I shouldn't have been throwing around the Christmas vacation quotes

I've been missing for a bit....did you notice?
I wanted to fill you in on all the greatness you've missed...

Christmas was just around the corner, the shopping was done, school was out and life was good...
Good good good.
Until. 
On Dec. 23rd I picked up my mother in law from the airport. 
No, that's not the bad part....
She was excited to come....we were glad to have her....
Life was still good....
But shortly after I picked her Mike called to ask me for a favor... he sounded like he was upset... motioned how bad his day had just gotten, and then he asked me to go meet his dad a truck stop here in Lubbock cause he was lost...
His dad who lives 6 hours away.
His dad who has never visited us. 
Who might "drinking" from Mike's impression...
Who probably couldn't tell my kids apart if he had to...
Who DID NOT call and let us know he was coming to visit two days before Christmas...
Who is divorced from the mother in law I just fetched at the airport...

We always quote Christmas Vacation this time of year but I never dreamed I would ever need the quote:
If I woke up with my head sewn to the carpet in the morning I couldn't be more surprised"...
but yet, it was perfect for this situation...

I went and found him at the truck stop he was parked at...
He followed me home...
I realized then he wouldn't be staying long since he didn't have a suitcase...that was a bit of a relief...
Not that we don't want him here, but timing wasn't good and he NEVER visits...
He did bring gifts though.  So I had to run into the crazy, crowded supercenter to buy him a last min. gift of PJ's (thought he might need those since there was no suitcase) and a gift card...
This all ends well.  The divorced parents behaved, gifts were exchanged, and he was headed home by 9:00 the next morning...

Then, Christmas eve was nice, pleasant, and as we are about to leave for church water starts pouring into the kitchen, laundry room, pantry and basement from a broken water pipe...

Long story short, I'm glad it happened when we were home....
I'm oh so thankful for the company that came out to take care of the water and spent their Christmas eve and part of Christmas day with us!
and for homeowners insurance.

the plastic and cords did a lot for the Christmas decor...

We did make it to church.  It was a nice time to reflect and remember this is all no big deal... I did tell God I'd had enough surprises for one week though.

God is good and Christmas day was wonderful...

We had just enough snow to make it a white Christmas.  Jennifer flew in. 

Santa was good to everyone!

Jennifer worked on making the girls Gator fans...

We had a prime rib dinner that was wonderful and made even better by the fact that with no hot water I couldn't do all the dishes till the next day...


I hope your Christmas was spent with people you expected to be there and was peaceful and dry!

If you scratch his belly, Clark, he will love you till the day you die

Today I had a little Christmas cookie get together...

.

Elvis loves a party... He greeted everyone and watched closely to see if someone would drop something good....

 

 

Ellie even wore her new Christmas outfit Katie insisted she needed even though she tries to bite your fingers off when you put it on  her...  and Mrs. Claus/Ellie seems to need a medium in this dress, the small wouldn't close... Too many Christmas cookies maybe?

There was good food and good friends.

My favorite combination!

 

I knew all the food I made was good because people were asking for all the recipes before they left....

Katie's "wolf pack" as we call them must have smelled the food

They took care of the left overs...

The girls weren't really excited when I invited their friends and their mom's but they seemed to enjoy it after all..

After most everyone left and just the good friends were left, we looked in the dining room and Elvis was trying very hard to find a way to get those cookies...He guarded them for a long time before we gave in and let him have one...

Four years in Lubbock and this is my first cookie party like I did every year in Lewisville... guess I'm settled in...

The gift that keeps on giving

Katie has had a bad cold for over a week...
I knew she had shared it with me a couple of days ago when I woke up with a sore throat... today however, I have the rest of the goodies she gave me... I'm enjoying the full package...
Luckily we have day/nighttime medicine left over from her...
And I'm having a little get together this afternoon...
hope they can all leave without this gift!


I had a birthday yesterday...
It took me awhile to decide how old I am when Katie asked me...
How the heck did I get to be the age I remember my mom from????
I am glad to be here, glad to be healthy minus the lovely cold symptoms Katie gave me for my birthday, and extremely blessed with family and good friends. 
However, Katie did mention picking out my nursing home... I do remember thinking my mom was ancient at this age...
I hope all my friends will join me there!  Think of the fun we can have...

So, come by for cookies this afternoon and if you leave with my cold, it's just a bonus!

Cookies and time, they both go fast...

Well, it's the middle of Dec. and the shopping isn't close to being done and the crafty present projects I have started are also not close to being done...
The cake balls Katie offered to bring to a class party on Wed. aren't even started yet... guess I'll be fitting that in between hemming the choir dress and the choir concert tomorrow...
I need just a few more hours in the day... for several days...
But, I love this time of year. 
I love the projects, the shopping the baking, the Christmas lights and all that goes along with it even though it means being a bit busier than usual...

I had friends over Sat. to make our second annual batch of snowman cookies for the staff at school.
What is better than time with friends, baking, Christmas music, good food and good conversation...

What you can't see good in this picture is the brown sugar sprinkled on the snowman... they are Lubbock snowmen after all...

we also started a little craft project before everyone had to go...

Elvis loves a crafty day...

This weekend I am having a little cookie party...

I need several extra hours this week...

If you find them let me know...

I don't know what to say, except it's Christmas and we're all in misery

We headed to Dallas Sat. morning for the annual Christmas get together with Mike's family.
It was the longest 36 hours ever. 
Not because of the family get together but because of my kids, 10 hours in the car, bad weather and the little old people from the wreck we stopped at.

