Family time....

Christmas has come and gone and I have another year of wonderful memories with my family. They came over on Christmas eve and we had a  wonderful time. I thought I would share some pics with you. I love my family and am truly blessed with two children and their spouses and five beautiful grandchildren.

Caleb normally doesn't like his picture made and a smile is very rare when you snap one. But he asked me if I was sending it to Mamaw Helen and when I said yes, I got an actual pose for the pic.

Bosom buddies. Alexis and Shelby are so close and they get a long so good. There is something special about a bond between girl cousins.

Watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas cartoon.

My daughter Diana and her husband Michael. They are the parents of Caleb & Shelby.

My son Chris and his wife Jamie. They are the parents of Garret (setting beside his mom), Alexis and Colby. 

A good smile from Garret. Again, because I told him it was for Mamaw Helen. I'm printing these Saturday to send to Mom.

The four youngest grandchildren: (l - r) Alexis, Colby, Caleb and Shelby. Watching some funny cartoon. 

The boys after they ate too much. They made it as far as the couch.

Everybody loved their gifts and we had an awesome time unwrapping them. There were some moments of sheer joy that let me know I picked the right thing to get. 

Our little man. He is a rascal. Watching him open his electric football was a blast. He was so surprised and when he saw what it was he grinned from ear to ear and said "Oh my goodness!" It was priceless.

Caleb was so pleased with his new hoodie that he put it right on. 

Everybody seemed to have a great time. 

I miss them all so much when they leave, but I am blessed to have them all living in the same county so I get to see them throughout the year.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from my home to yours! May Jesus be your reason for the season all year long.

It's Christmas Eve!!

Gifts are wrapped an under the tree. I need to bake my chocolate cake, lemon 7-up cake, no bake oatmeal cookies and snickerdoodles. Some good family time later today. I can't wait. Hope to get another pic of all of us together to see how much they have all grown since last year.



We had our office Christmas party yesterday. It was an ugly sweater party. We had a blast. The boss and his wife really got into the spirit of things. She even did the poofy hair and fake eye lashes to add to her outfit for the day. It was a hoot.

The staff all dressed for the day...some more so than others. Me and the two other ladies wore appropriate Christmas decor but we just don't like to get our photos taken.

The boss's mother-in-law came over with the grandbabies. I loved her sweater.

We had a ton of good food. 

And our own little Christmas tree.

 Adam won the trophy for the ugliest Christmas sweater. I can assure you he does not dress like this on a regular basis. He is normally very well attired. Just shows you how far he will go to win the trophy.

We did a food gift exchange. I got a yard of Christmas cookies.  

We also got gifts from the boss and his wife. They got us awesome purses monogrammed with our initials. 

A mini-zipper pouch each with our initial on it.

And a stocking full of goodies.

We even had a gingerbread man in an ugly Christmas sweater. 

Byron brought his banjo and played for us. The kids were dancing and having a blast.

It was a great way to end work before two days off for Christmas. I hope everyone is enjoying their Christmas eve.

Christmas tea...

I love tea sets, tea for one's, tea pots, tea cups...anything to do with tea except drinking it. I have never acquired the taste. Here are some I found online that caught my fancy. This first one is pretty but there is just something about the look on Santa's face that is a little too freaky.

This little set is so vintage looking. I love it.

Very elegant.

I am pretty sure Ms. Debbie over at Breathing in Grace will love this little crochet tea set.

Love the little pine cone on top of this tea for one.

I have Scottish roots on my Dad's side and I wonder if that is why I like anything that has Scottish plaid patterns in it.

I adore tea for one sets and this one is too cute for words.

I also collect miniature tea sets and have a lot of them. I wouldn't mind adding this to my collection. This is my favorite find online. Should have tagged it to go back and order it before next Christmas.

I love poinsettias thanks to my Mamaw Eden and my Mom. And I love cardinals. When you put the two together you get a set that is just divine.

Probably another on of my favorites of all the ones I saw. This is exquisite yet whimsical.

I would love to know if any of my readers collect tea pots or tea cups as well.

Weekend wrap up...

