girlfriend's christmas

{Carly and friends...

all dressed up for the Girlfriends' Christmas Party}

{party food - make your own pizza, chip & dip, fruit, and cookies}

{having lots of girl fun making pipe cleaner & bead garlands}

{SPT of Carly and I - when it was over she told me a half-a-dozen times "thank you so much mama, it was SO much fun"}

let's do lunch

{gwyn, jan, me, julie, elizabeth, and ginny}

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.....for my friend Ginny, who got us together to do lunch.....

Ginny asked me a few weeks ago if I would be interested in getting together on Friday, December 7th for a cookie swap that she was thinking about trying to get one together. I told her sure that I would pencil her in on my calendar. Ginny called a week or two ago and asked me if I had plans for the 7th. I told her I was coming to her house to swap cookies. She laughed and asked how would I feel about getting together at a restaurant for lunch instead? Sound great I said, who has time to make cookies anyway?

countdown fun

[Carly's Christmas Countdown Box]

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We LOVE our countdown box. Carly's first stop every morning is to open the next little box. Sometimes the box has a little trinket - this morning there was a flashing snowman necklace. And sometimes it has a "coupon" - like for fingernail painting or yesterday's was a "special night with dad". The little coupon's remind me not to let the season slip by. We usually have coupons for riding around to look at lights, making Christmas cookies, making a Gingerbread House, Christmas movie night, etc. Activities that we would probably do or at least should do but sometimes just don't find time for.

tagged by my sister

• Wrapping paper or gift bags? wrapping paper (I have serious issues with wrapping paper - Love it) - this year zebra print paper and lots of red and lime green.

• Real tree or artificial? artificial.. I grew up with an artificial tree so my first Christmas after I got married I was determined to have a real tree. It was a fiasco - a story that needs its very own blog. Needless to say the next year we bought an artificial tree.

• When do you put up the tree? I like to put it up the Sunday after Thanksgiving. This year it was the Monday after Thanksgiving.

• When do you take the tree down? Typically the weekend after New Years.

• Do you like eggnog? Yes - I'm glad you can only buy it during Christmas season and I wish it wasn't so very fattening.

• Favorite gift received as a child? that's tough - too many memories to choose from maybe my doll house, maybe Cabbage Patch Dolls, or a doll trunk with lots of clothes for my Baby Gilbert.

• Do you have a nativity scene? Yes, Carly has a nativity scene. She gets a new piece every Christmas Eve. She loves it. So it is a very special part of our Christmas.

• Hardest person to buy for? Uncle Wilson

• Easiest person to buy for? Carly and my sister

• Worst Christmas gift ever received? I think this might get me in trouble with someone.

• Mail or email Christmas card? mail - love to open the mailbox during December just to see whose christmas card is in the box today. Then we display them to enjoy all month. I just finished putting together an album of christmas cards we have received over the last 6 years. I have had the idea for years (wish I had started saving them since Kenny and I got married) but it has taken me this long to put it together.

• Favorite Christmas Movie? Santa Clause the Movie, Rudolph, Polar Express, or National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

• When do you start shopping for Christmas? Just about all year

• Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? shhhhh

• Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? party foods/appetizers

• Clear lights or colored on the tree? white - but I am having a new found love of those vintage big colored bulbs that I am seeing on some trees in our neighborhood. I saw some in my friend Keetha's blog.

• Favorite Christmas song? Baby, it's cold outside (Love our Rat Pack CD)

• Travel at Christmas or stay home? both - we made the decision when Carly was born to be home on Christmas morning but work everyone else in around that.

• Do you have an Angel on top or a star? star

• Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Christmas morning at our house

• Most annoying thing about this time of year? wanting to do so much and running out of time

let the fun begin

1. talk daddy into getting the tree out of the attic
2. turn on the Christmas music
3. fluff the branches
4. turn on the lights
5. unpack the ornaments
6. smile and tolerate the camera
7. decorate
8. reminisce

{my first ornament - it isn't dated but probably 1972)

carly's favorite

My mom and sister left on Saturday to go back home after some crazy shopping (see my sister's blog here ). They had not made it to the end of my driveway before Carly started asking was I going to get the nativity scene down. I had planned on using Saturday to decompress after all the Thanksgiving traveling and festivities. There were a thousand things that needed doing before we started pulling Christmas decorations down. But after the 2nd or 3rd time, I was like, why don't you just get the blasted thing down. She was SO happy. She lovingly opened each piece and put the boxes back while I decided where we were going to set it up. She carried the pieces to the table and arranged them just so, and then she played for a while and then she arranged them again. Later when I walked by, I moved a couple of pieces, arranging them the way I thought they should be. A little later she was appalled "who touched MY nativity scene?"

... ... Each year Carly gets a new piece to her nativity scene on Christmas Eve.

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2004 Christmas Eve adding her new pieces - shepherd Gabriel and sheep

2005 Christmas Eve, Carly opening the camel.

Last year, with MamMam putting out her ox and goat.

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{I wish my pictures pre-2004 were digital.}

just bite my tongue

so I can not scream

"have you lost your mind? Come down from there before you fall and break your arm!"

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camo kids

How cute are these kids?

Carly and her cousin having lots of fun together at Nona's house.

where have you been?

oh, you say YOU have been here all week

that it was ME that has been MIA for the last 10 days!

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We have had a family-filled Thanksgiving which is exactly the way it should be. We went to my MIL's to the Lake House last weekend for a few days and then on to my mom & dad's. We have eaten, cooked, eaten, doctored poison ivy, eaten, visited, eaten, hunted, eaten, worked on stationery, eaten, traveled, eaten, shopped, eaten and I am more than a little terrified to go to my Weight Watcher's meeting on Tuesday.

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Speaking of hunting....

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deer #2 ..her first buck

unexpected outcomes

What do you get when you spend 2 days in the woods?

• great memories of time with your dad - check
• meat in the freezer - check
• one VERY bad case of poison ivy - check

a couple of bumps on Sunday night (thought they were bug bites), a couple of patches on her face Monday morning (started doctoring), swelling, several patches on her face, tummy and hands Tuesday morning(went to the doctor), all over her face, most of the right side of her face and her eye almost swollen shut on Wednesday morning (cut school short), BUT it is Wednesday evening and her eye is open and the swelling has gone down dramatically. I think we might have the worst behind us?