Toot Toot All Aboard

I was feeling pretty run down the day after Christmas, and the day after that as well.  Larry saw how exhausted and worn out I was and he and Joey went off on an adventure yesterday.  First they headed out to the California Railroad Museum in Old Sacramento.  They toured all the trains, checked out the station, and last but not least played in the Thomas Train children's area.  After doing all that they headed outdoors to take a walk around Old Sacramento.

They grabbed a hotdog or two for lunch and then shared an ice cream from one of the local vendors down town.

Larry determined that it was still to early to return so he stopped off at BounceTown on the way home and he and Joey had a boucning good time of it.  They have a two story slide that Joey just loves going up and then down on, plus all kinds of bounce houses to play in from basic to everything but the kitchen sink.  They stayed and played for quite some time until they'd both worked up a sweat and were worn out.  Once this stage was reached Larry decided it was time to head home and that's what they did.

He did his best to keep Joey awake so that perhaps we could get him back on schedule that night.  He ended up falling asleep at 6:00 only to wake back up at 7:30 pitching little fits.  We tryed to settle him back down, gave him juice and milk so he'd be able to choose for himself, and finally had to give up and just lock him in his room for the night until he crashed out again.  Took about an hour of his crying on and off, but finally he fell back to sleep and slept through the night until 6:00 AM.

Unfortunately he's woken with quite the cold - congestions, cough, and a whole lot of sneezing.  He keeps telling me that his nose hurts, that he hit it, but really it's just bugging him from the congestion.  Poor little guy.  Hopefully he'll get over it quickly and be back to his boisterous self.

Anyway, thank you Larry for giving me that break in time and letting me get some much needed rest.  I'm sure the memories you made with stay with Joey for quite a while.  I love you both.

Ho Ho Ho

Our Christmas celebrations were very nice.  We started them off having a nice meal on Christmas Eve at my sister Crystal's.  It was just she and her husband Jeff, and Jeff's Mom Sharon, plus Larry, Joe, Mom and I.  We just kicked back and had good conversation, then a fabulous dinner prepared by Crystal - Roast Pork with roasted potatoes and carrots, stuffing, and sourdough rolls.  It was all yummy.  Once we'd let our food digest we did a few rounds of Christmas carols, even singing the song my Grandma Hill had written years ago.  It made for a very nice celebration.

One Christmas morning we awoke and opened the presents from Santa and from one another.  This day started at 6:15 when Joey awoke and boy was he ever happy when he came out of his room to find a bicycle (or as he calls it motorcycle) from his Grandma.  He had a ball opening all his presents, and we had a ball watching him.

Then at 9:30 we headed over to Larry's parents for brunch and more gift exchanges.  We did a Dollar Store Christmas exchange which made gift giving quite a challenge for me.  Bonnie had prepared a feast for us.  Sweet Potato and sausage hash, sausage links, bacon, fried eggs, lasagna, bananna nut bread, monkey bread, fudge, candied pecans, hashbrown casserole, and I'm sure I'm missing one or two things.  All of it was delicious and of course we all overate and made ourselves miserable.

Once we'd finished eating Dad read the birth of Jesus from the Bible, and made us all get misty eyes and then he started the gift exchange off with a handmade gift for each of his children and their spouses.  He made us bread boards from the table that they had grown up with and Mom had added a poem explaining all that the table had been through on the back.  It was really beautiful and sentimental.  Larry and I loved it and used it at our Christmas dinner meal.

Then we exchanged our dollar store gifts, getting quite the ecclectic mix of things.  Mary and Eric went with a bath them for the women and cooking for the guys.  Mom and Dad went with cooking and Uncle Brian who cheated got me a 4C meassuring cup which was great cause I'd just broken ours and a candy thermometer which when I went to get mine the other day I realized had been stolen by Larry for some of his brewing experiments so it was the perfect gift.  Kellie and Chuck gave us wands and candy from the dollar store and then they too cheated and gave us personalized gifts - I got a beautiful candle warmer and Larry got a hydrometer for his brewing... at least I think that's what its called.

Joey and Elsa had so much fun opening their gifts, and then stealing the other persons that it was funny to watch.  Since we've come home Joey hasn't stopped playing with all the wonderful things that he received.  Thank you one and all for your thoughtful gifts.

On Christmas night we had Bonnie, Larry and Uncle Brian over for dinner.  Larry and I prepared a beautiful prime rib roast, mashed potatoes, carrots (that were undercooked) and greenbeans with a butter almond sauce.  It was all pretty good if I do say so myself.

