Baby Shower...........

Today we had Danielle's baby shower. It was such a good time, and she got some really nice things for her baby, Jarmon Adriele, who is due in mid January.

Christmas.........

Our Christmas celebration was great! Plenty of good food, and fabulous company.

Traditions....Tourtiere pie................

I have been up since 7:00 this morning, and am now sitting down for the first time all day. Been busy shopping and baking. Today I made my tourtiere pies. Six of them!! For those of you who don't know what they are...........it is usually a tradition of Quebec heritage to serve these on Christmas or Christmas eve. They are made with beef and/or pork. My family always served these on Christmas eve with homemade baked beans and homemade pickles and relishes. My family doesn't like baked beans, so I have carried on the tradition of having the pies on Christmas eve, along with 50 other appetizers. I brought one of the pies over to my daughter Danielle's place, and I delivered two to my neighbors, Vern and I will have one for dinner tonight, one will go to my sister in laws, and we will have one Christmas eve. I love Christmas...........and all the family traditions!!

Retirement!!

My first day of my new chapter in my life........RETIREMENT!!!! I am sooooo excited, and am sure I will find plenty to keep me busy. Woohoo, and guess what I am doing? Laundry, cleaning the house, and baking of course. Not exactly what I had in mind, but it is Christmas afterall, and I need to get ready for our Christmas eve feast. I've been baking for a week now..............I am almost done, and I will start putting my tins of cookies and fudge together. Once that is done..... I will start cooking for Christmas eve, an endless menu of delicious appetizers. mmmmm Good stuff!!

Get cooking!!

Spent most of the day cooking.............oatmeal cookies, peanut butter chip cookies, peppermint cookies, peanut butter cookies..................it is never ending. I also made some "buck-eyes"....filling of peanut butter, powdered sugar, and rice crispies, dipped in chocolate..........mmmm good! Also dipped some mini ritz peanut butter crackers. This year I did something different, and made up batches of cookie dough, and instead of cooking up all the dough, I rolled each batch into logs, rapped in plastic rap, and will cut and bake them when I am ready. These are just a sampling of the cookies. mmmmmm sooooo good!!

Let the Cooking begin!!

I started cooking today. Those of you who don't know, every year on Christmas eve we do a feast of multiple appetizers. This is a tradition that we started years ago, being in the Air Force, away from family. Christmas Eve we would invite friends and co-workers to our home for great appetizers. What started out to be about 1/2 dozen people, now is about 35 to 40 people. It is a great time, lots of laughter, great food, and great company. I live a very calm life, even when there is turmoil, my life is calm. But..........come this time of year, I am totally busy, busy, busy. Over the years I have found shortcuts to make our Christmas eve feast easier on me. Today I prepared a couple of appetizers a head of time.............pizza pinwheels and mini pigs in the blanket. Come Christmas eve, I just need to pop these little minis in the oven. Saves a lot of time, as we get closer to Christmas. I also made two batches of fudge, peanut butter and chocolate, I have two more batches to make. These along with my cookies will be put in tins and given to our favorite neighbors, family and friends. Tomorrow I will make up my tourtiere meat pies and mini meatballs and freeze them. Then I will start making up batches of cookie dough. Some I will be able to freeze, others will keep in the fridge until I am ready to bake them. On top of all the cooking, I will manage to finish my Christmas shopping, write those select few Christmas letters, and keep my sanity!!!!

December journal............

With all the things that need to be done, I am still able to keep up with my December Journal. Here are a few more pages that I have finished. Still have to journal the last few days, and will share them with you another time.

Busy time of year.......

Busy! Busy! Busy! This is a busy time of year for me, but seems it is even busier, and I have only worked about 5 days in three weeks!! I have finally got my house decorated, I mailed out my Christmas cards yesterday, and I have made about a dozen gift card holders, we even started doing some Christmas shopping. I still have a lot more I want to do, and hope to get everything done in time. I have started my grocery list, and will start my never ending cooking this week. mmmmm good stuff........peanut butter fudge, chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal cookies, sugar cookies, the list is endlist. Oh and one more thing..............I only have 2 official more work days left!!! Woohoo!! How exciting is that?

Christmas Journal, pre-december, page 1 & 2

Here is the first few pages of my Christmas Journal. Prior to December, Vern went to his parents to help take decorations out of the attic, and to put lights on their house. Father and son working together, a moment to remember. Page 1- I decided to post pictures of Christmas past. Of course I couldn't decide on what pictures to include and what not to, so I got a bit carried away, but thought it would be a good starting point. Page 2-pictures of some angels I had around the house that I pulled out from behind things on my shelves......angels, love angels! I do believe in them, those that are here on earth, and those that have left us.............who continue to watch over us. It is a comfort to know we are being watched over on this journey of our lives.

Christmas angels...

Today is December 1st!! Can you believe it? I can't. It seems December got here sooner than I had expected.
Being December 1st, I needed something to put in my first page of my December journal. I plan on doing something
everyday, that has something to do with Christmas. Today I wore a red sweater to work. Is that "Christmas-sy"?
Not really, so I came home from work and thought I would start putting up some decorations. Well before I could even think to start doing that I had to dust and do a little cleaning. As I was dusting in the our living room I came across a few of my Christmas decorations tucked away behind pictures.
Here are a few angels given to me over the years.

Christmas Journal

Well Thanksgiving is over, and it is time to concentrate on Christmas, which will be here before we all know it. My daughter Melissa thought that these Making Memories recipe books would make great Christmas Journals to document the 25 days before Christmas. We both

got one, and we started to alter them. Each day in December we plan to add pictures and journal in them, add favorite recipes, which I have many and at Christmas time, when Melissa comes home we will share each other's books. It sounds like a great idea, and I can't wait to see hers. I wish I had done something like this when my girls were little. What a great way to capture the holiday.

Time to cook...........

The cooking has begun!! Can you believe that Thanksgiving is only two days away? It came up on us sooooo fast. Today I cooked a pumpkin pie and tried a new topping for my sweet potatoes. The topping is delicious with coconut, pecans, and brown sugar. MMMMM delicious! Yesterday I cooked up a few dozen cookies, and tomorrow I will make my apple pie and cheesecake. Can't wait to dig in. :)

Autumn cards...............

I worked on these cards today...........Autumn cards/ Thanksgiving cards. Can you believe Thanksgiving is this week!! Wow time sure flies by. I intended to work on ideas for Christmas cards, and ended up making these instead. I am having a hard time coming up with an idea for Christmas cards......other than they will have a distressed/vintage look to them. Am sure I will come up with something, it had just better be soon, Christmas will be here before we know it! :):)