Christmas is coming....

It's been SNOWING for the past 3 days....WOOHOO!!!!! I'm loving it! Yes, I'm one of those few crazy people who actually enjoys the snow, the wind, and the cold....even if I have to be outside in it and/or driving.

We've been busy the past few days. On Sunday (12/5) we drove to NJ to celebrate my cousin, S's, 7th birthday and spend the day with my aunt, uncle, and their kids, M and S. She was loving having Avelyn there. We actually got it on video her promising to always want to play with Avelyn, even when she's a teenager. It was adorable!



Monday was St. Nikolaus day....for those non-German people it's the day celebrating the original Santa Claus (yes, he was a real person). On the night of the 5th children put their shoes out to be filled with treats and small gifts by St Nikolaus. St. Nikolaus even left something for my sister in her shoes.

Avelyn was really into ripping off the paper...big change from her birthday. She got a book called My Christmas Stocking and a shirt that says "I'm a Princess, my Father is the King of Kings".

This morning we bundled up and went out and played in the snow for a bit. It's light fluffy snow and it isn't too deep yet that Ave can't walk through it. She kept licking the snow off of her mittens. We weren't out there too long, just long enough for Avelyn to see what all that cold white stuff was about.

On Monday I went to O-town and got some serious scores between Sal's boutique and a couple of consignment shops. I got A a pair of snow boots for next winter, her Christmas dress, a one piece jumper, and (this is the best part!) I got myself a sweater that I've wanted for 15 years....for $10! It's L.L. Bean's traditional nordic sweater that sells for $85 or so on the website.

Ketchup or Catsup?

Which do you prefer?

Anyways, this post is going to be all about catch-up: I'm desperately behind in....EVERYTHING. I've been trying get caught up on my ICLW commenting from last week (even though it is now over). I just would like to start December (and Christmas!) with a clean slate.

~*~Thanksgiving, November 25th~*~
While it was also our anniversary, it was more importantly Thanksgiving. My sister did come over to my parents house and it was actually really nice to spend the time with her...she was different....we all noticed it.

My brother and his wife came up and he was his usual toady self. He's not happy in his life and I don't think it's any thing circumstantial (work, marriage etc)....I think he's just not a happy person. What's interesting is he's just as lost as my sister, but is more willing to throw her to the lions than acknowledge anything with himself.

My parents got us a Bi.ssell spot-bot pet for our anniversary (very romantic I know, but I wanted one) and my sister baked a delicious cake for our dessert.

Here are some of the pictures my uncle took from the day.

After we were done at my parents' house we headed to the in-laws for round two: That's right, every Thanksgiving we eat twice. We've done it for 11 years now....and it's not anymore fun.

~*~Friday, November 26~*~
In the morning Matt went out hunting and then when he got home he put up the Christmas lights along the roof. He insisted on using the lights that had been up for the past 4 years, and of course we turned them on last night and one of the strings doesn't light (they all lit before they went up). He's gotta fix that.

In the afternoon I went over to the store (we were closed) and my MIL and SIL helped do up some gift baskets, while I decorated the front and inside of the store. I'll have to post some pictures of that.

~*~Saturday, November 27th ~*~
Matt and I dropped A off at his parents house around noon and then headed to Bing-town for an anniversary date, which consisted of some birthday/Christmas shopping, dinner, and Harry Potter. A was miserable the entire time: All day she took a 30 minute nap and then fought going to bed (she spent the night there). I felt so bad and wanted to pick her up, but by the time we got back in town she had fallen asleep and fortunately slept well through the night.

Harry Potter was great! I seriously don't want to wait for the next movie to come out...and I know I'll be crying at the end of it. 1) The story itself and 2) that they're over. The first movie came out the year after Matt and I started dating.

We had a good time...we also decided that we got married at the right time, because we'll always have an excuse to go Christmas shopping without the kids :-)

~*~Sunday, November 28th~*~
We went and got our Christmas tree! We went to the same place we always go, but, again, there was no snow. I do not like cutting a tree down when there is no snow...at least it wasn't in the 60s, we've had that before too.

Ave even picked out our tree this year. Matt and I were wondering around and had picked a couple of good ones, when Ave started pointing at a tree and making monkey noises....Matt goes "well I think she wants this one". So down it went. It's now on our porch....we'll bring it in and put it up on Wednesday night after A goes to sleep.

