December 24, 2011

Everyone is asleep and Santa has already visited! Now it's time for me to blog and go to bed! There is a warm cosy fire and I really want to read right now, but I have a feeling morning is going to come early here!

Christmas Eve at our house.

This is such a typical scene. My grandma and Danielle. my SIL working the electric frying pans. They are always in this spot.  My grandma has the fish and Danielle is working the perioges. Look at my brother trying to sneak something like he's 8 years old. There is my mom in the edge of the picture. My guess is that these ladies are discussing the "doneness" of the perioges. See how my grandma is leaning. She's leaning like she has an opinion about something... 

 There are two perioge factions here. One likes them crispy on the outside and one likes them golden. They did half and half this year.  

I didn't even have one.... Shhhh.... Don't tell anyone.

Someday when that picture is different I'll be glad I took this tonight. As my grandma was coming in to fry the fish she said "Well this is probably the last time I'll be doing this...."

Though that is not the first time she's said that! She's said it for like 5 years.

She'll be 88 in April.

And everyone enjoyed their meal.

16 full bellies! We had people eating in the living room too.  Both sides. Siblings, parents, cousins, grandma and Bob. Everyone had a nice time

Why yes, those ARE fresh greens on the table....

My neighbors visited after dinner tonight and right this very minute my other neighbors next door are out on their deck SINGING CHRISTMAS SONGS..... Their deck is close to my porch and I have a door to that porch in my living room. They are loud, but boy are they having a good time!

Christmas is in the air!

December 23rd

A day late bit we are rocking 7 here! Happy Birthday big girl!!!

December Photo Project- Dinner with Santa, December 20th

We went to Dinner with Santa this evening at the school that my husband teaches at. My girl doesn't really like the whole sitting on santa's lap thing. But this santa usually gives a nice gift. And we told her that she needed to tell him what she wants.

She told him a Carebear. She really wants a Wii. She told me she'd "mind-send him the information about the wii." I think she was embarrassed to ask for a Wii because we told her that was such a huge gift and that we didn't think Santa even gave gifts like that. This year Santa IS, in fact, bringing a present like that!  I hope we're not messing her up with hijinks like this because I really want her to grow into a person who asks for what they really want, rather than settle for something a little less than what they would really want. That gave me pause...

And BTW,

OMG, WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO ME????

(Yes, Michael, I know....I took these photos on my iPhone as well.....)

After dinner with Santa we went to Starbucks where she got a kids hot cocoa. (Don't worry, we used a gift card!! ;-)

And told her we were going on a ride to see Christmas lights.
The house in this post, in particular.

Watching the lights. Drinking Hot Cocoa. Rocking out to Christmas music. This is the stuff of little kid dreams!

Same result as last year. A good time was had by all.

December Photo Project-December 16-18th!

My weekend in photos....

I had a lovely weekend.

I'm very glad it is over.

Saturday morning visit to The Susan B Anthony House with the girl scouts. This was an awesome trip!

We had a fabulous guide who was great with the girls and presented the information at a level the girls could understand and yet still drove home the importance of Susan B Anthony and her accomplishments. Here are the girls with Susan's famous alligator purse that she  carried all of her sufferage speeches in... Seriously!!!!

This children's rhyme mentions Susan!

Miss Lulu had a baby, she called him tiny Tim.

She put him in the bathtub, so see if he could swim.
He drank up all the water! He ate up all the soap!
He tried to swallow the bathtub, but it wouldn’t go down his throat!!
Call for the doctor!
Call for the nurse!
Call for the lady with the alligator purse!
“Mumps!” said the doctor. “Measles!” said the nurse.
“Vote!!” said the lady with the alligator purse!!

Sundayafternoon party at the YMCA for my girl's Birthday! HUGE GIANT BOUNCE HOUSE was enjoyed by all....

This is the first time we've had her party somewhere, usually we have it at home.

WORTH. EVERY. PENNY.

We love the Y, The people we so nice and helpful.  We had a great time and so did the kids, I was pretty unstressed about the entire thing.  They decorated, got balloons, cake, pizza, drinks. We brought goodie bags and the birthday girl!

It was still Yuletide at the museum this weekend and I worked Friday, Sat and Sunday evenings.

And we pretty much killed it!!!

I know that's kind of obnoxious to say. Who wants to read stuff like this? But by the end of tonight I just kept telling eveyone "I'm so proud of us all." Everyone worked very very hard to make this thing happen. And it happened to happen very well. Everyone is very tired....

Tomorrow starts 2 weeks off for many people, including myself.

I. CANNOT. WAIT.

I have not of course, escaped the holiday season without a cold and car repair, experiencing both of those late last week. The difference this year? I'm not so stressed about money and I blew my nose a lot and moved on, though at one point yesterday between the Susan B house and the museum I laid down and didn't think I could get back up. 

 I even rallied Sat evening, came home from the museum early and made it out to the only Christmas party that I could get to this year. My friends Bridget and Rick have had a party since I was in college.  It wouldn't be Christmas if I didn't go!

I'm so glad I didn't miss it.

I can't move this picture. For some reason they are difficult to move when I upload them from my phone. Anyway, this is Susan B Antony's house and right in front of that rocker is where she was standing when she was arrested for voting!  What a visit we had!

December 15, 2011 Peppermint Frozen Dairy Dessert, Edy's Fail

So my daughter LOVES candy canes. And a few years ago for her birthday I made this awesome ice cream for her by crushing up candy canes and mixing them into vanilla ice cream. She loved it.

So when we saw candy cane ice cream, we got her some this year.

But look closely at that label. It ISN'T ICE CREAM AT ALL. (Lower Right)

IT'S FROZEN DAIRY DESSERT

I didn't even notice this until just now. Nowhere on the label does it call this product ice cream. I want ice cream dammit. Edy's people, you know that we all think we're buying ice cream when we pick up this package... You know THAT.

But in looking at the ingredients, rather than CREAM, the first ingredient is Whey (Dairy)-That's what it says.  I should have just made some. I have an ice cream maker, I'm just too darn busy to make ice cream. Maybe for her birthday I'll make some.

Maybe I'm just in a bad mood this evening that this has pissed me off so badly. But seriously, I hate fake food. I hate "created" food. Created and fake food is what is killing us in this country. 100 years from now I bet they figure out that we all got cancer from non-dairy creamer.

I hate crap food. (yes, I would admit that peppermint ice cream isn't up there on the list of health foods, even when it is real ice cream.)

But I want my ice cream to be cream, sugar and eggs.... I don't want frozen dairy dessert. I never ever ever want cool whip. I don't want non-dairy creamer....

GIVE ME REAL DAIRY ALREADY.

And a side of butter with that....

And what am I doing with the ice cream container at 10:12 pm anyway you ask?

Mind your business....

December 14, 2011-The Tree, Finally

Finally putting ornaments on the tree that we've had since Saturday!

In all my adult years I've never had a tree with colored lights. I think I'm a white light kind of gal. But we needed all new lights this year and my daughter begged us for colored lights.

I have to say, it looks cute and cozy.

See the topper on the tree? It's the baby hat she wore home from the hospital when she was born. She came home on Christmas day. It has a pom pom on it.

She's such a big girl now.

George Eastman House Blog Mention!!

How nice! Over on their Facebook page, the George Eastman house posted a link to my blog entry about our visit the other day!

Head on over and like them!!!