Christmas 2009

This is a quick picture of about how it always looks whenever we have Christmas and all the gifts get opened. Paper, presents, toys, cats?, flying everywhere! That means we are having a good time! By the way, the pink scarf that has been lost, looks to be in that bag there. Maybe someone will find it soon!

Another pic of family togetherness. Or, is that really just Morgan trying to get a chance to play with the little girl toys?? It is hard growing up, especially when you start outgrowing toys and things at Christmas. Who is that sitting across the room with the red shirt? I think the little girls called him Santa more than once!

And here is Wes and Jeff. Michael did get a chance to call and talk to his dad and brother while we were all gathered. We had sent him several Christmas boxes but he had not yet recieved by Christmas day. We were sad that he has to be so far away from home and family. We are looking forward to having him back home with us soon!

Another shot of our favotite Christmas activity. All the snack food. This is the only day that we load up the table with chips, dips and sweets and have at it without the normal guilt. Have another cookie, it's Christmas!! Erin is holding up a quilt handmade by Nanny with PawPaw's old flannel shirts. I think it was her favorite gift this year.

This was suppose to be a picture of Erin showing her handmade quilt from PawPaws old flannel shirts, but Colton darted across just in time to make it a picture of him. It turned out to be a good one too!

Well, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all our blog readers. Remember in all the hustle and bustle you see here, we remember that Jesus birth is the real reason we can celebrate Christmas. We hope you find Him in your home often this year!

Early Christmas Party

Aunt Iris, Mom and Bennie met up with each other in Gilmer at the home where their Aunt Nadine lives. A few of the other cousins were there too and they all had lunch together. We are still so thankful to have Aunt Nadine with us. She ate her lunch and then grabbed a nap while we were doing the photo shoot. Mom took her Cowboy Stew, and Bennie made a coconut pie. We did have a little bit of soup leftover, but the pie was finished off! We need to make another trip soon to give Aunt Nadine some company. Aunt Iris goes quite often to stay with her so, maybe we can all go again soon.

Thanksgiving With the Polands

We were blessed with a wonderful Thanksgiving and lots of good food again this year. Mom did most of the cooking, with Carryl and me helping. I took lots of pictures for Michael since he couldn't be with us this year while serving in Afganistan. The food pictures came out too blurry to post but I did include some of us enjoying the meal. We have much for which to be thankful and we are. This is mine and Steve's first Thanksgiving to actually be living back in Zavalla and it was great to be able to share the meal, go home and rest and them come right back to eat again, and again. Steve seems to look for any opportunity to go over to mom's house these days. I think right now he is actually gone over to build her fire, but really I think he goes to raid the fridge and pantry! He really enjoys the perks of living near our moms!

Mom's Back Porch

Everyone likes going to Nanny's. It is such a relaxing place to just hang out as you can see. Although this weekend we were working back there, not relaxing. We had a huge garage sale in Nanny's carport and actually had customers dropping by all day long. It was fun to visit with all the neighbors through out the day. The bonus was when we could actually get them to buy something. One really smart customer brought his FFA sales brochure and Nanny and I ended up buying a ham and fruit from the Zavalla FFA club. I think he made more money than we did that day. We did have plenty of stuff left over but we are NOT having another sale in the near future. We are hauling all the leftovers to the thrift shop so you will have to go there to get any more of our junk. Don't worry, we are professionals at accumulating so we will probably need to have another one with all new junk eventually. I like to think of myself as an "Acquisition Specialist". I seem to remember trying to sell many things that I had "acquired" in the past just knowing that I would use or be able to fix-up and resale. At the end of the day, even though we didn't make tons of money, the lessons learned were priceless. 1) Stop buying stuff and bringing it home 2) When no one else wants your old stuff, you end up not wanting it either!

Antiques in Warrington

LOADS OF ANTIQUES

FRIENDS, NOT ANTIQUES


AND FAMILY

Last weekend we loaded up Theta's truck and drove across Texas to Warrington, Tx for the semi-annual antiques market. We had a great time visiting and shopping. Jana had just finished a long shift at the hospital and was able to meet us for breakfast in Huntsville. The weather was perfect and we walked and shopped all day. I think I spent less than $10 on stuff (not counting food) and the others kept to a safe limit as well. There was a lot of rusty old barn stuff and I have plenty of that already so I wasn't even tempted. I did get a few good ideas, I just have to be able to remember them now. My favorite thing was the embellished clothing in the Junk Chic store. They had lots of t-shirts and jeans with the saying, "Don't Worry, Be Hippy"! I think I have that covered!! Oh yea, and there was that barbed wire, license plate covered, red neck guitar that I liked. I wonder who should get that for Christmas??

Something Stinks!

Imagine my dismay when mom called to say she was on her way over to show me her newly bloomed cactus flower. I thought it would be pretty; not! And it stinks really bad. Smells like something dead. Sure enough, we "googled it" (looked up cactus flower that stinks) and this is how it is suppose to look and smell. She tried to give it to me but I made her take it back home! I think she should stick to her roses. They are prettier and smell way better that this!

OOOOOHHH, Look What She Did!

If you remember the post a few weeks ago, I showed you Nanny working on her "chain" stitch. Very quickly she mastered that and moved on to this baby blanket. Isn't it lovely? It is for Kelton, her newest great grandson. He lives where it gets quite cold so this should come in handy soon. She mailed it off to him last week, so he can begin using before he gets too big. I hope he realizes what a special little boy he is. So far he has the first and only blanket crocheted by Nanny. I hope there are many more to follow. Better get your orders in!