What Christmas is about - The Tree

Now this is what winter should look like! 

Too bad it didn't stay.

Off to cut down our Christmas tree.

What a wonderful winter surprise!

The Kitchen Tree

The Christmas Tree in my kitchen was looking a little shabby.  In all the hustle and bustle of the holidays the ornaments never made it up.  Then haf way through the season one and a half of the two strands of lights burnt out.  Go figure.  Guess thats what I get for lighting them up on October 31st. 

One night while waiting for dinner to cook, I changed out the lights and let the kids put up some unused decorations. 

Much better, don't you think?

 

Next year for the Kitchen Tree -

edible ornaments or white pompoms with candy canes?

Summoning Charles Dickens

It was the best of times (Saturday Night):

It was the worst of times (Sunday Night):

Not pictured: Jacob

He was very much just as sick as Bree.  Sometimes he'd give warning that his belly was hurting him and he was about to be sick.  Other times he just exploded. Either way he fought us, kicking and screaming, fighting the bucket, flinging "stuff" everywhere.  Oh the horror and not nearly as cute as Bree falling asleep in the bathroom while we cleaned up Jacob.  Poor girl.

What Christmas is about - The Food

Homemade pizzas on a chilly December night. 

What can be better? 

Making them Christmas pizzas of course.

On the right is Jacob's snowman head pizza with black olive eyes and mushroom mouth.

Bree is not a fan of pepperoni.  She prefers ham which makes her pizza look like a strawberry candy cane.

And if Bree's is "strawberry" then mine must be "tooty fruity".

And if Bree's is "strawberry" and mine is "tooty fruity" then that makes Jim's....

...well I'm not really certain as his is half a regular pizza and half is mac & cheese with alfredo sauce.

He's weird that way.

Happy Eating Holidays!

What Christmas is about - The Cookies

Jacob's first cut-out cookie.

Bree's 1,284,694 cut-out cookie.

"Hmm...  What do I do with this little bit of cookie dough, Aunt Becki?  It looks good enough to eat."

How does it end up on the back of the shirt??

Chillin' in Uncle Mike's chair.

Don't forget the peanut butter ritz cracker treats and rolo turtles.

Just a tad behind

I'm running a bit behind on things these days.

Blogging.

Laundry.

Dishes.

Blogging.

Wrapping presents.

Shopping for presents to wrap.

Blogging.

Christmas cards.

No matter how much in advance you plan and prep, life with two children never goes according to schedule. 

Especially when one of those children is learning to write her own name and wants to help with the Christmas cards by signing each and every one.

So if you don't get a Christmas card from us this year, its nothing personal. I'm just running a bit behind.

And precious moments like this just can't be rushed.

Here is the Dominique Christmas Card for each of you to enjoy via the internet.

Happy Thanksgiving

R.A.O.K.

Random Act of Kindness



In the generous, good-natured, caring spirit of my dad, Bree and I made 2x4 Turkeys and dropped them off to Rainbow Oncology for the patients this week.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Gettysburg Trip - Good Eats

I'm going to be blogging into the New Year about our Gettysburg trip if I don't get on it so lets cover some of the really importantly parts of the trip, shall we?

Where'd you eat while in Gettysburg?

We ate here:

(Notice those holes in the bricks?  Those are battle wounds the building suffered during the war)

My favorite ice cream of all time is Peanut Butter Cup.  Not vanilla ice cream with peanut butter cups in it but chocolate ice cream with large slabs of peanut butter in there.  Its not an easy flavor to find, but find it I did. 

Here at Mr.G's. 

Good old Mr. G. 

While we were waiting for our ice cream to be scooped we had the pleasure of meeting Mr. G himself.  He asked about our trip, where we were from, gave us some pointers on places to go see and told us the history of the building that was now his ice cream shoppe.  Of course the only piece of information I have retained in these six weeks that have passed is that the building is 192 years old.  So I tried to do a little research of my own to spark some recollection of historical information that he told us when I ran across something very, very interesting.

The 'G' in Mr. G's stands for....

Glatfelter.

I'm sure you were all hoping to be more amazed by that news but what you need to understand is that my grandmothers maiden name is 'Gladfelter.'  My dad said that all 'Gladfelters' and 'Glatfelters' are related.  So I drove 7 hours from home to stand in the same room with a relative and eat his ice cream without even realizing it. 

 How cool is that?!?! 

I'm really regretting that I didn't get our picture taken with him.

Relation aside, he did make really really good ice cream.  So good in fact that my darling, wonderful husband Jim requested to go back there.  And for any of you who know that husband of mine, will have to know just how good of ice cream that is for him to request a second helping of sweets. 

Did I mention that my husband is a little strange too?

 

See that tree in the background? 

That's one of two trees left standing from the civil war era.  A third one was standing until a few years ago when a storm knocked it down.  When they went to cut the tree into pieces for easy removal, the blade kept sparking from hitting bullet after bullet lodged in the trunk.

We also ate here:

Cute little joint.  You walk in, place your order, carry it to your table and clean up your own mess.  The system works pretty well there and that helps keep the prices cheap which is always a plus when you're on vacation.