Happy New Year!

It's been a busy few weeks around here, so I have a lot to catch up on! We celebrated our 27th anniversary the week before Christmas. It turned out that we had a church choir rehearsal/party that night, so we went out to eat before the party. I gave DH a new coffee mug...are you hypnotized yet?
Now you can read the outside of the mug! Unfortunately, it is too large to fit in our coffee maker, but I still like it!
DH removed the door off the "water closet" in our master bathroom. We never close the door to the toilet area anyway and the door blocked the light switches just inside the bathroom.
He took off the moulding pieces on the door frame edge and patched where the hinges and plate were. Here is a shot of the moulding on another door frame...
And this is how it looks where DH removed the moulding and hinges - what a great patching job!
DD and I made a couple of batches of peanut butter cookies to give to the orchestra members who played at church on Christmas Eve. Most of them turned out great (although you would never know that those were bell-shaped peanut butter cups that we put on top)...
A few of the cookies in the final batch didn't fare quite as well - I walked away and came back to find little chocolate blobs under the cooling rack! We gave some of the holey cookies to my brother-in-law and told him we'd taken all the calories out of his cookies. :-D I embroidered shirts for myself...
and for DH...
and for DD (DS has a Bah Humbug shirt to wear for Christmas)...
And I got the most awesome gift from DH for Christmas - a Segway!
DD and I spotted these deer behind our house - they only look like they are eating DH's newly- planted grass...
So, on Tuesday I looked out the window and didn't see the hunter's blind behind our house. The chair was still there however, which led me to believe that the blind wasn't gone because the hunter had come back for it - he would have taken his chair too.
So, DD and I took a hike down back to see if we could find the blind. DD spotted it in the pond!
We decided to try and get it out before the temps dropped and the pond froze around the blind. We tried several different sticks that we found lying around, but they all broke.
We finally got it out - DD pushed with a stick from her side and I pulled with a stick from my side. Here it is after we got it out of the water...
We carried the blind and the folding chair up to the driveway so the blind could dry out. I guess if the hunter ever shows up looking for them, he'll have to knock on the door and ask for them.
Have a wonderful 2009!

"O Christmas Tree"

Just a quick note today to post a couple of photos of our Christmas tree. In my last post, I wrote that we cut down a tree on our property and used the top of it for our Christmas tree. It has a huge gap on one side and no branches in the back so it looks like the tree was cut in half!

Here is what it looks like with decorations on it. This is the fullest side and the one we see most often...

And here is the gappy side. I actually like having that big old gap - it makes watering the tree really easy this year! No more crawling under the tree to water it! LOL!
The gifts are all wrapped, I've finished writing our Christmas letter (but they aren't ready to mail yet), and the packages were mailed yesterday. We still need to get the letters ready to go, put away all the wrapping supplies, and do some baking. And I'm wondering what else I need to do that I've forgotten! :-D

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Freshness guaranteed!

So, we decided to walk our property after church today to see if we might be able to find a tree suitable for use as a Christmas tree. We discovered that the ponds are partially frozen, but with the warmer weather today and tomorrow I bet the ice doesn't last long.
In a couple of different locations we found corn cobs. DH thinks that hunters put the corn out to attract the deer. We don't know if these are from this year or if they've been on here for a long time.
One of the trees down by the river has a large nest in the top - not sure what, if anything, lives there...
So, we found this tree which was growing too close to the hardwood tree and decided to see if the top of it would work as a Christmas tree...
DH decided that the chainsaw was the way to go...
Cutting down the tree (we think it's a blue spruce)...
TIMBER!!!!!
I can't believe that DH carried the tree by himself all the way up to the house! It was a heavy tree!
The tree was a bit sparse on one side so we put that side toward the door. The trunk is a bit crooked, so we had to tie it up to insure that it won't tip over.
There is a bit of a bare area on one side, but once we hang some of my longer ornaments in that space, it won't look so bad...
It does, however, look very funny from the side - it looks like half a tree!
Here is a shot of the river - I took 4 photos when we were down near the river, and stitched them together into a panoramic. Click on the photo to see it better...
And DH found another golf ball for DD while we were out looking for a tree!

So, we didn't have to buy a tree this year, we took down a tree that needed to come down so a nearby tree can grow, and the freshness of the tree is certainly guaranteed this year!

We have mirrors! And shelves!

It's been a long time coming, but we now have mirrors in our master bathroom! We had to special order the one for over my sink/vanity area, but it finally arrived. DH made frames for them to match the frames on the cabinet doors...

