Christmas Funny

When my Papa saw the hint of the camera flash while under the tree, he quipped "I'm sure I'll be seeing this on your blog."  I assured him that he would.

You see, it takes a great deal of work to get our tree set up.  First, one must take it down.  And by down I mean someone must unhook the 100 lb box that is suspended from our garage ceiling.  It requires at least three people.  Much to the chagrin of the men in my life I climbed the ladder to unhook the second chain.  All was well.  Next, you have to haul it inside.  No big deal in the grand scheme of things.  Then we have to piece it all together.  I think it has four pieces to create a nine foot beauty of a tree with a six foot base.  Yes, it's HUGE!  And we love it!!  For this photo we had to laugh because my dad was doing something with the cords and all the branches were still "closed up" and then all of a sudden... BOOM... they all came down and thus it looks like Little Flower's Grandpy was consumed by the bottom of the tree.  Hummm... maybe you had to be there.  We thought it was funny.  Thankfully, none of those branches bopped my Papa at all and he kept right on with what he was doing.

However, the funniest part of the process was that after all was said and done Husband found an ornament still on the tree!  It was no worse for the wear.  It wasn't one of our breakable ones.  However, it did make us ponder if we could put the tree away mostly decorated.  HA!  We wouldn't do that but it was a tempting thought for about 2.3 seconds.

Now we need to decorate our tree.  But for the next few days it will sit somewhat naked in the living room and delight me even though it only has one ornament and lights for now.

Back Log of Blogs

Well, it's almost been a month since thoughts poured forth on a random variety of subjects to this space.  My dad commented yesterday that he missed reading my musings.  We will see how this all continues when the baby comes in a few weeks.  However, my dad's comments did somewhat inspire me to try and work  on the things that I have been thinking about since I last posted.  So, I will try and catch up on a few things.  I will date them "in the past" but I think that they will be prefaced with "Blog Back-log."  (and will be added before this post - so scroll on down)

So, stay tuned for updated things from elections to baby shower.

Blog Back Log: Showered with Baby Love

Today was my baby shower hosted by the lovely, talented, encouraging, gracious, kind, and devoted women of my church.  There are many more words that I could use to describe them all but I only have so much time and so much space.  I arrived to quite the spread of food for lunch.  Someone even found out that I am quite the fan of crab and made a hot crab dip - it was yummy! (As was every other little morsel devoured for our luncheon.)  Lunch was then capped off with a very delicious and CREATIVE cake (shown above) that was made by one of my dear friend's mother-in-law who happens to be quite the talent in cake decorating.  As if that needed to be pointed out!  I don't usually leave the pictures on this post so large but you really need to get a feel for this cake.  Yummy and beautiful.  I am glad that I was not the one who had to cut it... I don't think I could have done it!

After cake came the barrage of gifts for our Little Flower.  I was sweating after it was all said and done (in combination with the large amounts of people and hormones, I am sure!)  We received some very lovely gifts.  Many homemade with love, others from our registry, and others still gave things that I really hadn't thought much about.  All in all, the gifts filled up the 4-Runner and we had to give a basket to my mother-in-law and we will pick it up tomorrow.  Other friends and family have written to say, "your gift is in the mail" or "I will bring it by on such-and-such a day."  I am overwhelmed and grateful.  There are still a few "large" items that we need to buy but God in His provision has granted us some wonderful discounts and unexpected financial provisions to cover those costs.  We are blown away by how many things are coming together.

Now, we just need to get it all put away and assembled (if required!)  I have some photos up on flickr of many of the homemade gifts and a couple of my favorite outfits.  Again, if you need an invite to see those photos, let me know and I will get you the link.  Flickr will also be the place to see photos of Little Flower when she arrives.

Blog Back Log: The Day After

While this particular blog is dated November 5th I am really sitting on the couch a month later pondering my thoughts of the day after the Presidential election.  Was I excited with the national results?  No.  Not so much.  Does that change the outcome... not a bit.

I think that this nation is in for quite the roller coaster over the next four years.  I think that some of the proposed policy issues by the next administration are horrific - health care would be one of them.  As I have watched the process unfold over the last few weeks my confidence has not grown.

Locally, I am highly impressed with the fact the Prop 102 (and similar Prop 8 in California) passed with what seems to be a confident declaration of the people.  The people have spoken is what the opposition say of the statute.  But when the people "speak" about an actual constitutional amendment there are riots to be had and churches to be taunted.  On other local levels a conservative march was made here which I think is good.  Now that our (Democratic) governor has been tapped to be Secretary of Homeland Secretary we are saying our farewells and looking forward to Miss Brewer (GOP) to leave her Secretary of State position and move to the "ninth floor" and try to get us out of the $2 Billion state debt that our "beloved" Governor will be sticking us with. 

I'll stop with my rants because they really accomplish nothing.

I find comfort in the fact that all of this didn't take Jesus off His throne.  Nor did it surprise Him.  The gospel is going forth.  While I am not convinced that this is the end of the world as we know it, it may be the end of the Republic as we know it.

Blog Back Log: Election Day

I voted today.  As though you couldn't tell by my spiffy little sticker.  However, this sticker is different from any other "I voted" sticker that I have seen before.  Husband was a little jealous of it when he saw it.

Tonight we will grab some chicken wings from a favorite local restaurant and settle in with Fox News (and other channels) to watch the national results come around.  We are also quite interested in some local races and issues that are on the ballot.

America, where shall we go from here?

Trick or Treat?

Friday, as you know, was Halloween.  Husband and I were pretty excited to spend a fairly quiet evening at home passing out candy.  I got a great deal on some yummy candy - oh about 100 pieces in two bags.  We had a pretty good showing last year.  I thought we would almost run out this year since the day was on a Friday.  We didn't carve a pumpkin but we made sure to turn on lights to let folks know we were, indeed, home.  Neither one of us are super into Halloween but we like to see the little ones all dressed up.  I thought that the little ones would be around about dusk and the older kids after dark... anticipating a slow down around 9:00 PM.

 

Yeah... so what I thought would happen was very different from what ACTUALLY happened.

Our first trick-or-treaters came at about 7:15 PM (about an hour after I thought they would start) and we had two very excited princesses on our patio.  I was excited for the parade to start.

Little did I know that would BE the parade.  Two little ones all night.

Unfortunately, I opened the bags of candy to put in a festive bowl.  So, now we are stuck with all the mostly chocolaty goodness... darn.  hee hee!

On the upside, we got a kick our of making my tummy into a little pumpkin at 30-weeks.