Snowflakes

Well, it was definitely interesting and stressful. Now we get to learn to juggle two families and get to all the functions on both sides. FUN!

We started out Friday night in Arcadia Indiana for my mom's side of the family. We spent the night playing Mad Gab, caroling at a nursing home and of course eating like starving folks.

From there we headed to my parent's house for Saturday and Sunday. We, of course, ate a bunch here and had fun giving gifts to each other. The most fun was giving Mom her birthday gift. A beautiful wood fireplace.

Sunday afternoon we headed to Jason's parents' house where we attended a Christmas Eve candlelight service. We woke up Christmas morning and waited for the crew to arrive. After a few hours of yet again stuffing our tummies, we headed back to good ole Kentucky for our very own Christmas. Unfortunately Jay already knew he was going to get surround sound but that's okay. I still managed to surprise him a little bit.





CJ, my little niece

Caroling at the Commons, a nursing home in Noblesville, IN

Mom's new wooden electric fireplace

BJ's words of wisdom regarding Christmas

My Christmas present from Jay. On the left is my engagement watch a silver band with a gold heart face frame. The one on the right was my Christmas present. It is all gold and the band is a little different - what an awesome Christmas present.

Celebrate!

Well, here we go...our first Christmas! Tonight I am making kiss cookies. GRIN! Anyone recognize the plate? It was given to me as a gift at one of my bridal showers from a special friend.

There isn't that much to say except that I spent about 7!! hours running around to different stores trying to get my Christmas gifts together. Now, you have to understand that people in the Cincinnati area aren't really known for their politeness. Besides two ladies butting in front of me twice in just a couple hours, all things seemed to go well besides waiting in line for about 20 minutes at Hobby Lobby. It was crazy! I suppose some people actually enjoy waiting in traffic, waiting in line and just waiting period all for the sake of the Christmas season.

And to give Jay his due, he does help me do the dishes quite a lot.

And just for you Judy, I put some more pictures of the tree WITH presents!

First Fir

Now there is something to be said for having two debt-free vehicles. However, a slight problem arises when the Christmas season arrives. Both of our vehicles are cars. I have always wanted my first Christmas tree to be a live one. However, when one of our vehicles succombed to a couple seizures and we were told it was going to cost over $500 to fix we decided our Christmas tree would be the artificial kind since we have one boxed up in the closet. But after seeing my sister's real tree I could hardly wait to get my own.

We went down the street and looked at all the trees for sale. I picked out a few trees that I really liked and realized they were like $50. So we went towards the back to the rejects and I found the perfect one for $15. Almost 7 feet tall and very well filled out, I asked Jason if we could get it. Now here was the problem. Jasper, our 4 door 1997 Ford Escort with about 50 dents/dings and a couple different paint colors, can barely hold three people much less a 7 foot Christmas tree. Jay, tired of watching me try to find the PERFECT tree, assured me that we could get it in our small car.

Doubtful, I followed him as he picked up the cold tree and hauled it toward the check out counter. Our prickly purchase was thrown roughly into a machine that wrapped it up tight in a net. Granted, it was much skinnier now that all the branches were wrapped up, but that didn't make it difference in the height. I laughed as we hauled the oversized tree to our car. Jasper probably groaned when he saw us coming. I slid the tree stand on the back floorboard and started rolling down the window on the back door. He was right. He got it to fit. He just failed to tell me we would be driving a "hillbilly-mobile." It felt like a cartoon or something. My knees were jammed up to my chin with the heat blowing full blast since two of the four windows were down and we had a good 15 minute drive home. The tree's trunk was sticking out about a foot on the driver's side and the top of the tree was sticking out more than a foot on the passenger side. I called my dad and told him I was stuck in the car with a mad man. It was rather fun though. There is something delightful about getting ready for Christmas.

Now, as I write this, our first Christmas tree stands in the corner decorated with white and globe lights. There are 21 gold jingle bells and 6 gold glass balls, some gold garland and a white, gold and frosted glass star at the top. It's not the most beautiful tree I've ever seen but it's our first one, and I love it.

Missing family

Well, after eating way too much turkey and talking more than I normally do, we headed out to the "football field" for our rousing Thanksgiving Day matchup.{After the basketball game of course.] We try to do it almost every year. This year we had several acres to choose from. Our 4 boundaries were interesting. Two sweatshirts marked one end zone. A bright yellow 4 wheeler and a sweatshirt marked the other end. True hillbilly football. However, girl power ruled this game. I caught two touchdowns, including the winning one. I will say my hubby took a hit for the team. Even though it was tag football we were all playing hard and he got nailed in the face. He complained every time he blew his nose for the next couple days. Welcome to the family, dear.

Then of course, Dani decided to take advantage of one of the four wheelers on the premises. See that small dark mole on her cheek? That is no beauty mark. It's a big blog of mud! I guess there was some serious four wheeling to be had out there. I didn't take a ride.

The Friday following Thanksgiving we headed to Indiana for a more sedate celebration. No football or rough housing here. Good food, lots of talking and we even had a couple Thanksgiving Day readings.

I took several pictures of our families. Of course on my side, we were missng both my grandparents. This is our first Thanksgiving without at least one of my grandparents so it made things a little harder but we did remarkably well. In fact I don't remember many tears being shed.

Below are a few more pictures that I took. Jay's mom made the cutest little turkeys. They were sitting at each plate when we arrived. I thought they were so cute I took a couple pictures of them. Mine was so cute, I didn't even eat it.