Holiday Happings

Time to play catch-up. Now that things have slowed down I have time and energy to share a few shots of our Holiday fun.

December 13th - Another Charlie "Brown" Christmas Tree

My nephew, Stephen, burst his appendix the week prior and was still in the hospital. Bill and I offered to have Erin spend the night to help out my brother's family. So since we were in the Ann Arbor area we decided to stop at my old neighbor Charlie Braun's (pronounced "brown") tree farm and cut our Christmas tree.

This is always a fun event; the girls love to be in charge of the wagon that holds the tree, and we all "argue" over the perfect tree. Each one of us has our own opinion of what makes a tree perfect.

Finally we all agreed on the right tree and with a few, well supervised, strokes of the saw we freed our tree and headed home to decorate it.

(There was finally a photo with me in it, so I thought I'd share.)

I love this photo of Lauren and the tangle of lights! She was helping us string the lights around the tree, and I happened to get this awesome shot. Annika's is cute, but not as good.

December 14th - Friend Carol's Cookie Decorating Party

Bill was not feeling well the day of the cookie decorating party (too many beers the night before, or he may really have been sick but I am voting for the too many beers factor.) so the girls and I headed off to my friend Carol's annual cookie party. This is something that we all (including Bill) look forward to each year. Unfortunately this year just as I was pulling onto Carol's street, Annika threw up in the back seat of the car. So, needles to say, we did not stay long at Friend Carol's party!

*Insert BIG note here: Friend Stephen (as my kids have dubbed Carol's husband) went far above and way beyond the call of friendship (especially as a spouse of a friend) and he actually cleaned the puke out of my car for me while I changed the girls into clean clothing! If you want to make someones day, send a big thank you out to Friend Stephen at: artroad (at) provide (dot) net. A BIG Thank You goes out to Stephen!!

Friend Carol sent us home with a care package of cookies and things to decorate said cookies. Annika and Bill were feeling better that evening, and having missed the opportunity to decorate cookies, we all promptly decorated all the cookies Carol gave us. I also made a big batch of cookies later in the week, knowing my cookie eating family needed more cookies. It was fun, but not as much as the annual cookie party would have been.

December 16th - Card Making Time

We started a tradition a few years ago, and now we make our Holiday Cards as a family. It really is fun - sitting down at the table with a stack of cards and "stuff" to decorate. We let loose our creativity and spend a couple of hours making cards.

The girls have created some, ummm interesting is the best term that comes to mind, cards over the years. But that is what makes it memorable and fun.

This year's theme was Penguins and Winter fun. We had lots of fun thinking of interesting vignettes to make for the penguins. Everyone was very creative in coming up with creative ways to use up odd shapes. In fact, it kind of became a game - who could be the most creative with odd shaped pieces.

Well, there is more fun to catch everyone up on, but for now this is enough. We really were busy having fun and creating memories before, during and after Christmas. I am just now beginning to recouperate. In fact, look for a post regarding todays activities. One of my favorite winter time activities!!