Christmas Memories 2011...

We had a wonderful Christmas with our son, his wife, and our newest grandson, Noah. It would have been even more special if our daughter and her family could have been with us too. They came last year from Oklahoma and were not able to come this year. We don't do Christmas with lots of shopping and gifts. Our Christmas is based around family and fun and the real meaning of Christmas.
This is meeting our grandson for the first time at the airport. His PawPaw had been talking to and seeing him via I-Pad2 and saying "buden, buden"?. As soon as they saw each other, PawPaw said "buden, buden" to Noah and he came right to him. PawPaw put him on his lap and they rolled around the airport having fun while our son got luggage ready to go. This child had come on the re-eye flight from San Francisco.



This is our son getting a head of cabbage from his dad's cabbage patch. We were having some North Carolina barbecue. I had made homemade buns and baked French fries and my sister made slaw out of part of this beautiful head of cabbage. You just cannot beat North Carolina barbecue!

This is Noah sitting in the big cabbage leaves. We had planned to just have him in his diaper sitting in the middle of it but the leaves flopped before we had a chance to take the pictures. Well, we can call him a cabbage patch kid anyway!

Our son has a friend whose dad collects and restores peddle cars, trikes, tractors, etc. This is a 1948 Pontiac that he would let Noah touch. Ha!

On Thursday, before they left on Friday, we went to the mall.


This is a tradition in our family--we go to see the sights and sounds and eat at Chick-Fil-A. These are pictures taken with Noah and his dad riding the Christmas train in the mall. I think dad and son enjoyed it!

















Our son and his wife did surprise us with a special gift. After Noah was born, I asked if they had a Sears near by that they could take him to and have a picture made like the one I had made of his dad. I had not thought any more about it. Noah was born on June 16 and his dad was born on June 28 and the pictures are at the same age.

I hope you have enjoyed a glimpse of our time together. I hope yours was as wonderful as ours. I wish you the best for the New Year.
Love,
Marie

Over the River and through the woods...

To Grandmother's house we go. Our daughter, her husband, and three children drove 2200 miles round trip from Oklahoma. Our son, his wife, and our granddaughter dog flew in from CA. A friend picked our son, wife, and dog up at the airport and brought them home. They arrived around 8:30 PM on Christmas Eve. Our daughter called and they were about 40 miles away. They had planned to go straight to the motel and come to our house the next day. We told them to come on and stop because we had plenty to eat. They came and there was a lot of chatter. Then, things got quiet. Our son handed me a gift to open and I said I was not to have a gift because we don't exchange gifts any more. He said it was something they all wanted me to have. I opened it up and it was a picture frame. I asked "What is it?". They all yelled "you are going to be a grandmother, again". The picture was the first ultrasound of the new baby. I started screaming and could hardly get my breath. I had prayed that I would live to see our son's first child. The baby is due in June. They had kept it a secret from us because they all wanted to see my reaction. I could not have been given a better gift than another grandchild to go with the three wonderful ones I already have. Our son and his wife had just adopted a dog from the shelter and I thought the dog was to be my grandchild at least from a while. Oh, by the way, my husband is thrilled about the news too.

To top everything off, we had our first white Christmas since 1947. It was absolutely beautiful! I am going to share some snow pictures with you. We also celebrated our 5oth wedding anniversary while they were here because they will all be in CA after the birth of the baby. My husband and I will not be able to travel to CA because of our health problems. Our kids and grand kids took us to a Chinese restaurant on Christmas Day to celebrate.

View out the den window

View from the front porch

front of house

Our granddaughter built a little snowman. It was too cold to be outside very long.
Below is Kona from CA in her first snow. She has on her new coat bought just for the trip.

Done except the Angel....

This is an Advent cross stitch that I did years ago. Each day you take one of the ornaments from the outside and place it on the tree. Even though it is just my husband and I here for Christmas, we still place this on the refrigerator each year and count down the days until Christmas day. It is all done now except for the angel that will go at the top of the tree tomorrow. I wish all of you a wonderful Christmas and a great New Year.
Love,
Marie

Gifts from other talented friends

I got this wonderful surprise from my friend, Celeste--we do watch bands together. She made this adorable snowman in a jar and placed white lights in it. It looks so sweet sitting on my kitchen counter with my other snowmen that can be seen in the post below. Thanks Celeste!
I love it.
These pretty little gift boxes were made by my friend, Naydine, my other watch band maker. Naydine used last years Christmas cards to make these neat little boxes and put a couple of pieces of candy inside. I think they are so neat. Thanks Naydine! My husband and I love them.

My Christmas Surprise....

We have these wonderful friends that we met through church. They have been such a blessing to us. All through the year, Pat has been bringing us meals to put in the freezer. These meals have been such a blessing. There are days that I am not able to prepare food for us and it is wonderful to go to the freezer and take out one of these meals and pop it into the oven or microwave. Gary, the husband, has helped with mowing the yard and other things that my husband needed. Yesterday, they came in the snow and brought us more meals for the freezer and one of Pat's works of art. She painted the snowman on the bottle and place a string of colored lights inside. I placed it on the kitchen counter beside my snowwoman cookie jar. Thank you Pat and Gary for your thoughtfulness!
Love,
Marie

Five Months from today..........

Will be Christmas Eve!
We have this tree up all year round in our living room. The truth of the matter is that my DH was still able to walk when this tree was put up. He spent so many hours putting the lights on it that he said if it ever came down it would never be put back up. This tree is decorated with angels, so he calls it our Angel Tree. I light it up a dreary days or to celebrate birthdays. Where has this year gone???