No Christmas Tree, No Christmas Tree........

But lots of other decorating! The men in our lives must loves these posts! Anyway.....Here are a couple of images from the work I have been doing. Beth scares me so I have decided to post for a blogger Holiday Open House tomorrow night with no apologies! I'll post here when I get all my photos up at Shocking Pink Thread. Visit me there and say nice things to me. LOL!

I also had company on Sunday and we wrote out a few Christmas cards, ate a bit of fruitcake and a WHOLE BATCH of Mammie's special Graham Cracker Cookies. Jenn! Sam! Next year, Cindy needs to host this get together. Just a thought......

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree....

Where the heck are you? Haha. So, Casey and I went and got our tree yesterday. It was quite the adventure... I think we went to four places, and then back to the second place. I don't know if anyone else was affected by this, but we had a bit of a sticker shock with the trees this year because down here there was a drought so the tree prices went up. But, Casey was the best and wouldn't give up on a real tree, so we went for a little drive, wandered through muck and mud... even a dirt road!... and finally chose the hanging trees- you'll see what I mean! :) I'll also use this post to share some decorations I've done, like Aunt Beth suggested.

Here is my nativity... not quite as full as Aunt Cindy's, but it will get there! (I also don't have all my pieces out, though it still isn't much once that happens, haha.)

Pretty dining room... with Lucy playing with the blinds.

Turtle tank decorating. :)

On our tree adventure, we actually found a dirt road... looks almost like a back road at home!

This one was at Ticonderoga Farms where you can pick from pre-cut Fraser Firs or you can cut your own of other kinds. We thought this one might be our tree, but we moved on. The big stick is for measuring tree size- they charge by the foot.

And here it is, the tree we came back to. You can't really tell, but this place had it's trees hanging from beams.

All ready to go on top of the Civ!

Finally, at the apartment and ready for decorating!

Casey will only hang the "us" ornaments, as in the ones that have our names on them. He hangs them next to each other. :)

I did the rest, haha.Voila!

And there were only three ornaments (that I've found so far) off the tree when I got up this morning. One remains off the tree because the hook is yet to be found. Ah, life with kitties.

I hope to see some other trees (and decorations) up on the blog, and I can't wait to see you all at Family Christmas! Love love!

The First Snow

We had our first bit of accumulated snow on Friday. It wasn't much, but it was enough to get Ruth excited. She had to "drag" the cat out to play. All she needed was Sammy, who loved the snow, and would make a good alarm if DJ's cat came around.

I took this photo of a bird's nest that is on my porch. I love to look at it, and the snow was so pretty resting on it.

The Big Play

Hey, we aren't are professional as Karen's circle of friends, but we have a lot of fun! This year the pageant was done in three acts.

The first act focused on Mary, the angel, and Joseph.

(Rosemary Harper as Mary, Liz Longacre as Gabriel)

The next act was a bunch of dancing shepherds, which led into Act three,

Herod and the Wise Men.

"Welcome to the magnificent Herod's Palace.

I am, of course, the magnificent King Herod!"

(one of my favorite lines)

(Here I am with Sam G. A great fellow from my Sunday School class that played my assistant.)

Enter the Wise men, or I should say "people".
There were 3 girls, and 1 boy as those that followed the star. It was Ruth's job to keep pointing them in that direction, even though the others wanted to stop and ask for directions. They get lost in the Grand Hall, as I approach.

Then,Ruth did a hilarious mirror scene with me, which included her and I doing things on totally opposite sides. :) As I was hula dancing to the left, she went to my right. It was a hoot!

(Danielle as Wise man 1, Sarah H as Wise man 2, and Ruth as Wise man 3)

It was a lot of fun, and the kids and adults seemed to have a great time.

big kitties

so last saturday while i was out tracking down my deer, i saw a cat track that was a little smaller than my palm. then last night i heard the sound of a familiar big cat from American west or wilderness movies. When i got home, i looked it up online to be sure and, well we've got a big cat behind our house...

for those who don't know what i'm talking about, it's a Mountain Lion. This isn't very surprising seeing how the DEP says we do have them in CT and there's been one spotted less than 5 miles from here if going in a straight line. so, i'm being more aware while in the woods now, and keeping my eyes and ears open for any tracks or sounds.

