Happy New Year!

 Well, another year gone. This was a hard year in our world, but I hope all of you found lots of moments of joy in between the hard times. One thing that our family really enjoyed this year was family movie night. We took turns picking movies so we ended up with a strange variety of movies. Here are the 52 movies we watched this year. Note ~ all of our children were teens or adults this year so many of these movies are not appropriate for young viewers. 

1. Hercules
2. Mulan
3. Ratatouille
4. Tin Tin
5. Tangled
6. The Cat Returns
7. Kiki's Delivery Service
8. Adams Family
9. Howl's Moving Castle
10. Mr. and Mrs. Smith
11. Doolittle 
12. Hunger Games
13. Romancing the Stone
14. Lady and the Tramp
15. The Terminal
16. The horror of Dracula
17. The Boy Who Would Be King
18. Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
19. Gravity
20. Paddington Bear
21. Paddington Bear II
22. The Thomas Crown Affair
23. Roxanne
24. Legal Eagles
25. Indiana Jones
26. Indiana Jones III
27. Kindergarten Cop
28. Going in Style
29. The Grand Bohemian Hotel
30. True Grit
31. Pride, Prejudice and Zombies
32. Pride and Prejudice
33. Robot Battle Angel
34. Air Force One
35. Kung Fu Panda
36. Brave
37. Mad Max Fiery Road
38. My Neighbor Totoro
39. Ada Astra
40. Spirited Away
41. Knives Out
42. Nine
43. No Time to Die
44. 1917
45. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
46. Grinch
47. The Christmas Chronicles
48. The Christmas Chronicles II
49. Jingle All the Way
50. Gremlins
51. The Muppets Christmas Carol
52. Die Hard

I hope you have a wonderful New Year. 

Blessings, Dawn

Merry Christmas

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas. We had a very nice and peaceful day. We started the day off with a breakfast of scrambled eggs, grapes, turkey sausage and pancakes. We then moved on to gifts. 

Rebekah picked a blue, silver and gold theme this year. She wrapped and organized the gifts around the tree (all but the ones for herself). She really loves wrapping gifts, and her organizing skills come out in this process. I decided to take Before and After photos this time, because the tree although lovely was also a little bit embarrassing to me this year. It just looked like such excess. I was raised a Quaker with very simple delights, and sometimes all of this glamour feels like the meaning of the season is somewhat lost. Under the gift wrap, however, there were simple and meaningful gifts that will be treasured and shared. 

The tree in all its splendor with our family's gifts, as well as gifts for my Mother. 

We built a tunnel behind the gifts and tree with their scratching cubes so the cats could run around the tree without messing up the ornaments or gifts. They played a great deal behind the tree and didn't knock down a single ornament! I will have to remember that trick.

Elijah got a cat carrier backpack so that he can take Rosie on walks. He also was excited by his lava lamp, new belt and guitar calendar.

Eve was a huge fan of the surf shop scratching house.

Rosie is ready for a Christmas walk.

Such spoiled kitties

Bath bombs and chocolate. What more can a Mom ask for?
I also got another year of my blog made into a book.

Rebekah bought off of eBay the seven quarters that I was missing from my National Park Quarter collection. It felt wonderful to complete a project that has been in the making for 11 years. My father started our family on this activity, and now he is gone; however, something of him lives on in this project.

The family got three new games for Christmas. Crack the Case was found at a thrift store for one dollar and had never been played. 

My dear husband never buys himself anything and needed a bit of spoiling. We gave him the plush new robe, lots of books, coffee and an overhaul to his wardrobe.

Tim got a stack of retired magazines from his favorite magazine, White Dwarf.  Rebekah had found them at a thrift store for a steal. He also got lots of art supplies and some models.

Rebekah especially loved her new blanket, travel blender and clothes.

Dinner was extra fun this year with our fancy Christmas Crackers that were found on half price last year. We always have Christmas Crackers, but this Robin Reed brand had better treats in them than usual.

My attempt at Christmas tree napkins

A few days before Christmas, we braved the Grove Park Inn Gingerbread House display. It was amazing as usual, but all of the sickly and unmasked coughing people chased us away quickly. We spent less than 40 minutes in the hotel.  Can you believe all of these creations are 100% edible?

