a great party

December 2, 2007 – 8:42 pm

We had a wonderful time at the open house. I have been too busy prior to it to post, but will spend some time tomorrow putting up pictures and talking about the prep. Here are a few pics from around the house today.

Cookie Buddies – my friends Laurie, Bethany, and Gary kept the kitchen running and the cookie trays full, along with my sister Genny, who missed getting her picture taken. Because of their tremendous help, we were able to concentrate on greeting our guests.

Cookie Buddies minus one

I put up a “grand-baby tree” in the hall of the addition.

Grand-baby Tree

It was decorated with baby items, pictures of the twins, baby footprint ribbon, and blue/pink glass balls, and a fuzzy pink baby blanket served as a tree skirt. This tree garnered a lot of comments. It was a favorite along with the “glass” tree in our bedroom.

Just before the open house, DD#3 added the holly berries to the wreath we painted on the door to the addition. We use poster (tempera) paint. Easy and a fun decoration. DD uses her finger to make the berry dots. This door was originally the front door of the house DH’s father was born in and lived in all his life.

adding the berries

DD#1’s tree had paper doves on it.

Dec 2007 099

DD#2’s tree was decorated with twiggy stars and felt ornaments.

Dec 2007 098

I changed the little tree in the corner of the kitchen counter to display framed pictures of our family.

family tree

Saturday afternoon Gary brought over his latest creation…the windows for the door to the downstairs bath! They are beautiful!! Thank you, Gary!

Gary's windows

Gary's window

Tomorrow I will post more. Now I’m headed for bed and a good night’s sleep! ~~Rhonda

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cleaning is almost there

November 29, 2007 – 12:47 pm

Sunday is our annual open house and this week is always a busy whirl of “getting things done.” I wish I had more time to post about all our activities this week, but time is running too short for a long computer session. I’m having lunch right now and wanted to post an update.

A young lady from church who helps with house cleaning each week, is here today doing a double session. She will take care of almost all the house. We’ll leave the kitchen (still have cooking to do) and the upstairs hall (gathering place for all the leftovers from picking up the other rooms). The upstairs hall may be done tomorrow and the kitchen will be thoroughly cleaned Saturday afternoon.

I have walked through the entire house, with a stapled stack of papers, writing down everything that needs to be done in each room. This list covers lots of different last minute details. From “polish the banister” to “wash the crystal snowflake ornaments” in the scrapbook room. With this list I have a handle on what is left to do, and I can delegate the jobs to be done.

to do

DH is off work until Monday, so he is helping. My sister will come back Friday evening after work to help for the weekend. I have really missed the help of DD23 and DD20 this year. This is the first time I haven’t had at least one of them here to help during the decorating season. Miss you both!!

Lunch break is over…back to work. ~~Rhonda

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idea binders

November 27, 2007 – 12:03 pm

I collect Christmas magazines and used to have about six feet of shelf space filled with them. It was only a few years ago that I could bring myself to pull out the pages showing ideas I like and put them into binders. I have about half the magazines done and will finish the rest as I have time. These binders come in handy time and again!

idea binders

In the past, my older daughters (23 and 20) would decorate the trees in their own bedrooms. This year they are living away from home, attending college. They both gave me permission to do “whatever” to their trees. My sister and I took out the idea binders and pulled some pages that gave us ideas we liked. Just looking at the pictures was inspiring!

This page showed twiggy stars.

twiggy stars

And this page showed felt ornaments.

felt ornaments

We took those ideas and tweaked them a bit. Genny made stars using the hot glue gun, then spray painted them a cream color. She sprayed them with a glossy sealant when dry.

I stamped stars and snowflakes onto cream colored felt, then used my sewing machine to stitch the ornaments.

felt ornaments

Genny spray painted twigs for the top of the tree, and we added large bows made from three kinds of wide ribbon.

DD1987's tree

The tree fits the room which features a horse theme, with a 22″ horse border, brown bandanna window toppers, and bandanna pillows on the bed.