I had such a busy full weekend that I can't believe what all I was able to accomplish. My daughter and I went shopping at 8:00 Saturday morning and didn't get back home until 8:00 Saturday evening. Our last stop was Jersey Mike's at the University Common to pick up a sub sandwich to take home. As we were leaving, I noticed a glow up ahead and a lot of steam. It was a Christmas Train parked for a Christmas excursion. You rarely see old steam engines any more so I had to stop and get a picture. I just fell in love with this.

When I got home, a Fed Ex box was on the porch. It was from Thirty-One and had the order in it from the last party I held. It was fun to see all the neat things people will be getting for Christmas.

One of the items that was offered was a Mystery Gift. I couldn't decide so I ordered it then my daughter decided to buy it from me. I was excited to see what she was getting. Then when I saw it, I knew she would be thrilled she purchased it. She got a tablet organizer, a lunch tote and a wristlet....all in a pattern she loves. I was very happy for her.

I had purchased the add-on kit that had arrived earlier in the week. I am in love with the new wallet in their new Jewell line. 

Check out all the compartments. This is awesome.

I also got this cute little purse that I can't wait to carry this spring. It has a lot more room in it than I thought it would.

Thirty-One has a new product of pockets that you can hang on your wall to get organized. I love these and can't wait to use them. 

I'm really excited about the new spring line. Because my hostess had such a good party I earned $332.00 in free products. Check out what is being shipped to me for FREE before the end of the year. Thirty-One is so fantastic about allowing us to earn free product. I invested $99 in this career about 3 years ago and it was the best investment every. If I counted up all the free stuff I have earned in the past 3 years it would total more than $3,000 - $4,000. They are that good to us. I have signed up one new recruit under me and have one more possibly signing up in January. My goal in 2015 is to grow my business. I have earned that much for free and have had only about 5 or 6 parties each year. And most of those weren't even parties, I just took up an order from people I knew. Best company ever to work for.

Sunday I went to church with my son and his family. My granddaughter Alexis was in their Christmas play. She did awesome. She played a Mom and did an excellent job. She looked so cute, but unfortunately my phone had died so I didn't get to take a picture. She had her hair in a bun and a house coat on. It was just too cute. I really enjoyed the play. It was awesome.

When I got home, I started right in on my orange cookies. They are made 100% from scratch and so is the icing. At this point, I had already made 32 cookies and look how much batter was left.

They turned out really good and for the most part were pretty uniform in shape and size. Baking them is not the hard part. Putting the icing on was the most time consuming.

Oh, but they are so worth the work. It made 80 cookies this year. But only 78 survived. While I was putting the icing on, a couple of them accidentally fell into my mouth. Yummy!

I also made my son some no bake chocolate oatmeal cookies and I made Reese's peanut butter fudge. But I never did take pictures of them. Keep in mind, I started my baking and cooking at 1:30. Sometime around 5:30, I took a break and fixed me some bacon and eggs for supper. That was the first time I had ever made bacon in the oven. It turned out delicious.

When I got done with all that I started wrapping presents. I had not wrapped a thing yet and the family will be over on Wednesday to unwrap. By 8:30 the baking was done, supper was over and cleaned up, and I had all my presents wrapped. 

I love a day when I feel like I have accomplished something.

Sunday Songs

It's just not Christmas till Bing Crosby sings. Merry Christmas to all my family and friends, far and wide.

A busy day ahead....

It is going to be a busy day today. My daughter and I have some last minute shopping to do. This will be our first "no kids" shopping day in months. We are both very excited. I went over my list and checked it twice...and three times...and four..... I want to make sure I get everything that is still on it. This is not unusual for us as there is always those last minute gifts we need to pick up.



I have several things that I need to find at Target. I've checked the website and the store we are going to has what I need.

We are going to make a dash through the West Town Mall. Several stores in there are good places to find what I'm looking for on two of my items.

We normally do Steak-n-Shake on our Christmas shopping trips, but with the busy day we have planned I think it may be a drive-thru in our future for lunch today.



Well, my list is ready and I'm looking forward to the day. Hope you have an awesome Saturday.