Here is DH's mirror - we'll have to put some artwork up on the blank wall...
DH also built me 2 more shelves in the utility closet across from the powder room. He installed 2 outlets so I can plug in phone/GPS chargers and my sweeper vac.
I managed to get a lot of my house decorating done. The goal was to get it done in time for the church women's dinner party that I hosted last night. I had everything done except for the tree, and it (for us) is still a tad too early to get the tree. I think we'll probably get the tree this weekend. Here is the fireplace with my new wreath over the mantel...
I hung greens around the border of the great room on the valance. I had to get up and down off the ladder every loop in order to move the ladder - it was a good thigh workout! In order to get the swags even, I laid out each section on the floor next to a tape measure and connected a wire ornament hanger to the greens every 3 feet. Then I just had to make sure the bottom of the swag hit the bottom of the valance and there was no need to measure where to hang each hook.
The Santa/Reindeer quilt and nativity are in the entryway...
Underneath the table I put all kinds of stuffed animals and toys, most of them belonging to our kids over the years (and some that even belong to DH and I when we were little).
The stairs were adorned with lights and more greenery...
We set up the tables for my dinner party on Sunday night and I set them and decorated them on Monday. I was expecting 15 guests (plus me) for the third year in a row. There must be something about the number 16 and our women's dinner - they are not the same exact women every year either. Interesting...
Here are the Santa napkins on the table settings - no one wanted to use the napkins for fear of ruining them!
And other place setting...
So, some of the next projects on the list are to find tiles for the backsplash of the beverage area, and to find floor tile for the floor at the bottom of the basement stairs (that we can see when we look down over the stair railing). Here is the beverage area that we want to tile...
I'm thinking I'd like to bring in some of the red color from the adjoining family room. Here is one with very narrow tiles (1/4") in shades of red...
This one has several colors in it which would pull in the colors of the cabinets, counter, and the red from the other room. It seems a little dark to me though, so I'm just not sure. I also have samples of smaller red squares in colors similar to the above tile. Maybe we can combine this tile with some of the red squares, or something...
And in the continuing saga of our hunter...He has never returned - his blind is still down in back of the house, collapsed from the wind. It's very strange...

Home for the Holidays...

This post was written for Houseblogs.net as part of a sweepstakes sponsored by SC Johnson’s Right@Home.

Decorating for Christmas this year will be a lot different from previous years. We lived in our last house for 11 years, and have only lived in this one for 3 months. I had gotten in the habit of decorating the same way over the years, so it should be fun to figure out how to decorate our new house.

I guess our first step will be to find the decorations! The basement is not yet in any kind of order, although I can see some of our Christmas decorations amid the jumble!
Here are some more decorations. I used to gather all our Christmas-themed stuffed animals and some of the stuffed animals that the kids played with when they were little and I had a collection on the floor in our entryway by the front door.
DH has started to organize down in the basement. He bought 6 sets of these plastic storage shelves to put all the boxes on...
This December will be the third year in a row that I have hosted the women's dinner for our church. Last year I used a snowman theme for the party. I embroidered redwork snowmen on the dinner napkins and had snowman take-home ornaments and chocolates for everyone. The past two years we had 16 women over for the dinner. I had two tables set up in the eat-in kitchen for 8 of the women...
And the other 8 table settings were on the dining room table...
Here is a close-up of one of the place settings...
And another place setting...
This year's theme is a Santa theme, so I've started stitching the Santa napkins...
We have a new mantel to decorate this year. DH's grandmother made all of us felt stockings when she was still alive and we always hang those for Christmas. I think they will look good on our new mantel...
A couple of years ago I decided to gather together all the Santas that we have collected over the years, instead of having them spread around the house. They made a nice display...
Here is a close-up of some of my Santa tree ornaments...
The other thing I do to prepare for the holiday is to sew gifts. Here is a purse that I made for DH's niece a couple of years ago, along with a matching mirror...
And I made one for her sister also...
Of course, we have to decorate the tree! We haven't decided where to put the tree in our new house yet.
I posted this quilt a couple of days ago. I'm glad to have it done so I can use it to decorate the house this year...
And I have to find my Christmas purse, because it just won't seem like Christmas without it! The reindeer's antlers are lighted and flash on and off!
I know it isn't even Thanksgiving yet, but Christmas is coming (and I have to start early because I make so much by hand). What are you going to do to get ready for Christmas this year?