Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas!! I hope everyone had a great holiday! For some I know there's still more to come and here's hoping it's as great as the one I've been celebrating! We had a great time this year. As you can see I'm the short one in our family, but it's a pretty good picture of us! I'm not sure what Jim was looking at. Mandy!!

Barb got here on Thursday around noon. Just in time to have lunch with me and a couple of my friends from the office. I took Thursday and Friday off as I knew she was coming home so I could spend some additional time with her. My friends, Tanya and Betsy, came for lunch and we had a very good time! I just had to show off my tree to my friends. On Tuesday of Christmas week I had my staff from work here for lunch. It wasn't anything special, just chili and soup, but we had a nice time together. We always exchange gifts so this gave us a chance to do it away from the office.

While Barb was here we caught up on some gossip! Barb spent Thursday evening with her dad and Linda. They went out for supper here in Dubuque. It was extremely foggy and took forever for Harry and Linda to get into town. Glad Barb didn't have to travel to Cascade. She's not used to the road and when it's that foggy things certainly look different than usual. I finished up some gift wrapping and got started on some cookie dough. By the time Barb got home I had a couple dozen already baked. Needless to say, we spent the rest of the evening finishing cookies!

I can't talk about Christmas without a picture of the whole family. I don't know what I was doing when this shot was taken but it would have looked better from the back of my head, but my kids look happy!! Mandy is a joy to have around. She enjoys Christmas as much as I do!! She gave me a whole sockful of 'Joy' items! Cool! Thanks Jim & Mandy!! The majority of them are already up and spread around the house. With a name like Joy you get some pretty cool things for gifts this time of the year!!

We got our cookies done and made up a batch of pumpkin bars too. Barb had lunch with a friend of her's on Friday while I finished up some last minute cleaning and all that other stuff you finish before you get ready to leave for a few days. Like pack!! Barb got back home around 1:00 and we took off for the office party. I had promised my boss I'd come in and write thank you letters for the donations that the agency receives this time of year for our Santa's Helper Program. I also took in my Secret Santa gifts. My Secret Santa gave me all kinds of snowmen and santa gifts during the week and ended the week with a darling snowman that has a snowflake in his tummy for a tealight! It's really cute. We grabbed a couple pieces of pizza and took off for some more last minute details we needed to take care of before heading out for the holiday.

Made a trip to East Dubuque to get a gift certificate for Barb's dad and his wife for Christmas. Didn't think the place was open when we got there but went to the door and was able to get in so that was one gift taken care of. Barb wanted to check out the local Wal-Mart for an exchange of a gift she had gotten. We weren't able to find anything for her, but as usual, I came home with a package! Stopped down at the dog track and got a gift card to use at Houlihan's later that evening. The track no longer gives back cash for points acquired on your gaming cards, but you can use them for Houlihan's, the Hilton Inn and other gifts and prizes at the track. I thought eating out Friday night sounded great so . . . . while we were there I cashed in some prize money I had coming and Barb and I tried our luck on one of the penny machines. We won $3.75 more than I picked up so decided it was time to go home!! We had a couple of other errands to run and then thought it best to head home.

We did go out for supper Friday night. Houlihan's is a very nice place to eat! We only had to wait about 15 minutes (which we didn't think was too bad, but we were sitting at the bar while we waited for our beeper to go off!). Both Barb and I had chicken and it was great! I'm always going to get a steak when I go out and usually end up ordering chicken! Duh!

We talked to Jim & Mandy a few times before we got going on Saturday morning. Everyone was able to be there. It was my sister's turn to have the holiday at her place. Her house looked great, as usual, all decked out for Christmas! Jim and Mandy had a tight schedule but were able to make time to drive up to northeast Iowa and join us for our usual activities this time of year. We celebrated a day early so that they could be back in the Council Bluffs/Omaha area for Christmas Eve day and Christmas Day. I was just so happy that they could spend the afternoon with us. We had a great lunch and a fantastic time opening all our gifts. I got a chicken!!!! from my sister. We laughed so hard! And it makes the craziest noises! You can bet your life someone will get this little sucker for Christmas next year!!! It was the usual Christmas -- lots of gifts (some usable, some absolutely worthless, but funny!!) -- lots of laughs, good food and great company.

