Family and holidays

I have been so busy of late as I am sure you all have been too. I have not been around much. Alot has been going on, you know the usual of getting ready for the holidays and then surviving them. I am truly disappointed that I didn't make that many cookies this year. I love baking truly I do but with everything happening with my hubs my heart wasn't really in the Christmas spirit this year. I have since realized how silly I am being and am pushing my way out of this little funk I am in. The boys did make gingerbread houses and we baked some sugar cookies that we were going to decorate with a friend but the boys ended up playing instead and my friend and I just talked while I oohed and head over her home school room.

OH and my One year anniversary of this blog passed on the 22nd as well. Do you remember that one, I had chopped ten inches off my hair to donate to Locks of Love. I had always wanted to do that. My sister was right though my hair just about is as long as it was before I cut it. It was above my shoulders this time last year. I guess my hair does still grow like a weed. Boy has a lot happened since I started this blog. I hope that I can make my blog better next year.

We went ice skating and had a great game day with our local home school group. My boys enjoyed both but I think they liked the ice skating a bit more. Fine by me it gets them to have a bit of exercise while they are having fun. This is supposed to be a bi-weekly thing so I think the boys may tire of it at some point. We also made homemade ornaments and almost homemade ornaments. I got some Styrofoam balls and we hot glued bits of fabric into them and then a loop so it could hang on the tree. The almost homemade ornaments were some of those cool plaster of Paris ornaments you can paint. We also took some beads and bells and put them on those pipe cleaners to make cute rings. I love, Absolutely LOVE homemade ornaments.

My grandparents put on the holidays every year. There is a huge and I mean huge feast to be had with several choices of deserts. One would think a restaurant should have this many choices but as Austin says Grandma makes the best food. I showed my mom my feeble attempt at knitting a scarf, my first mind you. And of course I should have known better because my mom looked at it and took half a minute to try and fix the dropped stitches and decided the best way to go would be to start over. I was almost done and she just took it apart and then started knitting telling me she was doing me a favor. HUH? that is my mom to the tee. That and when Chris was trying to be nice by getting some family pics my mom smacked me every time he took on of her. This caused my grandmother to stop her yearly reading of a Christmas book and tell me to stop. Of course it was all in fun. We exchanged our gifts and boy am I glad we do the secret Santa or I would be broke right now or no one would have gotten anything from us. I love going to my grandparents house they are the only sane people in my family everyone else is nuts. We all had such a wonderful evening.

The whole Clan. My mil in front with all the grand kids. I am standing next to my grandparents and of course both my mom and brother conveniently hid from the camera.

But here my hubs captured this shot of my brother with his best Friend and both their girlfriends. My brother is the one with the hat sort of center in the picture

My mom and sister both knitting. This is the scarf my mom unraveled and did me a "favor" by redoing it.

Colin gets money as usual. He loves money.

Here is my dad. I swear every picture he has these glasses up on his forehead. Honestly he looks so handsome when he smiles.

And of course a pic of my kids decorating my tree for me. I treasure this time, won't be long before I can have my tree look just the way I want but will miss the ornaments being in all the wierd places the kids put them.

How was your holiday? I sure hope good.

Vanessa