Is It Christmas Yet??

I can't believe that it is the 22nd of December and I still haven't finished shopping, wrapping, or mailed all of our Christmas cards. I can't remember being so behind at Christmas time. I even took a day off from work early in the month.

I had an early morning doctor's appointment. I shopped and mailed packages the rest of that day. We had an ice storm that weekend and my appoint was first thing Monday morning. Our local schools were not canceled much to my oldest's chagrin, but the roads were quite slick and messy with clumps of snow scattered throughout the roads. Anyway the nurse was telling me that there had been a lot of canceled appointment and that I could call the Women's Centre and probably get my mamagram done that day. I'm thinking are you crazy! I'm not wasting the rest of my day on that. Sounds like another day off to me.

Today I went shopping by myself for a few items. Later Doug and I have a few more to get. I plan on starting some holiday baking. The crew has requested extra batches of Russian Tea Cakes and I'm going to make Sausage Balls and maybe Banana Bread. I have blackberries for pie, too.

Here are some pictures of the interior of the house. I forget that most of you have never seen our place.

This is my baby boy's permanent perch. He has taken over the coffee table we purchased this fall.

This is also the family room taken from the dining room that we use as a study/computer room. To the left is the couch.

This is my perch. The study/dining room. I do occasionally have to fight the cat for the chair.

This one is for you sis. This is the beginning of my photo collection. I have my favorite pictures of the grands printed. I just need to decide on frames for them. This wall is where the computer is located.

Christmas Decorations

We decided to decorate our outdoor living Christmas trees. Our first year with a lovely landscaped yard needed some winter accents. We used three hundred lights for each tree with the exception of the tiniest one, which has two hundred lights.

Saturday, December 15th, mother nature chose to add to our decorating. She dropped close to five inches of snow over the course of the day. Our yard was picturesque.

Unfortunately we couldn't stay home, sit by the window and watch it all come down. The little one had a full day of ballet performances. Her youth ensemble performed the ballet, The Nutcracker, in the afternoon and then she was a gingerbread in the ballet, Twas The Night Before Christmas, that evening. In the Nutcracker her solo was that of a Chinese toy. Mrs. Bello was thrilled with her performance. So thrilled that our little girl is ready to move to pointe shoes.

The two weeks leading up to the ballet kept me occupied. I made alterations to her costume, made her little partner's Chinese costume, and made five mouse masks for the little mice. Twice the week of the ballet I stayed up until 2:30 trying to get costumes finished. I'm convinced that the "easy" pattern I used omitted several steps in the making of the Chinese jacket, fooling novices like me into thinking that it easy because there are only a few steps to follow. I suppose the more I sew the better I'll get. I'm sure a more experienced person could have made three jackets in the time it took me to make the one. One of these days when I have time I'll take a couple of classes.

I worked backstage the day of the ballet sewing, hunting for props, and managing the mice. One of my kindergarten students was a mouse. It was fun to hang out with her and my daughter's group outside of school. I watched much of my daughter's performance from the wings. Doug missed the show because he went to graduation.

Doug and I didn't get to see her in her gingerbread role that evening because my school was having it's big fundraiser/faculty party. Every two years we have a huge silent and live auction for donated items. Doug and I didn't outbid any one for items but the basket of oldies music we donated was sold for $135.00.

All in all it was a fun hectic evening. I don't know why everything happens on the same day/night.