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

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

A Happy Halloween and Goodbye October

We had a sweet and peaceful Halloween. Unfortunately, we never get any trick-or-treaters, even though we live on a busy street (although a street without sidewalks). In this town, people seem to trunk or treat at the churches or go to a few specific neighborhoods. Never mind, we made our own fun. We dressed up the cats for just a few minutes. We had a fun feast and put on festive hats. We played a fun and very challenging trivia candy game from Universal Yums. The guys decided to watch scary movies after the game. Rebekah and I decided to dress up and walk around one of those popular trick-or-treat neighborhoods to see all the costumes and decorations. Some of the houses really went all out this year. Elijah managed to avoid my camera this entire week...the stinker!

Eve as a pumpkin.

Rosie as a sweet witch.

Salem as a cute bat. The wings flapped when she ran around.

Monster chocolate muffins

Mummy hot dogs.

Rebekah at work with her coworkers. They had the theme of witches this year.

Most of the candy was good.

Rebekah was a Hex girl from Scooby-Doo and I was a steampunk lady.

We took a lovely morning drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The leaves are giving a beautiful show this year. 

We are already several days into November and the pace of life is picking up. So much excitement to come!

Blessings, Dawn

Easter, Covid Birthday Take Two and Accomplishments

We woke to a beautiful Easter morning. We had a very sweet breakfast display of treats and nibbled away at it. We ended up packing most of it up for desserts for the week. We just don't eat that much sugar around here. We then packed a picnic and headed out for Hickory (a town a little over an hour away). We were planning to visit and art museum which had told us was open on Easter Sunday. We were surprised, but headed out. Turns out it was closed when we arrived. I guess a volunteer or otherwise uninformed person had answered the phone.  But, we enjoyed the grounds and ate our lovely lunch. 

David and Grandma at the fully vaccinated table.

Since we had come all that way, we looked for an alternative and settled on a hike up Baker's mountain. We didn't put enough research into it and accidently started off on the hardest trail (we found out afterward). Grandma gave up very early in and headed back to the parking lot and some nice rocking chairs she had spotted. The rest of us forged on thinking that we were from the mountains and used to steep trails and it was only a bit over a half mile. This one was much harder, steeper then we were used too and filled with slippery rocks. It seemed like a mile straight up. Did I mention we forgot to bring water and that I had only had a few sips of liquid at lunch? Oy! 

We did make it to the top. Elijah laid down at the top and proclaimed that the view was not that stunning. We after all could have seen a more stunning view from the car on the Blue Ridge Parkway. I must admit I couldn't disagree with him. But, it was a relief to make it. We tried to spin the adventure to the top as a family challenge that we had conquered the mountain. That was mostly met with teen eye rolls. 

  The way down wasn't much easier and we were terribly thirsty and overheated. I turned beet red and became hot to the touch. My husband became alarmed that I was going into heatstroke. I must admit that I felt pretty awful and nauseous. His military training kicked in and he got us down and safely back to the car. So Easter was a true adventure and left us all grateful to be home safe and sound in the end. 

Tim had his second birthday in "quarantine" this week. We enjoyed our time outdoors playing darts for the first time. That was really fun and we will be doing it again soon. We also had barbeque and carrot cake. We enjoyed a bonfire and presents at the end. It was a lovely evening. Three of us (including grandma) are now fully vaccinated. Tim get's his second shot next week and the teens are scheduled for their first shots on Monday. 

All the Rest ~ Elijah has been earning money around the house and at Grandma's. He is strengthening skills and learning to work more steadily without breaks. Much past an hour is really a challenge for him. This week he put together some furniture, replaced outlet covers, helped lay a stick down tile floor, put allergy covers on a mattress and general cleaning. 

Rebekah continued to  plug away at school and work, applied for another scholarship and worked on her Depop  store. She was also asked if she could work more hours at the consignment shop after another employee quit on the spot. Since she only has two subjects left, she increased her hours to 25 hours a week for now.  Her boss is grateful and she is grateful to be able to sock more money into savings. 

Spring is here. I hope you all have a blessed week.

Blessings, Dawn