Family Christmas Party

Saturday was our big family gathering with my nieces & nephews, along with all their children & spouses/fiances, from the other side of the family. We started holding it here at our house, a few years ago, when it became apparent that we were outgrowing my parents' house! This year there were 29 attendees - 22 of whom spent the night - and 4 dogs! It was an awesome time!! We snacked all afternoon and then my niece and I made pizzas for supper. The kiddos all really liked their gifts and the Yankee Swap for the adults got rowdy, as usual! I was finally able to give Grampa his Christmas present, a photo book of last summer's camping trip. We stayed up really late playing Catch-Phrase, Pictionary, and Rock Band. The kids all got along great, visited with the horses, played with Legos and had a dance party before we finally got them all tucked into their sleeping bags.

Most mornings our boys climb into bed with us before we all get up and start our day. Yesterday morning they brought along 6 of their cousins!! It was really funny!!

About 9 am, our 300 bale hay delivery arrived. Our guests were all happy to pitch in and get it stacked in the barn. It was much more fun than just doing it by ourselves! Everyone laughed and worked off some of the junk food from the previous day. Part-way through, my brother-in-law decided to build a hay fort for the kiddos. He also made a maze! They were thrilled and had a blast taking turns going into it! Some of the adults checked it out too!!

Hairloom Treasures

The hardest part of Christmas (and birthdays!), for me, is keeping gifts a secret. Sometimes I find a gift that is so awesome, it just about kills me not to tell the recipient all about it ahead of time! Such was the case this year with this gift. Remember our horse, Moonie, who passed away last summer? Well, a week or two before, I snuck over to the farm while my mother was at work, and cut off a hunk of Moonie's tail hair. (Grampa, you did a great job keeping quiet about that!!) I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do with it, but I had read that lots of other people make keepsakes out of horse hair and I knew it would be great if I could come up with presents for my family members.

A couple of weeks ago, my mother handed me this newspaper article and lamented the fact that we didn't know about this before. I tried very hard to hide my smug grin and not let on to the fact that I had a stash of Moonie hair! I contacted Giselle Rec and she was more than happy to make up some jewelry for me in time for Christmas. She made a bracelet for my sister, keychains for my mother & sister-in-law and zipper pulls for my boys and my niece and nephews. And, of course, I just had to have a bracelet too! It just about killed me, but I didn't tell anyone about it until Christmas Eve. (I just couldn't wait until morning, so we stopped in and gave them to my sister & mother a bit early!) There were tears when they realized that the jewelry was made from Moonie's tail and everyone is just thrilled to have a piece of Moonie to keep forever. Thank you so much, Giselle!!

I photographed the items on an old picture of Moonie that I took way back in 1987, which my husband & I enlarged & framed for my sister's birthday gift. My sister & I modeling our bracelets...

Merry Christmas!!

Christmas Morning was spent here at home, opening our stockings and presents to each other. Santa brought us all sorts of goodies, and we were all quite pleased with our gifts! This year I was determined not to leave a mess behind, so I got everything picked up right away. All the while baking cookies for later on, downloading pictures off the camera, editing them and uploading them to the Internet. Shortly before noon we headed to my parents house to celebrate the holiday...

My sister and her husband were there, along with my brother, his wife, and their 3 children, my aunt and uncle, and of course, my parents. We had a fantastic, noisy, FUN time opening all of our gifts to each other! And eating!! There was lots and lots of eating...

Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas Eve with Dad's parents, his sister, her husband, and their 4 boys. We started out down in the cabin behind their houses, toasting marshmallows to put into S'mores, drinking hot cocoa and munching on shrimp. Then, the boys started out on the scavenger hunt that Grammie had put together. It led them all over the property, ending up in the basement, where the presents were hidden. Once the boys had found the gifts, we gathered around the Christmas tree to open them. In the evening, we enjoyed a delicious dinner of seafood chowder, followed by cheesecake.

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

...and the busiest! We're finishing up several projects for Christmas and trying to get the house prepared for the festivities. The boys started vacation this week, so they are helping me a lot. We're just about ready. I'm anxiously awaiting a couple of packages that contain gifts though. I really, really, really hope that they will be here in time!! Dad brought us home a very pretty 2 pound block of milk chocolate the other day. Yummy!! But, just about the last thing my waistline needed...

One of the projects that the boys and I are working on, (And look, I can write about it because the recipients aren't likely to read this blog!) is little fabric mice, filled with catnip. Each year our pets give gifts to the other pets in the family. This year, this is what Aly is giving her brothers, mother and other kitty friends. While we were trying to stitch up the mice this afternoon, Aly got right into the middle of everything. She thought it smelled heavenly! She rubbed and rolled and rubbed some more and made a royal mess of all the fabric and thread...and got catnip everywhere!

I stitched this for our youngest, it seemed appropriate.

The boys participated in their school's Christmas Concert last Thursday. They really didn't want to get up there in front of the crowd, but they both did very well.

Last week, our oldest dug me a path to the horse pasture. The next morning, all 3 horses were standing on it, just as if they couldn't go out into the snow. He got a real kick out of them using it!

We've gotten more than our share of snow in the past week. There's more than 2 feet on the ground at this point. CRAZY!!

And cold....brrr...it's been well below zero degrees Fahrenheit most nights and even during the days it hasn't gotten above the teens in a while. Really, that's too cold for so many snowstorms, but I guess Mother Nature hasn't noticed. The horses are wicked fuzzy!