Bye the end of the day I was exhausted and looking forward to bed.  Not so Joey.  It took Larry a couple of extra house to get him settled down and into sleep mode.

All in all they were wonderful holiday celebrations.

All things GiddyUp!

Joe loves the game giddy up, whether it's on my knee, Daddy's back or a mechanical horse.  I swear when he grows up he's gonna be a little cowboy.  Yesterday we went to the Dollar Tree and out front they have one of those mechanical horses and as soon as Joey saw it he wanted to ride.  I told him when we were done in the store if he were good and of course he was as good as could be.  So I loaded my purchases in the car and took him back to ride the horse.  He had so much fun I had to let him ride a 2nd time just so I could enjoy his enjoyment.

A Christmas Tree Hunting We Will Go

This year, due to weather, we did not cut down our own tree, but instead headed off to Mikey's Christmas Tree Lot on Sunrise.  This year I was in search of a Noble Pine, and one that wouldn't take up half of our living room.  We met Chuck and Kelly there at 4:00 and off we went in search of the perfect trees.  This was to be the girls year, we had final say, though of course the men had to have their input.

I kept having Larry pull out trees and set them side by side on the center aisle for comparison.  I'd choose a six, seven, even an eight foot tree to compare and Larry would drag out an additional 10, 11, and 12 foot variety.  Each one was supposedly better than the baby ones that I was choosing.  And Kelly and I kept having to tell them that they were not 'holes' in the trees, but intentional gaps since that was the type of tree I was going for.  I think all in all I must have said 100 times, "that's not a big gaping hole, it's an intentional gap, the way the tree is supposed to be structured".  Each time Larry would chuckle and go off in search of an even bigger tree.

Joey had a ball running around the whole time, in his own personal forest, yellin' Momma come, come, or Daddy here.  He was too cute.

After much deliberation and taking in Larry's input I chose my second favorite, a 7-foot beauty.  The first didn't pass the color test with Larry, and so my first choice went to another good home - Kelli and Chuck's.  We hauled our, and there's in the back of our truck and took first their's to their home and then ours back on home.  I have to admit I had a alterior motive for offering to take their tree for them as I wanted to see Kelli's early Christmas present, a darling little siamese mix kitty.  So I got some kitty cuddles, a quick cup of tea and then we were off towards home.  It made for a nice outing.

We put our tree up the next day, only to have it fall over, again, and again, and again.  Crystal came to our rescue with an appropriately sized tree stand and now we have a beautiful if "baby" tree in our living room and a nice white artificial tree set up in the family room.  Joe's had quite the fun time of it driving me crazy taking the balls off and playing toss with them.  Thank goodness their all plastic at his level.  Now if I could only teach him the right way to hang them back up, but I think that skill is going to have to wait for another year.

Larry

I just want to say for the record that I love my hubby.  He's always so supportive of anything I want to do, and in fact encourages me to get out and do things with my friends regardless of how much time it will take me away from the house.

I appreciate your thoughtfullness and all the help you give me with Joey.

Cake Decorating Continued

Crystal and I had a double class last night with our Wilton Course 2.  Unfortunately both of our Royal Icing batches were a bust.  Somewhere along the way we must have touched something that was tainted with grease - a spatula, a container, something and it made our icing break down.  You'd think no big deal, except last night was the night we were to be making all of our flowers for next weeks cake and ours just didn't hold up at all.  We were at least able to practice each style, but they definately were not keepers.  My friend JoAnne's icing was perfect and she made some really beautiful flowers all done in Christmas colors.

Now I have to make a new batch after I wash everything in Dawn with a touch of vinegar just to make sure any and all grease is removed.  Then I have to pray that I remember how to do each flower.  As it was my favorite, the daisy, is the one flower that the teacher couldn't remember how to do correctly so she was going to go home, practice and make enough daisies to provide each of us students with what we need.  Then she'll show us the proper way to make them next week.

I swore this was to be my last class, but my girlfriends are guilting me into continuing because otherwise there won't be enough participants to keep the classes going.  I'm not sure if I'm really enjoying it or not, though I do enjoy the company and the creativity aspect of it.  Oh well I guess only time will tell if I continue on or say enough is enough and that I've learned what I need to know to make Joey's birthday cakes.

Off to the Reindeer Games

My mother-in-love Bonnie orchestrated a chili night at her house this past weekend complete with reindeer games.  We had childi with all the trimmings - sour cream, onions, cheese and let's not forget the pickles.  Yes I said pickles, and unless you've tried it you don't know what your missing.  Pickles really bring out all the different flavors of your chili - who knew.  Plus we had cornbread, homeade cookies, pies, and egg nog cream puffs.  All of it was scrumptious.

