Merry Christmas 2010

Christmas at the McPherson's.

This year we had our Christmas celebration at our son's home. We have done our gift giving on Christmas eve for as long as I can remember, but it is really a convenient thing now, since DIL Kim has several family celebrations and having ours at a set time every year helps to keep things a little less complicated.

Kim mad a lovely dinner for us, and we all contributed, but she did most of the work, and the cooking. I really appreciated it, this year I was just not feeling as energetic. So it was quite a nice change.

They have a beautiful home and had it decorated so nicely. This huge tree is in the living room.

 The beautiful fire place and mantel is in the family room.

Get a load of this loot.

 We let the dogs go first, Tucker and Max and Diesel had fun opening their gifts, too.

Pappy gets to start this year, oldest to youngest.

 Kimmy got a pretty package

 Billy got some good stuff too.

I think Dawn got exactly what she asked for............

I managed to get this one, forlorn shot of Bailey.

And here is the mess that we usually create,,,,,,, quite a lot of trash.

There were some members missing. Our daughter and her family went to SC to spend time with Dan's family. I am hoping that we will get to see them soon.

Time to rest up as the year 2010 draws to a close.

More Christmas at our Home

 Around the living room.

Christmas concert

Monday evening we attended a Christmas Concert (the politically correct call it winter) at our Grand daughter's school. The program was called " Forever Christmas"  and was directed by Mrs. Angela Viebrock. It was a lot of fun to watch these children perform their music after all the practice they had put in.

Now, here's a disclaimer, I haven't known how to operate the video application on my camera for very long, so I didn't get the videos done very well, but at least I got some decent shots of Bailey. I didn't notice that there were any other children there, she's the star as far as we're concerned.

 That's our girl in the center. The director had the kids split up the solos and specials so that each child or group only sang a couple of lines. This was probably great for most of the kids, they they tend to be pretty shy at this age.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Christmas Shennanigans

I began collecting Santas a long time ago, there is a very dear story as to why, but that is for another day.

The big Santa is one that I bought several years ago upon our return to Kansas City. It was in 2002, which had been an especially rough year for us, and when I saw this guy I really wanted to buy him, but he was pretty pricey for me. But as I wandered into the little shop after Christmas that year, I found him on sale, marked down ridiculously low, so home he came. He has been king of the Santas at my house ever since.

 One year however, around December 8 or 9, my treasured Santa Claus disappeared. It was quite a blow, and he was away for months. Ransom notes were received and the Santa nappers were clever, but they never seemed to inspire confidence that Chris would ever be returned. They took him around the world and sent racy and frightening photos, but still refused to return him.

Finally he came securely packaged in a tight fitting box, and now he has regained his rightful place among the other santas and elfin folk.

 Every thing seemed quite normal until a few days ago.

Somehow this Santa has never seemed quite like his old self and this year things have gotten a bit out of control.
I found a little Precious girl yesterday and since then things have been wild around here.

It seems Santa has designs on Preciousness and even locks her into his candy cane prison when he has to be away, checking on the elves and reindeer.

I've heard him talking about a Christmas eve wedding. I don't know what's going on.

Missing Girl

Well, I was cleaning up the kitchen annex, uh, spare bedroom where all the kitchen stuff has been stored all year while we are still working on the new kitchen. As I was doing this I found this poor little lady in a heap, I picked her up and dusted her off, I thought I would post her picture here in case anyone recognizes her. I believe she has been in a box for close to a year or more, wonder why no one has missed her preciousness.

I sure hope she finds her home for Christmas. Maybe she's from a lifetime TV movie.

Christmas Time is Near

I know, I have been absent for quite some time, sometimes I honestly have nothing I think is interesting enough to share. But I have been busy getting our house all cute for Christmas. I have so much stuff and my house now is not as large as the homes we have enjoyed in the past. I had enough stuff to loan to a friend who was hosting a Christmas home's tour. She did a beautiful job and all the ladies that visited enjoyed it very much.

I took some photos of my home and invite you to relax with a cup of tea or a mug of cocoa and enjoy as we make the rounds of santas, nativities, and snowfolk. I hope you enjoy the tour.

This is the hallway which leads to the bedrooms, a small book case is here along with a pretty shelf just above it.

The nice looking young man is my husband when he graduated from high school. The baby boy is our grandson Michael.

This is the place where some cute snow folk have come to live.

I have a couple of Nativity sets, this first one is on a little shelf in my bedroom. The larger one is in the dining room.

That's all for now, I'll add more later.

I am so Proud

I would like you to see my handsome and talented grandson. He is on a You Tube Video taken as his school and other youngsters from Pennsylvania sang in Praise to the LORD in the PA capitol rotunda.

They participated in two performances of an All-state choir. They sang in the capitol rotunda in Harrisburg. This is a video of it that we've found on youtube. Michael is 3rd from the right in the 2nd row from the top. He's the first boy in that row - next to two girls.

I know you can't really see him well, but the music is lovely and the song they chose is a great testimony to our LORD.

Well, it's been a while

Where have I been you might ask, well,,,,,,, I have been sewing and sewing, but not really making anything. I have been playing with my sewing machine and testing the stitches which are built into it. I have had this machine since my eldest daughter was in kindergarten or first grade and there are applications I have never used. I think I will use them now that I am becoming a quilting freak.
I bought a walking foot, also and have been playing with this to see exactly how it works and why everyone in quiltingdom says 'you have to have one'.

I have also been trying to figure out how to organize my scrap booking space to minimize a cluttered and just plain trashy look.
So, no I am not away on a trip, just not doing enough interesting things to blog about.

Kiss a Veteran

And I'm proud to be an American,

where at least I know I'm free.

And I won't forget the men who died,

who gave that right to me.

~Lee Greenwood

When I was 18 years old, and fresh out of Lafayette High School, I joined the US Air Force. It seemed at the time the only course available to get a strong and positive direction for my life. Little did I know what God had planned for me and how dramatically my life was about to change.

As it turns out, I don't seem to be able to put my hands on the pictures that I wanted to post today, so I will continue to search and when I find them, you'll get to see what handsome people these veterans used to be.

Did you kiss a veteran today? I did, thank one, then, if you are grateful for our freedoms.

Me and My Gal

I spent a couple of hours with my darling daughter a few days weeks ago. The whole idea was she was going to run and I was going to attempt to walk the dogs..........they're big and when they get the idea to go after a squirrel or another dog it can be a challenge.
She also had the idea to take a picture of herself with or next to a 40 MPH road sign. This was to be sent to a friend's friend for the friend's 40th birthday, which was on 10/10/10. I wonder if her mom planned that?

We set out to English Landing park in Parkville, MO. and the only signs we saw were these.

 So we took a couple of pictures of some speed limit signs, and then we played with the dogs. Tucker, the tan little toodle doodle tried to drive the car when we got out to take the pictures, but he reluctantly got back in the back seat when we got back in the car.



The boys love playing rope, and this time for a moment they shared.



 Dawn was kind of up a tree, since all the speed limit signs out here were 20, or 35 miles an hour, I think we even saw a 45, but not what we were looking for.

 We saw this sign with a phone number for anyone needing to rent an apartment, just happened to end in 40, so we thought it would work. Now it was getting pretty dark so we headed home.
Wouldn't you know we found this right out on the main road near our homes.

All that running around for nothing, didn't even get a walk or a run in, but we found the sign.

Happy Birthday to you Lonnie.