Christmas Dance

I almost forgot to add these in...here are this year's pictures of Taylor and Shelby before the Stearns Christmas Dance.  They just get prettier and prettier every year.

Christmas Day

Here are the few shots we took on Christmas Day...a good time on a 90 minute nap.  Almost looks like Christmas Eve in the dayllight, doesn't it?

Merry Christmas!!! and a warm hello for the week leading up to Happy New Year!

Christmas Eve in Birtville as well as the whole week here, was wonderful.  Because I had gotten my act together early this year, I had a very calm week before Christmas.  I had a chance to make cookies, wrap gifts at my own speed, STAY HOME instead of being on the road every day, and just plain ole' enjoy Christmas.  I worked Christmas Eve at the nursing home from  11p-7am on Christmas morning.  When I got home, Adam had left the Christmas lights on for me so it was really peaceful and quiet.  I managed to get a few minutes rest before everyone got up and then the day began.  Gift exchange, breakfast in front of the fire, a nice seafood chowder and a movie with the boys, all made for a wonderful day.  I was also in bed by 5 pm and slept until about 10 the next morning.  Not as young as I used to be for sure.

Because I was working our Christmas Eve in Birtville was quieter than usual.  Julie, Alex, Jude, and Jett were here and spent the evening.  Adam and I both got some pics and here are some of the pics of both the Birtville Christmas Eve and our Christmas Day.

Ok, so we've got the cookies covered....

Beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

While it's all done now...this is what it looks like in the making

The reindeer is one of my two favorite Christmas decorations.  It was made by Adam when he was in Kindergarten or first grade.   He came home from school one day and the conversation went like this: "Hi honey, was your day at school?"
"It was great Mom.  By the way I need a panty ho for school tomorrow".  Hmmmm..." You need a panty ho?  What's a panty ho?"  "It's one leg of your panty hose!"  Yes, it made sense to a 5-year-old. 

This is my other favorite Christmas decoration.  Justin made this when he was in kindergarten or first-grade.All the money in the world couldn't buy anything better!

Happy "hohohoHolidays from all of us in Birtville!

Day before Thanksgiving 2011

It's that time of year again and where has the year gone?  I last wrote just after we got back from NYC in October and here we are only 8 or so weeks later and it's almost Christmas.  It's been a fairly eventful fall.  First off, the weather has been awesome!  A very nice fall indeed.  We've had a couple of big snowstorms but so far nothing has lasted very long.  We had one storm a few days before Halloween that dumped about a foot of snow in various places, and then one the day before Thanksgiving that dumped another foot of snow.  Both of those melted very quickly and right now we still have green grass.  Had some flurries this morning which made it very slippery driving for awhile but I was at home sooooooooooooooooooooo.....that's right, folks--I wasn't rammin' the roads at the time.

As you can see, Shelby and Taylor were Christmas Elves.  This was for the Christmas parade in Millinocket and they were Elves for their Auntie Dianne at her Spa, called "Steel Magnolia's",  They were pretty damned cute, if I must say so myself.

Some of you also know that Justin now has his own place. It's a really nice new condo over in a new area in South Portland and he seems very happy there.  It's so quiet here without him but Adam is still around and he makes up for it.  The next time I'm over there I'll have to get some pictures to post.  For now though, here is a picture of his Christmas tree.

Justin also had his appendix out in October about a week after we got home from NYC.  Wasn't something he elected to do by any stretch of the imagination but he is now doing very well and back to his normal activity pretty much.

Adam had a good semester.  He's trying to get his grading completed so he can relax and enjoy the rest of the "year" and the holidays.  He's having his wisdom teeth out this coming Monday, the 19th and hopefully he'll be all healed or at least mostly healed by Christmas Eve.  He and Justin have been able to see some rock concerts this fall and even meet a few of the bands.

They also played soccer this fall until Justin's appendix blew up and Adam tore his quadriceps muscle.  Here is a picture of their team.  It was a good fall and as soon as we get some Christmas snow, it will be an even better Winter.