Christmas 2010

We started off our Christmas with a toast (with what else, but mimosas) to the newly engaged couple! Then it was down to business, presents!
Kaki ♥'s her snowman!
...and Cortney liked her snowflake covered gourd...
Dad, our designated 'present-passer-outer' ☺

Beepa and her Santa!
...and Mom opened up hers too!

This would be the painting I got from Cortney (painted by hers-truly)
...white birches, lil' bit of NH gets to hang on my wall. ☺

I had a wonderful Christmas. I say it time and time again, but I am so thankful for my family. We have good times and we have our bad, but I honestly don't know where I would be without each and every one of them.

So thank you, not only for the presents, but for being there for me and being just who you are.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! ♥

Merry Christmas To All

Hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!

Christmas Crafties

Got a lil' more crafty with Christmas this year...painted some ornaments...

...some with crackle finish...




...then got a lil' crazy with the gourd painting ☺

(every snowflake on this one is different)

...and I finally got the guts to try out some Santa's.

Christmas Yummys

We are doing a cookie swap this year on Christmas..and I chose wedding cake cookies (made gluten-free)...they are soooo addicting, just ask everyone that has tried one (it's pretty near impossible to keep it to just one) ;-) ♥

Christmas Cookies ♥

This year us girls went over to help Beepa make her famous Christmas Cookies. We cranked up the Christmas music and began...

(Cortney helping Kathy keep count of how many cups of flour she had measured so far.) We made two batches and had two 'cookie makin' stations'...Kathy was designated to one...
...and I to another...

"I'm ready to go in the oven."
Cookie rotatin' ☺

Toby was a great lil' helper, he stayed outta the way for the most part and we never had to sweep anything up that we dropped. He is my own personal vacuum. ☺
"Now I'm ready for frosting..and a lil' sprinkles."
Our 'frosting and sprinkle station'...
We tricked Dad into coming over under false pretences...a certain someone said something sprung a leak and we needed him over asap! So he of course came over promptly with his tools...
...he wasn't too impressed when he realized we only tried to get him over to help frost the cookies (something he always tried to get out of doing as a kid.) Needless to say, he soon ran away with his tools in hand, hehe.
...Cort was left to frost most of the cookies, since the rest of us were busy making more for her to frost. ☺
We covered the surface of every counter with cookies...yup there is more on the other side of the sink...
...and the oven...

...also made gluten-free cookies this year...

cookies, cookies, everywhere ☺

Yum!

Getting Ready For Christmas!

We are getting all geared up for Christmas...decorations are all up, stockings are all hung, and we finally got the tree decorated. However upon putting most of the ornaments up we noticed the tree was quite crooked, so, we fixed it. ☺ (Let it be duly noted that it's not my keister under there, I was designated as tree holder upper, hehe)

Took a minute to decorate Toby too. Though he looks like he is more ready for mardi gras then Christmas...

Tada, the Christmas tree in all is splendor...and now it's straight! ☺

Christmas is absolutely my favorite holiday! ♥

Thanksgiving ☺

I started off my Thanksgiving, greeted by:

"The Blob"

The night before, as I always do, I made my dough for my infamous potato crescent rolls. For some reason (the world of yeast and what it does sometimes still makes me scratch my head) it went crazy. It's supposed to spend a minimum of 8 hrs in the fridge, and this was what I had when I woke up!

Still made excellent dough though!
They came out fantastic...yummy, buttery goodness! ☺ After stuffing our faces with all the food we made: Turkey, ham, mashed potatoes with gravy, glazed carrots, candied yams, crescent rolls, and apple salad...we had dessert...pecan, chocolate, mixed berry and pumpkin pies!

There was alot of laughing, and many things to be thankful for. I am thankful for my family, and so many other things . Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

♥

Happy Thanksgiving

Hoping everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving!!

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "thank you," that would suffice. ~Meister Eckhart

Friday Fill-Ins 29

Another Friday Fill-ins....and it's almost turkey day!!

