everywhere) Then you roll out some of the dough and use cookie cutters to make ornaments. Be sure to make a hole in the ornament so you can hang it. Now, you can either bake at 200 degrees, flipping every few minutes until dry, or you can let them sit on wax paper, flipping every so often for a day or two. I reccomend the latter, because the ornaments can curl in the oven. I don' t have the patience to stand there and baby sit them. But when I do this with the girls, I will bake.
I also plan to make slipper socks.

My first blog

Ok, My best friend tells me "Try blogging! You might like it." So, I'm trying. This is my third or fourth attempt to post a blog, and it's getting pretty frustrating. I'm sure it's much easier than I am making out to be. Lets see if this works.