Think A was excited about the tree? :-)

I think that brings us up to speed.

Santa Claus is coming to town....

Santa came to The Market Place Saturday to hear from all the good boys and girls (young and old-that's my 90 year old grandpa) as to what they wanted for Christmas.

It was a lot of fun to have the jolly ol' elf himself at the store...the customers all got a kick out of seeing Santa and sneaking in their last minute Christmas wishes.

We asked Santa if he'd be willing to come back next year and he said he would and one of his elves would come with him...I guess there was one in particular that had wanted to come this year, but they're on a tight schedule and a bit behind in the toy department at the North Pole.

Santa did have a message for all the boys and girls, reminding them that Christmas is only 12 days away and he has been checking his list: So far everyone seems to be on the good list...but that can always change.


Click here to see more pictures of Santa's visit.

(don't worry the plastic was still on the candy cane)

Christmas cookies batch #1...Nut Balls

Epic FAIL!

I thought those walnuts smelled funny...didn't know that they could go bad even in the freezer :-( Of course I wasted a 1/2lb of butter and mini chocolate chips to find out. YUCK!

Just checked all my nuts...and they're all outside for the birds now: Some of them were "expired" 2008....I probably just threw out 4lbs of almonds, pecans, and walnuts. Off to The Market Place to get more.

New Projects

This post is going to be a whole lot of nothin' organized: Rather than writing it in an organized manner, it's bullets for ya'all.

Things We're Working On
* I've been diligently stitching on the kids Christmas stocking. My goal is to have it finished before the end of July: We'll see. There's a reason for my pushing to get this done, besides Christmas being 6 1/2 months away. I have to get started on this project:

*My mom's 50th birthday memory quilt. Her birthday's not until May 8th (lot of special people born that day), but I can't imagine I'm going to have too much time to work on a quilt with a newborn baby, so I hope to have the top done before October.

It's actually a pretty easy pattern, the hardest thing is going to be getting pictures out of my parents house without my mom noticing. The large "empty" spots in the quilt are going to have pictures from my mom's life in it: Her as a baby with her parents, her and her brothers, her and my dad's wedding day, some of her and her friends, pictures of my brother, sister and I as babies with her, picture of her and her grandbaby, my parents 25th anniversary picture....things like that.

*I also got back SIL's quilt, so I have to get the binding on that before MIL heads up to their house for the shower on the 20th. I do wish I were going, even if only to see her reaction to the quilt, but 10 hours in the car alone just isn't appealing (I'll post a picture of the quilt once it's done.

*We got a bunch of plants in the ground. I had to thin out some of the seeds that I planted and transplant some of my tomatoes to bigger containers. Matt's lower batch of hops didn't take so we're going to be planting the 25 strawberry plants we got there: Hopefully they do better.

*We also managed to semi-integrate the hens and chicks: They're all now in the same pen, but the chicks are still separate...they just didn't have anymore room in the cow trough...plus the porch was starting to smell.

*Still no advancement on the fence :-\ Coworker loaned us his auger, but it doesn't start, so we have to wait until he get's it fixed to dig our 51 holes for the fence (definitely not doing that by hand). I seriously can't wait until the fence is up, I'm so tired of having all these people driving past our house to go down to the community garden...and none of them drive slowly.

I think that's about all so I'll leave you with a picture of my peony (I would love a FIELD of peonies and poppies...all different colors...that would be heaven to me).

O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree!

OK, so remember this post, when I was showing you how clean my dining room was for company: Here's what it looked like BEFORE I cleaned.

Interesting, huh. I'm cleaning it again because tomorrow we have friends coming over to lunch. This is the problem with having your sewing room being your dining room, especially during Christmas when I'm working on a bazillion projects.

This morning we went and got our Christmas tree. Last year we cut our tree on my parents' property. In years before we've gone to friends of my parents who have a tree farm at the top of a mountain. It's really a nice setup. They have two small cabins setup: One is where they make all the Christmas wreaths and the other is where you can go and warm up with some hot chocolate and cookies. It's really a nice family operation. Of course there's always a ton of kids running around.

After we were done with the tree we came home and did some stuff around the house, before heading up to my parents, again, for dinner. In the evening I worked on some sewing while Matt read his book.

Here's the link to the rest of the pictures.