DD#1’s tree was decorated with silver ornaments, silver tinsel garland, and white paper doves sprayed with glitter. This magazine page gave us the idea for the doves. Genny free-handed the pattern and cut them from card stock.

paper doves

DD1984's tree

The tree sits on a small round table. We will cover the tree stand with white batting, then drape white lace panels over the batting to the floor.

Decorating continues today. Genny is making *another* run to the store for needed supplies. Check back later for more pics! ~~Rhonda

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on to the library

November 26, 2007 – 9:15 am

The decorating is proceeding well. We’d be farther ahead if we hadn’t taken a week to visit those precious grandbabies, but one has to have priorities, doesn’t one?

The downstairs is done except for the library (which functions as our family room) and the downstairs bath. The lights on the 9′ library tree had to be taken off and redone. They were too messy to leave on the tree. Lighting that tree takes about 6 hours. Today we will put the beads, ribbon, and ornaments on it, decorate the counter of the TV cabinet, and do the smaller “Three Kings” tree in the corner. Pictures will be posted later today.

The tree in the downstairs bath is an easy one and won’t take long to decorate. Then we move upstairs. Our bedroom is done, the two baths are done, DD#2’s tree is done, DD#3’s tree just needs the rest of the ornaments, and the tree in the scrapbook room is done. So it’s picking up, cleaning up, and doing the finishing touches on those rooms and we have DD#1’s tree to decorate.

I want all the decorating to be done by Wednesday evening. I need Thursday and Friday for the last minute cookies / candies, and Saturday morning is reserved for decorating the sugar cookies. That will take about three hours. The schedule is tight, but we do have enough time to get it all done.

Two young people from church are coming to help this week. One to clean the yard, rake leaves, pick up trash, limbs, whatever. And the other to clean the entire house on Thursday. It’s wonderful to have their help! Some of my friends from church will also come during the week to lend a hand where ever we need the help. There is always a job I can delegate, so their help is also fully appreciated. And a big thanks goes to my sister Genny who decided to stay an extra two days to help today and tomorrow. Yeah! 🙂

I will check in later with pictures of our progress. Stay tuned! ~~Rhonda

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Saturday decorating

November 24, 2007 – 9:57 pm

Today we managed to get the lights on the living room tree and put up the red beads and the popcorn and cranberry strings. This is a nine foot tree on an 18″ high box DH made. The ceilings in the living room are 12′.

living room tree

We made the popcorn and cranberries strings last Sunday/Monday.

living room tree

dining room tree

We finished the “snow” tree in the dining room. DD helped put the shredded artificial snow on the tree. I made the snowball ornaments several years age.

We also put up the snowflake ornaments in the kitchen.

snowflake garland

I stamped and sewed felt ornaments for DD#2’s tree.

felt ornaments

felt ornaments

I’ll post the final picture tomorrow. I need to get some sleep! ~~Rhonda

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::waving hi::

November 24, 2007 – 1:52 pm

Just want to let you know I plan to post this evening. We are knee-deep in decorating and I can’t take time right now. My sister is here this weekend to help. I am taking pictures and will post some of those later when I need a “sit-down” job.  TTYL!  ~~Rhonda

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a new do

November 20, 2007 – 2:22 pm

I had my hair cut last night. It has looked like this for as long as I can remember:

old hair

New do:

new hair

new hair

🙂 ~~Rhonda

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popcorn and cranberries

November 19, 2007 – 6:51 am

We made popcorn and cranberry strings this weekend. It’s a family tradition. My mom always made them for our trees as I was growing up, and we have always had them on our living room tree for the 30 years of our marriage. After a long day of decorating, stringing popcorn and cranberries is a great sit-down-and-rest-your-feet-while-you-watch-a-movie job.

six bags of cranberries

It takes six bags of cranberries to make enough strings to decorate the 9′ living room tree.

almost done

We make the strings about as long as this table. They are easy to carry into the living room and attach one section at a time. We leave a 4-6″ tail on each end and tie those together when the string goes on the tree. I like to hang them with ornament hooks to give the loops a nice scalloped definition.

