Our final days of 2013

finger knitting

basketball awarding

gift wrap "assisting"

Christmas service attending

home pedicure indulging

giant nest building

jello pretzel salad attempting

Christmas present winning

lego castle building

awesome gift receiving

girls night movie watching

2013, over and out!

Monday Confessional

Two days after Christmas my last gift for someone else arrived in the mail, a calendar my sister and I made online for our dear friend Tracy. That evening Coop and I hopped in the car and paid Grandma Tracy a little visit, staying to watch her open it and chat for awhile. When we were done we said our farewells and waved goodbye, Tracy went back inside, and I backed my car up... right up into her garden where I heard an ominous crunch.

I believe my next words were, DANG IT. Don't you hate it when you run over someone else's personal property and have to go immediately confess?

Oh? That's never happened to you?

We can no longer be friends.

So back I went to the front door. Knock, knock: "Sorry Tracy, I just ran over Santa and took out his buddy Frosty too!"

The scene of the crime: Santa's down but not out!

Unfortunately Frosty didn't fare so well.

The good news is that Tracy has a great sense of humor and we had ourselves a good laugh over this one. The bad news is that Tracy then took these pictures and ratted me out on Facebook!

Thrown under the bus, just like my victims! Guess I had it coming ;)

Christmas: the pictorial tour

That's my fancy way of saying "here's a bunch of pictures of Christmas."

I could write a whole bunch about it too, but who wants to waste precious holiday vacation time on blog writing when there's more chocolate to consume/reading to be done/movies to watch/games to play/naps to take?

Not me. Let's begin...

Phase 1: Christmas Eve, opening presents with the kids at home

^^Fun surprises for the kids: giant lego (the Target fiasco gift), a REAL 4-wheeler, and shearling boots^^

Phase 2: Christmas morning at my parents

^^we'll call this one "surprise faces!"^^

^^and this was the best surprise of all! A touring bike for Mum, whose next grand adventure is cycling across the US in 2015!^^

^^YAY!^^

Phase 3: Christmas afternoon with Russ's family

^^All the cousins^^

^^suprise number next: a new computer for my mother-in-law! Good job Gary :)^^

^^It's Christmas tradition that Uncle Erik accidentally gets too rough and makes Blake cry. Classic ;)^^

All in all it was an easy, fun, WONDERFUL Christmas. There are a thousand more pictures of course but like I said... Christmas vacation must be enjoyed and I'm off to do just that! 

Christmas card 2013

Our celebrations start today so I'm signing off and wishing you all a Merry Christmas!

Luke 2:11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

Hallelujah!

Monday Confessional

- The day we got our Christmas tree I told myself this would be the year I remembered to keep it watered every day. Last night I remembered for the first time in seven days.

- I bought a new gold polka dot dress for Christmas Sunday service and even though it was a bit short I though I could pull it off with tights and maybe flats. Sadly, my mirror at home told me, "heck no, you cannot ma'am".

(^^items in mirror are shorter than they appear^^)

So back it went and this more matronly number filled it's place:

And I liked it.

- I wrapped ALL my presents Saturday thanks to my classy netflix viewing choice of My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding. I'm not saying I'm proud of my choice. I am saying I have no presents left to wrap. And there were a lot.

-  I made sure to order enough Christmas cards this year to send to all my family overseas and to our out-of-town friends. After having them for over a month, I finally addressed them a little over a week ago. And now, two days before Christmas, they are still sitting on my kitchen counter, staring at me. Why is a trip to the post office so hard?

- In the past week I forgot to bring my real camera to Blake's last basketball game, Cooper's last basketball game, my kid's school Christmas program, and our church Christmas service... where all three kids sang in choirs. At this point it will be a miracle if I actually remember it Christmas day.

- Today I have big plans that involve: sleeping in, sweatpants, a new book, and the fireplace. Dream big, folks, and Merry almost-Christmas :)

From Cookies and shopping to the end of my love affair with Target: a rundown

It has been a busy week. Reeaallly busy.