I'm hungry! How I can be with all the food we ate all weekend I don't know, but I am. Hope you don't mind me sharing some of my Christmas pictures with you. There will be more! Barb left around 3:00 this afternoon so I'm waiting for her call to let me know she arrived home safe. I know I probably don't have to worry about her, but I'm a mother! What can I say!!!

I thank my kids for the great Christmas and all the great gifts! My sister for putting up with all of us. We made the grand tour on Sunday. We had brunch with Beth and Karsten and had a tour of their 'new' house. They've added a new kitchen, laundry room and bathroom to their home, plus re-did a bedroom on the upper level. Everything is not completely done but Beth's kitchen is great! You guys did a great job!!! Spent the afternoon at Mike's home in Postville. Thanks for the tour Mike! It was a very enjoyable day.

I'll share some more pictures later in the week. Hope everyone is having a great holiday. I know I certainly have and am. I'm the scrapbook queen so you know where the majority of these pictures are going to end up at! It was fun working on the projects that I did get finished for Christmas. I love scrapbooking!!!

Gotta go . . . my tummy is growling. Thanks again family, all of you, for a great Christmas. I love you guys!!

Christmas

Does it look like Christmas at your house? It does at mine! I've just about got all the decorations up and boxes put away. Barb was here for the Thanksgiving weekend and helped a lot. I had the tree up when she got here on Wednesday night and on Thursday morning before she left to go to her dad's, she strung the top strings of lights. I could have done it, but it goes faster with younger feet!! We had the usual problems -- strings of lights that didn't work -- well they went into the wastebasket and new strings were put on. Turned out pretty well too. I can no longer get a Hallmark Christmas ball so settled for the dated wreath. I think I like it as well as the balls.

Since 1973 I have bought a dated, glass, year ball from Hallmark. According to the lady at the local Hallmark store they've discontinued making the dated year ball. Guess I can live with that. I'm happy with this ornament. I was also able to put my Estes Park ornaments (all snowmen) that I bought at the Spruce House when we were out there on vacation. They look great!!

It takes me forever to get my tree together. I have 800 lights on it this year, and probably at least 350 ornaments! Takes a while to get those all in the right place. Barb was a big help. She does a great job.

The cold weather is certainly here. I haven't even stuck my head out the door today. Nice to see the sun shining! Think we all got spoiled with all the great weather we've had. We were lucky and didn't get any of that snow and ice that was around the area Friday. Our southern Head Start classrooms were closed due to the bad weather. That stuff can stay away from here. I don't do well on ice and neither does my car!!

Last time I wrote I tried to get a picture of Jim & Mandy to post and it wouldn't, well . . . here it is! That was the night Jim gave us the good news about his new job. He's very excited about it.

Barb weatherized my windows for me when she was here for Thanksgiving. Today I was going to open the blinds in my spare bedroom and found that we weatherized the wand for the shades! Guess I didn't really want to open the blinds anyway!!

I finally got two of my scarpbooking projects finished. I went back through the journaling and found some errors so made those changes and am now ready to wrap them and put them under the tree. Thought I was going to do some wrapping today, but I'm kinda poopin' out already and imagine they aren't going to go anywhere until I get them done!!

I've spent a lot of time in the Des Moines area the past month. I'm heading down that way again this week. I have a workshop/meeting to attend on Thursday. I'm driving down on Wednesday (during the day) and spending the night at Barb's. She has Thursday off so hopefully after my meeting is over we can do something together. I'm spending the weekend down there. Unless something real exciting would be happening in Dubuque and I don't think there's anything planned!!! Barb has a get-together with some of her Wartburg friends scheduled for Friday night so I think Jim and I are going to try and do some shopping for Mandy! The plan is to stay the weekend, but Barbie is working and Jim and Mandy are busy with their projects so .. . . guess we'll just see what happens!! I've spent more time with my kids lately than I have in a year!!!

Well, I'm hungry! Think I'll go rustle up something to eat and try and finish a couple of other projects I started today.

Hope this finds all well. My friend that's so ill has returned to Dubuque. He's in the hospital at the present time. Currently only family are visitors. He's sitting up, talking some and I think glad to be back in Dubuque. Hopefully soon I'll get a chance to spend some time with him. I'm just glad he's back in God's country and recovering. Thank you to all who said extra prayers for his recovery! It worked!!!

You all have a good week. Catch you later . . . .