Here’s a hint for stringing popcorn and cranberries – the popcorn will string more easily if it is a day or two old. Freshly popped corn can certainly be used, but it breaks more easily. We use loose popcorn, not microwave popcorn, for the strings. It takes a lot. DH popped three large bowls full and we used it all. I like to use Orville Redenbacher’s white popping corn. It pops large and has a clean white color. Can’t always find that, though (like this year), so we used Orville’s yellow popping corn.

We use regular white or ivory sewing thread and a regular hand sewing needle for stringing. We double the thread and tie a knot 4-6″ from the end. We start with a cranberry and thread through it twice to keep it from slipping off the end. And we finish the section with a popcorn, but do not tie that end with a knot. Be sure to lay your strings out with the knotted end at the same end of the table, so you can easily pick up the popcorn end to prevent the popcorn and cranberries from slipping off the string.

I am often asked if we save the strings from year to year. No, we don’t. The cranberries turn into craisins and the popcorn shrinks, too. By the end of the season, some of the strings are showing gaps. In the past, I have tried setting them outside for the birds, but they have never shown interest in eating them.

~~Rhonda

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busy weekend

November 19, 2007 – 6:33 am

We accomplished a lot this weekend. On Saturday, we did everything in the living room except the tree. DH put up the garlands over the arches and windows. We set up the nativity, decorated the fireplace mantel and groomed and rearranged the plants.

garland over windows

We also did a lot in the dining room.

When they come out of storage, the trees have to be fluffed and the lights worked over to be sure they are functioning properly. Once that’s done, we can decorate. This tree is decorated with snowball ornaments I made several years ago.

Sunday morning I made meatballs before church and put them in the crock pot with spaghetti sauce. Made the house smell good when we got back from church. It also made a quick dinner so we could get to the decorating.

I got this recipe from a board I frequent for recipe ideas. It makes easy meatballs.

1 pound leanest ground beef – I use 93% fat free ground round as that is what is available here.

1 box Stove Top Savory Herb stuffing dry mix

2 egg whites

1 cup beef broth

Mix all ingredients together well. Shape into meatballs and bake in a 350*F oven for 20-25 minutes. Yummy. They are even better after they have simmered in spaghetti sauce for an hour or two.

After dinner, we worked on the garland on the staircase. When we were ready to put the lights on they didn’t work. ::sigh:: I use tiny rice lights on the staircase, so will have to go to Hobby Lobby to find replacements. We are in a small town (< 5000) and to get anything at all out of the ordinary we have to go an hour away. A trip we don’t like to make very often. I keep a running list and when we do go, I have several stores to stop at. I’ll have to make a trip soon.

We worked on the tree for the office / music room. The lights needed a lot of work. I do leave lights on most the trees during storage, which works fine, but sometimes there is a string that isn’t good. DH is able to fix most strings with our Lightkeeper Pro, which is indispensable during the holidays and has saved us a great deal of money. It repairs strings that won’t light. If you use a lot of lights, you need to find one of these.

http://lightkeeperpro.com/

One string of small lights on this particular tree was not repairable and had to be replaced. And there were a lot of burned out bulbs to replace. This tree also has bubble lights on it. I keep the bubble light wires on the tree for storage and store the light bulbs themselves in boxes. We had to count the bubble lights several times to be sure we weren’t leaving any empty sockets on the tree. All the work with the lights took a while. I am hoping to get the tree decorated today.

~~Rhonda

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bedtime

November 17, 2007 – 11:12 pm

It’s getting late. My sister has headed to bed. We worked hard today getting a lot of Christmas decorating done. AND I mowed the entire yard one last time for the season. It was a beautiful day out. Mowing takes about an hour and 30 minutes. Genny worked on decorating the mailbox while I mowed. I’ll post a picture of it tomorrow. Looks great!

We finished the living room except for the tree. The dining room is almost done. And we have worked our way through four bags of cranberries this evening making popcorn and cranberry strings for the living room tree. It takes six bags to make enough for the 9′ tree.

Pictures tomorrow. 🙂 Thanks for checking in to see how we’re doing.  ~~Rhonda

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