1. Why does the cranberry get jellied and shoved into a can?

2. Try to change the way you see the world.

3. Thank you for all that I have, my family, my pets, myself.

4. Christmas is my favorite holiday because of many reasons: I love to give, it reminds me of being a child again, magic still exists, snow can make everything look beautiful again, hot cocoa is heavenly when done right, and family is the best thing there is.

5. I am SO thankful for all that I have.

6. Others can't make up our minds to be.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to family coming to visit, tomorrow my plans include even more family coming to visit and Sunday, I want to watch the game, GO PATS!

Lil' Exercise And A Lil' History

A few days ago, we grabbed all the pups and headed for a historic walk. "The Battle of Guilford Courthouse" is now a historic site. Smack dab in the city limits is what is now being turned into a revolutionary war memorial for all those in the southern regions that fought in the war. It even includes the burial sites of two of the three North Carolina representatives that signed the Declaration of Independence. Along with the burial sites of many others. Full of walking trails, historic markers and statues, it's a walk through history.

"On March 15, 1781. the largest, most hotly-contested battle of the Revolutionary War's Southern Campaign was fought at the small North Carolina back county hamlet of Guilford Courthouse.

Major General Nathanael Greene, defending the ground at Guilford Courthouse with an army of almost 4,500 American militia and Continentals, was tactically defeated by a smaller British army of about 1,900 veteran regulars and German allies commanded by Lord Charles Cornwallis. After 2 1/2 hours of intense and often brutal fighting, Cornwallis forced his opponent to withdraw from the field. Greene's retreat preserved the strength of his army, but Cornwallis's frail victory was won at the cost of over 25% of his army.

Guilford Courthouse proved to be the high water mark of British military operations in the Revolutionary War. Weakened in his campaign against Greene, Cornwallis abandoned the Carolinas hoping for success in Virginia. At Yorktown, seven months after his victory at Guilford Courthouse, Lord Cornwallis would surrender to the combined American and French forces under General George Washington." -Excerpt from their website

It was pretty neat...and the dogs of course loved the walk.

(Mom and I and the dogs next to one of the bigger statues.)

(Toby)

(Beepa and the dogs)

Breaking And Entering

She was caught 'red handed'. I had my windows down just trying to air out my car, since it had leaked some rain water recently. I wondered if I had to worry about squirrels possibly causing trouble in there. But I never thought I had to worry about the cat!

Macy (cat burglar) haha!

Charity Art Event 11/4/10

So last night was the actual event! What I have been paintin' like crazy for and getting anxious about for about a month now, is all done!

After hours in the car, Beepa and I finally met up with Cortney and we all arrived for the 1st annual Charity Art Event to benefit Alzheimer's disease. It was held at an immaculately kept senior living community:

First thing we had to do, was run everything in and get our tables all set up:

Cortney getting all set up... Trying to get my table all set up...
Cort was ready to go...
I was just about done with my rearranging and nit picking...but was still waiting on my display cards...

There they are....
The artiste next to her paintings ☺ Tada...ready to sell my stuff!

I musta heard "those are so cute!" from everyone that came through the room :-p Now if only they had bought them all too, hehe. In all Cortney and I sold 4 pieces each...all my snowmen and snowman 'bucket' went. Turn out was low from the rain..but we still raised $1,026!! Not bad for a handful of artists and most of us not knowing what we were doing.☺I still have hopes of selling more (I never thought of it beforehand but was asked a few times for a business card...learned my lesson on that one). I do have some people from the event that still want to buy some stuff and will keep in contact with me.

I was proud of myself for facing my fears and going, a couple years ago there was no way I would of even considered it.

I almost forgot to mention...we had free wine, woohoo!! And Beepa entered in one of the raffles and WON~ a portable DVD player! YAY!!

It was alot of fun and wouldn't mind possibly doing it again next year! ☻