Christmas Decorations

Christmas Tree

 I have cut down on my decorations this year.  Usually I decorate two Christmas trees but decided to just put one up in the living room this year.

The Christmas music on the piano is some old books and sheet music that I used as a child as I learned how to play the piano.  I still love to play, "Santa Clause is Coming to Town".  Displaying it lets me reminisce.

The Wonderful Counselor picture frame is new this year. I found this on someone's blog but cannot remember where .  Sorry - I wish I could provide a link.

Christmas Music

Our church choir sang today a musical called "Tapestry of Light: A Celtic Christmas" by Joseph Martin and Joseph Martin came to our church and accompanied us.  That was very special.

Our families gather for Christmas this year on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  We will be very busy those two days with extended family and our immediate family festivities.

I have quite a bit to accomplish before those two days.  Seems like there never is enough time!

Foyer Display

Kitchen table display

Shrimp Boil

Olive

Cora

My granddaughters visited over Thanksgiving and we had a good time beading necklaces.  We also played barbies, playdough and read books.  We squeeze in a lot in a short time!

New sunroom

Christina, Cindy and Jo enjoying the shrimp boil

On Sunday, after Thanksgiving, we had a shrimp boil with my husband's family at our house.  We spread out to our new sunroom to make plenty of room for all.

We also had salad, apple salad, and corn bread to go along with the boil and pheasant as an appetizer.  We went a little overboard on the food so sent home food with everyone at the end of the day.


Everyone really enjoyed the boil and it was fun to do something different than turkey.

Happy Thanksgiving

Big plans for Thanksgiving?  We are hosting both sides of the family this year.  One on Friday and the other on Sunday.  Thursday we plan to help out at our church's community Thanksgiving Dinner.  I have an apple pie to prepare for that day to donate.

Friday, my family will come and we plan on eating out and then dessert at our home.  This will be a smaller group with my parents, brother and his wife and my husband and son.

Sunday, my husband's family will be coming over and we plan to do a shrimp boil.  We are using Paula Deen's recipe:  http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/low-country-boil-recipe/index.html.  This will be fun. Everyone will have already had turkey so we wanted to do something different.  You put paper or wax paper on the table and just roll the food out onto the table.   This is a bigger group of about 13 people.

My daughter and family will be coming by Wednesday prior to Thanksgiving on their way to her husband's family.  I'm looking forward to seeing them and playing with the girls.

Please have a Blessed Holiday.

Birthday

I have been very busy this last month and haven't been able to post for awhile.  I have gone to three conferences where I exhibit for my company and also have had a cold, so I've either been away or not feeling well.

I have been able to keep up reading my blog reader, so I have kept up with that aspect of blogging.

One exciting thing that has happened since I last posted, is I had a birthday!  That in itself is not that exciting, but my husband bought me an ipad ... that is exciting!  I love technology and so love to get some of the new toys.  I'm really enjoying it and learning about new apps to download.

One of the fun toys on the ipad is Facetime.  I'm going to play with that soon and post a funny picture soon.

Conference Planning - Branson

 My husband had a planning session for an upcoming conference in Branson.  I traveled with him and we stayed at "The Chateau on the Lake".  It is a very beautiful hotel overlooking Table Rock Lake.

While visiting Branson, I was also able to do some outlet shopping at Tanger. I bought some jeans at Levi, a long sleeved shirt at Banana Republic and some Christmas gifts for my family.  It was a relaxing short vacation with beautiful weather two of the three days.

The trees are just beginning to turn in this area, a couple more weeks and it will really be picturesque. The last picture is from my hotel balcony.  Great room and view.

Picture from the hotel balcony

Sisters, Sisters

My granddaughters ... sweet sisters.  

I will enjoy watching their friendship and love for each other develop.

Photography

Some interesting shots I took while in Chicago.  I love my camera and love to take pictures.  That's a good day for me ... just taking pictures.