Christmas Decorations

Darrell and I decided today was a good enough day to start puttingup decorations, and by chance, I read Beth's post about wanting to pictures, so here are a few:

Darrell is decorating our hallway. We have done this for years, and it is his "baby". He is careful about which decorations go up, and it is his choice for garland and such. The first year we had the boys' homemade art work, which has long since fallen apart. Last year we had snowflakes made all of us. I know, what an odd tradition to "Deck the Hall". I think it goes back to when I was in the Christian School and we had a contest for the best decorations along the entrance hall. We had teams, and it was quite "fancy", not to mention a lot of fun.

The Nativity:

My collection has grown to an enormous size. I have added my own pieces, along with gifts from Darrell, Mom, and the kids.

This will not stay as I set it up, as in our home, the Nativity is always "child friendly" Maybe the boys will remember it held such wonders as GI Joe, Barney, Chewbacca, and a troll.

Now, you can't see as well as I hoped in this, but I wanted to point out some of my favorites:

The cow, painted by Brian, lays beside the "Crippled Lamb" near the manger. This has connection to the story by Max Lucado.

There is a Wise man painted by DJ, and a fisherman I bought while thinking of him.

The white spot in the center is a cat with a bobble head. I bought it to replace one of the cats that got lost with kids play. It reminds me of Mammie's set and the bobble head cow.

Beth is there, along with Ruth. The angel standing with Mary is a small one that reminds me of the Fortin girls, whose parents helped to supply the set with gift card to Mystic Village for several years. Oh, and a ceramic Joseph, who stands as shepherd to remind me of the times when Darrell has tried to meet me in the middle.

Lastly, up front and center are three mothers. One is expecting. Mom bought her for. She said it reminded her of me, "always preggo". There is a mother with a young son, and I think of the days when the boys were young, and the hopes I had for them to see the light of Christ in their lives. There is one that Ruth and I bought together. It is a Grandmother and infant. She said it was "Grama and me".

I would say you all got more than you bargained for with this post. I need to go and do some real work now. Love you all!

Hello everyone!

How is everyone doing in their snow covered worlds? I'm only assuming the rest of you have some snow because Mom said they had quite a bit. We got a couple inches, maybe, but it's already started to melt away- such is Virginia. It's still much colder than it usually is at this time of year, though... last year Casey wore shorts when we went to get our tree, this year I highly doubt he'll be able to do that- unless of course he wants to be frozen. Anyways, I just wanted to get on and say "hello" and couple pictures with you- one cute and one silly.

It gets cold in our apartment, so Gracie cuddles up.

This is why Lucy and Casey like each other so much, they like to do similar things- like sit on the couch and drink beer. Haha. :)

Who's That Girl....

The other day, Ruth asked me if I would put curlers in her hair. I had time, and the Grinch was on, so I did. She was so cute!

Then, we took them out the next morning! Yikes! Poof does not explain it. :)

But, it was so adorable!

She loved her curly hair, and dressed up to go along with it.

Her hair is still curly, even after sleeping on it. :)

I don't think Christie has anything to worry about for her big day.

I think she will be able to put it anyway she (Christie) wants. :)

so i was stuck in Burlington all last week i got home thursday night. i was freakin out all week about my job. i didnt want to lose it. on wendsday night i relapsed. i drank. i figured that drinking use to get my mind off of everything so i drank. i forgot about everything and it was fun but then everyone freaked out so it didnt turn out so well. i realized why i dont want to drink anymore. i am upset about it but i was even more upset when i was trying to figure out how to tell mom and dad. the other night i finally told them and i felt more releved. i called rb and he told me he was proud that i came clean and told my parents and him because being honest about that is not easy. but now i am 5 days clean so i hope i can stay strong.

so... i got one!!!

Sammy was smelling it, but he took a break.

he didn't know what to think of it.

me and my doe
dad and i dragging the doe
Ruth wanted to help drag her
in the back of the truck
and me cutting her ribcage so i can take out the heart.

this morning about 9:30 i was using a deer call (never worked before). i then decided that i would move on, when i saw her. i turned and shotat heras she was turning to run away, getting her through the back leg, and the neck. it took me about a half hour - 45 minutes to find her, 20 feet from where she was when i shot. it took quite awhile to get her out of the woods, seeing how it was on the far corner of the property, and then ran on to another preperty, doing almost a quarter mile loop.

Enjoy!