After we had thoroughly stuffed our selves we played reindeer games.  We placed one game where you were an elephant mask and had to pick up rings using only your trunks.  Joey, Elsa and Larry particularly enjoyed this game.  I can only imagine what the photo's look like (lol).  Then we played the reindeer game where each of two teams gets a pair of pantyhose and some balloons and your task is to blow up the balloons, stuff the pantyhose to make anterles, then once complete one player on your team (yes that would be me) had to put the stuffed pantyhose on their heads and sing Jingle Bells all the way through.  My team was the winning team of course and I even through in a little dance while I sang.  It was just to much fun.

For a day that started off bad for me, almost where I didn't even go, but didn't want to miss out on the family fun and that was before I knew there would be games, and yet it ended on such a high note.  Thanks mom for organizing this fun get together, Larry, Joe and I totally enjoyed ourselves and the company of family and friends.

Children say the darndest things

I say to Joey, "Oh Joey you got chocolate on your pants."
Joey replies, "Oh sh*t."

Enough said

Let it SNOW!

We actually have snow here this morning and Joey is loving it.  He and Bubba would stay out in it all day if I let them and it's not even really sticking too much to the ground yet.  According to the news we're supposed to get two inches, but I'll believe it when I see it and if I do see it then we'll be attempting to make miniature snowmen out of it (lol).

Anyway here are a few photo's of Joey enjoying the first snowfall of the year in our neck of the woods.

Overnight Parties

Joey had his third overnight adventure... this time it was at Aunt Crystals.  He got to have her all to himself the first evening, and then his cousin Gracie came over in the morning to join in the fun.  Crystal said it all went pretty well.  She put him down at his usual bedtime, 7:00 PM, and he went pretty much without a fuss but she said she could hear him in their talking to himself and just moving about until almost 9:00 when he finally fell asleep.  From there it was smooth sailing, until he fell out of bed.  She went right in and calmed him down and he went right back to sleep until 6:45 the next morning.  He never sleeps in that late for me, but for Auntie Giggles, of course he'll sleep in late.  Of course Crystal was already awake because she kept listening for him from about 3:30 on which is when Larry usually gives him a fresh bottle and a fresh diaper, but Joey apparently had other things on his mind as he slept right through this time frame.

Gracie got there about 9:30 and from that point on it was all things princess.  He played baby with Gracie, with Gracie being the baby and him feeding her from a teacup, they played with the princess dolls, had a tea party, and colored their little hearts out.  Gracie taught him how to share better and was just so gracious with him.  She also taught him the Clean Up song when it came time to pick everything up.  All in all they had great fun together.

Mom and I headed over around mid-afternoon to hang out with them and then to have dinner.  Beth joined us about 6:30 and we sat down to a fabulous meal of b-b-q tri tip, homeade potatoe salad, and corn on the cobb.  She'd also made fried chicken tenders for the kids, and cut up some melon.  We all ate good that night, ending with toffee brittle ice cream bars.

I got Joey dressed for night time and then we headed hom around 8:00 and I put one very sleepy boy down to bed.

Joey loves every moment he gets to spend with Aunty Crystal, and she loves her special times with him to.  I'm lucky to have such a generous sister who's willing to give up her free time so that Larry and I can have a little bit of couple time to ourselves.  Thanks sis.  We love you.

Cakes, Cakes everywhere

Well Crystal and I just finished the last class of the four week cake decorating course we were taking.  We learned basic icing techniques, how to space plan your design and how to make roses.  It was a lot of fun, but a lot of work to.  I finished two cakes during the course - my first being a rainbow cake and the second a rose cake.  I missed out on one of the cakes, a clown design, because my fibromyalgia was acting up so bad that I had to miss class.  According to Crystal I didn't miss much (lol).

Anyway here are photo's of my two finished cakes.  I say finished because I had to have them finished for class, but I also made several practice cakes at home.  Larry became a favorite at work because his coworkers got to eat all of my efforts, both for class and the ones I made just for the fun of it.

Larry's got a FEVER

Christmas fever that is.  He went full out first on the lights of our home and our exterior decorations (even stealing some of my thunder by utilizing items I'd purchased to use inside - little sneak), and now with his desk.  I think it's safe to say that he is the first with his decorations up and he did a marvelous job showing his love of all things christmas.  But don't take my word for it, check it out yourselves.