Have a Happy New Year!

WOW...

what a holiday!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.

My husband, who is a police officer worked Christmas Eve and Christmas,

so we had our family dinner on the 28th.

It was wonderful!

All of our children and grandchildren under one roof again.

Whoo Hoo!

My daughters and I cooked all day, and of course we had

more than we could eat. Much more!

The leftovers are always the best part of the holidays for me.

As you can see from the picture below, we got a wee bit of snow this week.

The wind blew for two days and we finally dug ourselves out yesterday.

There has been such severe Winter weather in so much of the country this week,

and I hope that you all are safe and keeping warm where you live.

I am 'snug as a bug in a rug' tonight, even though the temperature is a -10 degrees

right now.

Tomorrow I will spend the day packing away all the holiday decor for another year.

All the greens are crispy, and the candles spent...

but miraculously all the Christmas balls survived the 2 and 3 year olds!

It doesn't seem possible that we are welcoming a new year already.

I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that it is 2011.

I don't usually make resolutions. I have lived long enough to know that I just want

the same things from the new year that I wanted from the past one...

JOY!

LOVE!

FAMILY!

FRIENDS!

The list goes on from here...but these four are the biggies to me.

This is Jackson. He is my granddaughter Maddie's cat.

Maddie and her family moved, and Jackson couldn't go, so he lives here now.

He spends his days in the house and his night's in the studio.

I'm going to be spending a fair amount of time here with Jackson soon.

Christmas night my gallbladder decided to start misbehaving,

 and I do mean misbehaving!

( the attacks hurt like heck)

The doc said I won't be keeping this piece of me.

So now I have to have it yanked. (as I like to call it)

Bad, bad gallbladder.

I think my warranty was up at fifty!

I would have liked to leave with all the parts I came with,

 but I guess that's not gonna happen.

So I will be away from my blog for a while starting Monday.

I do hope to get around to all my friends before that. If I miss you,

I will definitely be around when  I get back!

I can't wait to share a gorgeous gift I received for Christmas.

I will do it when I come back, because it has been a little too gloomy here to photograph it well.

Wishing you all a Happy New Year!

Love to you all!

Christmas around the house...

I wanted to show a little more of the Christmas decorating I

 did in the house this year.

The silver balls are hanging in the kitchen from a high shelf I have over

the chalkboard that is my 'brain'.

And in the living room, a few more touches here and there.

The reading room is where the grandchildren hang out when they are here.

So don't ask me why this is where I chose to put three little jars of glass

balls in there.

This is also the room that the tree will go up in.

In the family room, my husband hung a shelf behind the wood stove.

I consider it my mantel. 

I lit up the scrolly iron garden pots that I brought in from the garden again

and put them on it this year. 

A little shabby shelf between the living room and kitchen.

In the mirror above the living room sofa I hung the little vintage

baby mittens I picked up at the antique shop a few weeks ago.

This is such a joyous time!

I love this time to celebrate the birth of my Savior.
I love that I take more time to consider the 'gift' that He was to the world.
I love that I live where I am free to honor Him in the
way that I choose to.

I love the school Christmas concerts, the church Nativity displays,

 the holiday baking,

the Christmas movies on the television.

 (I can't wait to make time to sit down and watch my all

time favorites...The Christmas Carole and Little Women)

I save them until the week before Christmas))

I love the smell of cinnamon and pine.

I love that whenever a friend and I part, that we wish each other a Merry Christmas, 

and hug longer than we usually do.

I love that I go around every morning doing my daily chores

 humming some carole of the season.

Do you want to go shopping with me?

Last Saturday one of my favorite shops had it's Christmas open house.

I thought you all might like to go with me to the Sun Valley Garden Center

and have a look around.

In this little mountain town  about 30 miles from the farming town that I live in,

is a garden center and nursery where I purchase most of my garden products

in the Summer. In Winter they fill the greenhouses with trees, and 

the small gift shop with Christmas goodies.  

In Winter, this area depends heavily upon how well the ski resort of Sun Valley, Idaho

does, and that of course depends on the snow we receive.

We have had a good snow so far this year, for which everyone is grateful.

Let me show you around the shop.

There were so many people gathered here picking out trees and

shopping the sales, that it wasn't easy to photograph the shop, but I took pictures

of some of my favorite displays.

(I'm going to try not to be too wordy in this post and just hope you enjoy

your trip around the shop.)



My daughter Haylee, and my granddaughter Maddie met me here,

and Maddie enjoyed running through the greenhouses checking out the trees.

It looks like she sees one she likes.

Uh Maddie...I don't think that tree will fit in the house!

Do you think you could pick out a shorter one?

Thanks for meeting up with me for this little open house.

I love taking you all along because I don't spend near the money

I would if I wasn't lugging this camera along!!!

I think I'm finished decorating the house finally.

And now I have been spending a lot of time in the studio making gifts.

I will be back to share a few pictures of the

Christmas decor in the house real soon.



Decking the Halls!

I decided to get to it.

Get to 'decking the halls' and 'fa la la la la...ing' 

 I have this little shelf next to the sofa.

The perfect place for a Christmas vignette. 

I am one of those people.

I can't just decorate for Christmas...

I have clean first, and then decorate.

Before I decorate any surface, I have to clean every little thing around it

or I just can't do it.

Thus, my Christmas decorating takes me days and days to accomplish.

I know I'm not alone on this one.

I had dreams of decorating for Christmas this year like what you 

find on the pages of Jeanne d' Arc Living.

I just couldn't stick with it. 

I have to have shiny!

I have to have bright!



The shelf over the kitchen stove got a little dose of both.

Now the shelf is clean once more.

And everything in it!

 I have to have whimsy!

Last December I wrote about a special teacher my daughter had in 

elementary school who helped

 her students create the Nativity from clay.

My most prized Christmas decoration.

I love my little red heart given to me as a 'just because she thought I would love it'

gift from my sweet neighbor Sarah

and see the tissue paper flower that my friend Suzan had tied around a lovely package

she sent me last year? (Actually this hangs here all year round!)because I love it so much))

Suzan sent me several things that I use at Christmastime in my decorating.

And with it, hangs my precious star that Rebecca made for me from her heart.

It has a picture of Landon as a wee baby sleeping.

This also hangs here year round.

I love putting out the things from friends that have been given to me from Christmases past.

This beautiful little lace angel was sent to me from my friend 

Riet  in the Netherlands.

The darling little button filled ornament is from my friend Judy.



So this is the extent of my decorating so far.

 I really do love putting all the festive touches around the house

this time of year. I don't do a lot, just a little here

and a little there. 



Just enough to 'Fa La La La La' to.