We plan to take it easy for the next few days. There is still work to do, but dance is mostly on pause, and we should all be home together for the evenings. I look forward to some board games with my family.

This is what I made for the folks that my husband supervises at work.
I made 12 of them and want to remember what I did so I do something different next year.
Each little mailbox contains candy, coffee, hot chocolate and cookies. 

Blessings and peace to all of you, 

Dawn

A Tale of Two Worlds

It is hard to put into words how things are going here. On one hand, we just had a splendid vacation, which I will talk about momentarily. On the other hand, our daughter Katie is spiraling into more and more dangerous situations. Her choices (which she thinks are just fine) are propelling her into very dangerous waters and have already had a  permanent impact on her life that she will have to live with forever. Her living situation has changed three times since Thanksgiving and over two states; she is relying on unsavory strangers to house her; and she is giving up a great deal to stay in their good graces.  It is simply heart breaking. Also, she will listen to almost no reason. Part of my brain is always trying to figure out her next move or how to stop her downward spiral. But you can throw a million life preservers and if the struggling person won't reach for them, there is nothing that you can do. It feels like playing an endless chess match with the Mad Hatter that I will not win.

As if all of that was not enough, a lovely young teen in our special needs community died very unexpectedly this week. It has thrown us all into a state of shock. 

We struggle on to feel all of the joy of Christmas, but it has lost some of its luster this year. However, there is still joy in between the moments of hardship, and we are blessed to have so much for which to be grateful. 

We made a quick trip up to Washington, D.C. to see my stepmother. She gave Rebekah and me tickets to the Washington Ballet Nutcracker for our Christmas gift. It was stunning. I would rank it in the top five of  productions we have seen, right along side Phantom of the Opera and The Lion King on Broadway.  The Warner Theater was just gorgeous, too. My Mother used to take me there as a child once a year to see a show. 

We also walked around the National Botanical Gardens. They had a huge outdoor train display. We really enjoyed watching the half dozen trains go around and around. They even had some Thomas the Tank engines. 
 

There was also a stickwork sculpture by Patrick Dougherty that we could walk through.

Tom and Rebekah look like birds in a nest.

We also walked around the National harbor. Rebekah decided to try ice skating for a while and Tim and Grandma Sue went on the ice bumper cars. 

We also just enjoyed time at Grandma Sue's house eating take out and playing an epic 4 hour game of Monopoly in which Elijah won as usual. We also squeezed in a back porch fire pit visit with one of David's sisters and family.

After 48 hours of fun in Washington, D.C., we headed for Colonial Williamsburg. We had a delightful time walking around the colonial village. I fell in love with huge variety of wreaths on the doors of all of the historic homes.

The blue cone in the middle is sugar and shows the wealth of the family.

Pomegranate and clam shells

Gorgeous peacock feathers

Playing cards and toys

Magnolia and Granny Smith apples

This horse was so friendly

We wrapped up our trip with an overnight at my husband's oldest sister's house. She is an interior decorator and Rebekah and I just drank up all of her clever design ideas. This was the breakfast table.

I hope all of you are finding joy in the season.

Blessings, Dawn

Advent Week 1 ~ Nutcracker and Charity

It has been a peaceful and lovely December so far. Rebekah completed two shows of the Nutcracker with her new dance academy. She was the Spanish soloist (costume below), demi-soloist snowflake, demi-soloist flower, demi-soloist marzipan and a party parent. It was absolutely chaotic crazy back stage with a few hiccups, but the production looked great from the audience. 

We are doing 24 days of Advent again this year. We are putting an emphasis on charity. So far, we have made homeless kits, dropped off toys for the St. Nick project, made kits for Meals on Wheels and leaving positive reviews for some of our favorite stores and restaurants. 

We focused on making one room the Christmas room this year. Here is how the library is coming along. This room's furnishings are mostly Victorian, so we followed with a Victorian blue, silver and gold Christmas theme.

Part of my brain is always with Katie, so Christmas is feeling a bit low-key this year in my mind. I am still enjoying the season but just keeping it more simple. Katie is continuing to make one bad decision after another, but she refuses all help to bring her back to our area. She is determined to stay where she is but has almost no resources and is worrying us no end. 

Blessings, Dawn