Monthly Archives: December 2012

menu plan monday ~ december 24, 2012

Only one more sleep till Christmas! It makes me excited and sad at the same time. I hate for this time of year to come to an end. We do have three more parties to host, though, so we’ll be celebrating for a while longer. My family is coming Saturday for our Christmas, we’re hosting […]

house concert 2012

At the house concert last week, Nathan George, Ross Sermons and Robert Bowlin treated us to an evening of wonderful music. Many guests shared with us how much this annual concert enriches their Christmas season each year. We missed Mark Stoffel who has been a big part of the concert in previous years. Mark and […]

helping Pa open his present

While our younger son and his wife were visiting from Seattle, we exchanged gifts with them. They shipped the wrapped presents ahead so we had them under the tree. We save boxes this time of year, and I used their shipping box to wrap a present for DH. Lo and behold, one of the gifts […]

menu plan monday ~ december 17, 2012

We were happy to have our younger son and his wife home for a few days. They live in Seattle and that’s a long way away! While they were here, we had our family Christmas with them, including a big dinner and opening presents. My Dad and my sister Margaret came down for the afternoon, […]

open house 2012

I asked a young friend to take pictures at our annual Christmas Open House last week. She did a great job. Guests sign in as they come through the front door. The living room tree holds our family ornaments. It’s nine feet tall and sits on a two foot high box that DH made for […]

menu plan monday ~ december 10, 2012

I’ve been working on some mid century modern Putz houses for my daughter-in-law. I used three patterns from RetroRenovation.com, and drew two patterns myself. They’ve been fun to work on. I need to finish what I can on the putz this morning, then get busy in the kitchen. Our son and his wife are coming […]

ornament tutorial ~ bottle brush tree on a wooden spool

Two of the {many} things I brought home from my mother’s house after she passed away last Christmas were her button and spool collections. I love them both and have been using them in my crafting. With the spools and some small bottle brush trees, I made these ornaments. Supplies needed: 2″ – 2 1/2″ […]

menu plan ….. thursday ~ december 6, 2012

It has taken me a few days to regroup after the open house. I have spent the time in my crafting room making ornaments and watching movies. Love me some Netflix! I also enjoyed the beautiful sunset on Tuesday evening. Did anyone else see it? In the meantime, it’s been “all hands fend for themselves.” […]

open house report

We had a wonderful Christmas Open House yesterday! It went by in a blur of friends, laughter and happy faces. We had about 170 guests. Many tell us the open house begins their Christmas season each year. Several weeks ago, I asked a young friend who is a great photographer to take a LOT of […]