We are trading our Suburban in and while they are looking for me a new one they gave me a smaller SUV to drive.  I really like it and tried to talk the family into moving down to something that size.  As we  packed up the car for our 1 night trip it was obvious that a Suburban is still in my future.  Those girls like to have some distance between them.  And we were looking a little like the Griswald's with the back so full...
But, this car has seat warmers which I have not had before and did not think I needed.  However, I have discovered my inability to sleep in the car was simply a lack of a warm back side because I turned that baby on and had the best nap ever.
I woke up to see break lights in my face and a truck on it's side in the next lane. 
I hopped out and ran to see if anyone needed any school nurse assistance.  Band aid, ice pack?
Break that windshield out for you?
Pretty quickly, several strong men got the cutest little old people out of truck on it's side.
The hubby was smiling and seemed OK.  But the wife was a little shook up.  Not injured, but really shook up as I would imagine is the normal response to being pulled out of a vehicle on it's side.
We continued on our way but the rest of the weekend I worried about the people.
Where were they going? 
She was dressed up.  Had stockings on and open toe shoes in that cold weather.  For some reason, while we were getting her out and wrapping her up in a blanket my first thought was "man, you should get those hammer toes looked at"....
They had luggage in the back of the truck, we sat her on a nice suitcase.
She had a sewing machine in a box...was that hers?  Was that a gift that is prob. now broken?
What was in those big trash bags?
Where do they take you after you total your truck?  Do you wait on the side of the highway for someone to come get you and your trash bags and sewing machine?
I need to know what happened to the old people....
I know I won't ever know, but I do know that I have prayed for them all weekend. 

We finally made it to Dallas and joined the family fun! 

Better know as 'guys - you watch football till we feed you'

We had fancy Panini fixings most of us enjoyed... I did hear the words "I'd rather have a bologna sandwich on white bread" at one point though...I won't tell you which mother in law said it...

Henry was a new addition to the cousin's house...

our kids are growing up

and one of the London crew had my name... The box this came in is a pretty as the bag.

and we started the trip home with the forecast of snow in Lubbock

But, as I guessed, not enough to cancel school.

Darn.

I hope when my girls are in college they will be this sweet

We have a sweet college intern working with the youth at church that I just love.  She is sweet, thoughtful and very, very good with the youth.
She asked me to take some pictures of her and her brother for her parents for Christmas.  She also brought along a little girl who is her "sister" since she is in Big Brothers/Big Sisters... what a fun time. 

She showed up with a sweet gift for me for doing this and it was then that I realized she was really supposed to be in my family...

It was beautifully wrapped box with this cross inside... and she wrote a sweet message on the back.

Of course before the day was over my friends at school and I were planning on when we would get together and copy the cross...

It took some twine, some hot glue and just a few burns.

See that center part, when you are pressing it into the right spot, that is when you'll get the burns...

I did this one for part of a wedding gift... see the little "cherish" tag? 

Fun, easy craft...

Thanks Kelsey for such thoughtful gift, it made my day and provided a new crafty thing for me to copy!

Thanksgiving

I am very thankful for a Thanksgiving week that was spent with some of my favorite people...

Jennifer came... Which made my sister a little mad... can't spell Thanksgiving without some family issues can you?

Jennifer and I spent Wed. running a few errands, cooking, eating, and cooking some more...

 

I invited a good friend and her family to join us for Thanksgiving. 

We had a discussion about the dressing last week. 

You know, the what do you put in your dressing kind of discussion you have before you commit to Thanksgiving at someone else's house.  We saw eye to eye on the dressing luckily.

But. 

Then I went to buy my cornbread mix.  I usually use one brand and there was none to be found so I substituted another name brand.  This is where the story goes horribly wrong.  It made very, very sand like, dry cornbread.  I did not realize this until I went to make the dressing.  I used enough chicken broth for the whole neighborhood and still couldn't get moist dressing.

Now, to a southern woman having friends over, serving bad dressing is the kiss of death.  We will be judged by our dressing on Thanksgiving after all....

I knew it was awful when Mike told me not to save any of the left overs.  He will eat left over dressing for a week under good dressing conditions.

We had tons of other good food and more importantly a group of friends and family that I love. 

We had football napping guys

and dogs tired from begging

shopping the ads

 and we even fit in a quick Thanksgiving day shopping trip.

Today, there is a fresh pan of dressing so I can keep the hubby happy, drizzling rain outside and relaxed crafty time in new soft PJ's inside.

I am Thankful.

Pictures can be very, very painful

My family came to town this weekend...
There is always some drama getting everyone here...
They don't travel easily...
There is always debate over how many cars they need to bring, etc...
But they all made it.  Even the youngest niece....

I planned a family picture and that caused a bit of grumbling from the men and my sister.  My sister who usually likes family pictures was not happy that I told everyone to wear black or black and jeans.... she only heard the black and jeans part and even when we told her to wear what ever she wanted she wore black and jeans "like she was told" and even sported some nice white tennis shoes....
I also wanted all the girls to wear different colored scarves.  I had a picture in my mind, everyone liked the idea except the sister...

The guys got a little happier while we were taking pictures on the Tech campus and they visited with some guys who were still there tailgating.... I believe there might have been beer involved.

Part of the group went to the "worse Tech game ever played".... "during a dust storm" Jennifer thought... nope, just a breezy West Texas day...
The sister and I skipped out on the game...

We celebrated Mike's 49th birthday.
The brother in law assured him this is the last good birthday. 
I'm a little concerned about him being 50 next year....I can't be married to someone who is 50 cause I think I'm only about 34...

Jennifer brought Mike's favorite dog in the whole world and it made Ellie very very jealous...

She just sat and pouted

In the end everyone was getting along and forgot what they had been grumpy about... We ate a lot of good food and fit a lot of good visiting into a few hours!