Monday night was Kelly's cookie exchange party... huge success.

Me, Shiree, Linley, Kel, Annie, & Joni

That Kelly, she knows how to throw a proper shindig. 14 ladies came and I went home with well over seven dozen cookies for the freezer (and now you know what I'll be bringing to holiday parties.)

Tuesday was Jodi & Jana's annual Christmas outfit shopping trip... another huge success and also a ton of fun.

One of my favorite holiday traditions :)

Wednesday was the last day of school before Christmas break and the school Christmas program... cute as always.

Blake & cousin Hayden

Emily, Blake, Jenica, & Laura

Cooper the shepherd - third hook in from the left

Wednesday night was also the night that Target practically broke my heart, causing much angst and gnashing of teeth.

I had been waiting and waiting for Cooper's main Christmas present to arrive, the present he wanted most of all and the one I was most excited about... the present I bought online at Target on Black Friday (aka: almost a month ago). I kept checking the order status online and could see that UPS processed it Dec 2nd but that was it. So you can imagine my dismay when Wednesday night I received an email from Target that my request for a refund had been approved and I would get my money back in 7-14 business days.

WHAT?!!!

So I called Target and sure enough, they had cancelled my order. 7 days before Christmas. Why? Oh they didn't know why! But it was obvious that it had never actually shipped and now they no longer had the item. In fact, NO TARGET in Oregon except one had the item anymore, that store being an hour away and the item now $25 more than what I had paid back on Black Friday. Which is how I ended up at the Target in Fairview at 11 pm Wednesday night, after calling and having them hold the LAST ONE IN STOCK.

(Apparently Cooper's gift is now only available on ebay, for double the price of course. Cooper hasn't even got it yet and it's already a collectible!)

So. Target lost a little love from me that night. They gave me a $25 ecard to make up for the price difference but would not give me anything extra for the hassle and inconvenience of a two hour roundtrip drive, at the last minute, and for having to come up with the money because my refund still won't process for another week. RUDE.

All this to say, FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS.

I'm over it (mostly). The last couple of days have been filled with movies, baking with my Mum, finger-knitting, decorating our church for the Christmas service, and enjoying being home with my family.

This is my very favorite time of the year. Thank goodness it's not about the presents :)
 

Monday Confessional

Confession: nine times out of ten, I will choose the easier way.

Example: tonight is my sister's highly anticipated Christmas Cookie Competition Exchange. Actually it is a competition because prizes are awarded for best tasting and best looking cookie. In preparation for this exciting event, I searched google for prize-winning recipes and came up with one that looked promising. (This one if you care to investigate.) I bought all the necessary ingredients (pretzels, baking chips, sea salt, etc.) except for the eggs, which I get from my parents for free (egg farm perks), and planned on baking yesterday after church because I'm going to be gone all day today. The only thing I needed to do was go pick up my eggs right after church.

Which I forgot.

Maybe because we picked up a Christmas tree instead? A spontaneous move if you can't tell by the below picture.

^^taking redneckery to a whole new level with the tree IN our car due to our lack of rope. Cooper was as thrilled as he looked^^

Anyway. Tree home, tree decorated, tree sat in front of and admired, still no eggs.

Around 4 pm I decided I better drive over to the folks and pick them up, but not before opening a bag of chocolate chips to snack on a small handful. You know, for the trip. At which point I noticed the recipe on the back... shortbread rounds that called for NO eggs and not only that, needed only four ingredients total, a whopping eight less than the other recipe.

SOLD.

Seven dozen easy-peasy shortbread rounds later I was finished and back in front of the tree watching a movie with the family. I even used some brilliant ingenuity to come up with a sifter for the powdered sugar dusting.

^^The all-purpose loose-leaf tea strainer spoon comes to the rescue^^

Nine times out of ten, I don't regret choosing the easier way ;)

(Although I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this unopened container of sea salt now...)