Daisy woke us up barking, in the wee hours of Thursday morning. That was highly unusual, but Dad just figured she must have really needed to go out, so he grumbled and dragged himself out of bed and to the front door. However, when he opened the door, she put her tail between her legs and scooted back into the bedroom. So, he looked outside and there were firetrucks, with their lights flashing, down at the end of our driveway. Apparently they had woken up Daisy and she thought we should know about them. It turned out that the cabin up on the hill opposite us had a chimney fire. The bad part was that the fire department couldn't get any trucks up there! Our neighbor ended up letting them use his snowmobiles!! Anyway, they got the fire put out and no one was injured and there wasn't any property damage. But, the guy that lived up there decided that maybe it would stay a summer cabin after all, and he moved back to town...

Christmas in West Paris

Yesterday afternoon, West Paris held its annual Christmas Fair, followed by a parade to the Christmas Tree down by Town Hall, and a tree lighting ceremony. The Cub Scouts planted the tree a couple of years ago, so they were asked to lead the parade, behind a firetruck that lit the way. Once there, one of the Scouts got to turn on the lights! They had a wicked lotta fun!!


Santa gave the reindeer the night off...they need to conserve their energy for Christmas Eve...

During the craft fair they sold popcorn to raise money for their pack....

It wasn't just children that got to share their wish lists with Santa and Mrs. Claus...

Meanwhile, I traveled with my parents to New Hampshire for my nephew's engagement party - congratulations T & J!! It was a fun gathering of lots and lots of family & friends.

My cactus is in bloom...isn't it beautiful?

Today was a crazy busy day! One of their friends stayed overnight and then 2 more friends arrived late this morning. They kept each other entertained and they had a fantastic time! They played outdoors until lunchtime and then they went ice skating on the beaver pond afterwards. I don't know how they can fall on the ice over and over again and just keep trying. I can't!

This morning they read the book that my second cousin, Heath A. Roberts wrote, The Day the Frogs Went Hopping Mad. You should look for it, it is a great story and they thoroughly enjoyed it. The 3 of them took turns reading pages...

I took our visitors home at dark. When I was coming down the hill just before our driveway, I saw a critter in the road. He looked right at me and when I swerved left to miss him, he ran left. So, I swerved right and unfortunately, he changed direction too. At that point I realized that I was definitely not going to be able to avoid hitting him. So, I said, "Here's your last chance - DUCK!" and drove over him. But, I heard a thump, so I figured he was a goner. About halfway through that encounter, I realized that it wasn't a skunk or raccoon that I was 'dancing' with, but a 'possum! How unusual!! Unusual enough that I decided to turn around and go back to take a look at the carcass because I knew that Dad wasn't going to believe me.

I turned the car around and headed back up the hill. Lo and behold, there was the 'possum - still wandering around in the road! Yay! I hadn't killed it!! I'd say he's gonna have a heck of a headache, though! Anyway, I followed behind it for about 25 feet up the road, as he was looking for a good place to climb the snowbank and escape from that dangerous place. As soon as I got home, I told Dad all about it - and he did find it hard to believe me. But, I know what I saw - and actually, he was really cute! We decided that he was probably holed up for the winter, but our neighbor was out cutting wood today and must have disturbed him.

This evening, our youngest gave me a gift. He said it wasn't for any special occasion, but just for being the "Best mom ever!" I almost cried. He gave me one of the quartz crystals that he found when he was mining this summer. He asked that I put it in a setting someday and make jewelry with it. I'll have to do that someday. It was a pretty special moment. He was very happy about having such an awesome weekend!!

Farrier

The farrier came this morning to trim all the horses' hooves.  I don't know if she noticed, (After all, she only sees them once every 6 or 8 weeks!) but Dad & I saw a huge improvement in their behavior!  Not that they are ever bad for the farrier, but apparently they could have been better, and today they proved it.  One of the things that Chris Cox talked about in that clinic a few weeks ago, was not micro-managing your horse during vet & farrier visits.  We're so worried about them behaving, that we don't let them breathe and then they get all worked up, which is exactly what we didn't want, and yet it was a self-fulfilling prophesy.  

Now that I've learned to leave their heads alone, I just kept the lead rope in my hands, but with no tension whatsoever, and they all stood quietly and looked around, without moving a muscle while she worked with their feet.  It was AMAZING!!  I was so proud of them.  In the past, I would have kept pulling their heads back and telling them "Whoa!" all the time, whether they needed it or not.  Just to make sure that they knew.  Of course they know - I need to give my horses a whole lot more credit, I guess!!

Before she arrived I worked for a while with Lily.  Then, I dropped the lead rope on the ground and she stood still while I walked over to the tack room and got some grooming tools.  You could totally see in her eye that she was expecting me to take her somewhere when I returned, but I didn't, I just started brushing out her mane.  She stood there quietly while I combed and braided it.  After about 10 minutes she did test me and started to walk off, but I simply grabbed the lead rope and disengaged her hindquarters a few times.  She figured out really quickly that it was much easier just to stand still and be patient.  Dad couldn't believe it, especially since he was working nearby with the chain saw - a wonderful test!

Delay...

We got another couple of inches of snow overnight, along with some sleet, so the roads are a major mess! School has been delayed for 2 hours...

The boys are happy, though. They had a great Thanksgiving Break, and they're not terribly anxious to get back to school.

The other night Dad presented us with an early Christmas present - Guitar Hero World Tour! It's similar to Rock Band, so we can all play together as a band. Very cool!!

Yesterday afternoon the boys discovered an awesome feature that they didn't end up having time to play with - you can record your own songs! Our oldest has composed his first song and right now they're out there playing in the rock studio and getting it to sound the way they want it to. It's a ballad about their favorite Pokemon character, Spheal. Too cute!!