[ day #37 - journal your christmas ]

Today's journal is the last one...and am I proud of myself for sticking through the entire 37 days! There were just a few days that I missed and had to make up them up a few days later. But that's ok!! I have never done anything like this, so I'm excited that I have a finished product. Although it's not the type of journal the designer probably envision, it's my version and I love it!

The prompts really made me think and reflect on the differenct aspects of the holiday season. I hope it has been as much of a joy to you as it's been to me.

If you're interested in participating in 2009...here's the link: http://www.shimelle.com/classes/389/journal-your-christmas/

[ day #36 - journal your christmas ]

Today's journaling is about putting away Christmas decorations...which we haven't done yet! :) It takes so much time & energy to unpack the decorations and to put them up - it's such a shame that they're only out to enjoy for such a short period of time.

We enjoy our Christmas tree so much...I love the bright white lights illuminating the living room in the morning dusk. We usually leave our tree up well into January...knowing full well Christmas is over. It makes me sad that our lives are so date oriented that it seems to be "socially unacceptable" to leave a Christmas Tree up and Christmas lights on the house. It's always "onto the next thing..."

Just yesterday, some friends of Melissa's stopped by the house and they all made a comment about our tree:

"Oh wow! Your tree is still up...well, it's pretty."

"Isn't Christmas over?"

Yes! Christmas is over.

Yes! Every other American has taken down their tree.

But we haven't.

Deal.

We like it like that!!

As for the other Christmas decorations...we tend to enjoy snowmen because it is socially acceptable for them to stay up well into February or as long as there is snow on the ground. Which may be for a long time. (We received at least 3 inches last night which resulted in a welcomed 2-hour delay today!)

Oh - and for the record - our stockings are still up too.

[ day #35 - journal your christmas ]

Today's journal is about what I want to remember for next year.

Let's see...we've got the baking thing down to the bare minimum and we could reduce even that. One cheesecake instead of two.

Forego Secret Santa at work again (it made life a lot easier!).

Decide whether or not to exchange gifts at work earlier than the week before Christmas.

Buy a gift certificate for Family Gift Exchange - huge hit!

Commit to making homemade Christmas gifts and actually follow through with it.

Begin shopping in October and actually finish by the beginning of December. For real.

Focus more on the meaning of Christmas.

Spend more time with family.

Relax...breathe...take everything in.

[ day #34 - journal your christmas ]

day #34 - your single most favorite moment of this holiday season

I have a lot of favorites during the Christmas season that I've shared previously.

For example, I love singing Christmas hymns in church and the first sight of red Starbucks cups excites me to no end.

But, I think my favorite tradition that adds up to many moments is getting coffee and driving around looking at Christmas lights while listening to Christmas music. I did this a lot in college when I needed to get away from my dorm room or take a break from studying for finals. I have great memories of finding new neighborhoods in Spokane, dragging friends along, and discovering the tackiest of all tacky decorated homes (envision lots of blow up decorations in the front yard, millions of strings of lights in all different colors, wooden cut out reindeer and Santas next to a wooden cut out Nativity...those are the hidden jewels of Christmas light looking).

Something like this, perhaps. (I got this randomly from Google, but it's a great example of what I'm talking about!)

[ days #30-32 - journal your christmas ]

Day # 30 -

Looking back at 2008. I have a few ideas of how to do this rolling around in my head. I don't think I'm going to do it just right now since this will already be a long post. Watch for my 2008 Wrap-Up tonight or tomorrow.

Day #31 -

New Year's Eve. I typically don't really care much about New Year's Eve. I think there is a lot of pressure to go to a fun party (or host one) or to do something really spectacular. Really. New Year's Eve is just another day. January 1 is just another day. I do love to go to a fun party and for the last two years, we've gotten to do just that. While in Chelan, we go to a fun dinner with the whole Connell crew that is there. It's a lot of fun - we're noisy, rowdy, and having an all around good time.

Day #32 -

Resolutions. I'm not big on resolutions. Again, I think it sets people up for disappointment when they don't follow through on their resolutions. I'd rather list things I want to accomplish...so...

1. Learn to sew.

2. Make a fun project to prove I've learned to sew.

3. Spend time at Priest Lake

4. Be the best I can be

[ day #29 - journal your christmas ]

For today's journal, I get to share my favorite picture with you from this season:

I haven't had a chance to write about this yet, but I was so excited to spend some time on Saturday with some friends from high school - Kelli, Shannon, and Sora. I love hanging out with them - especially since they all live far away (Kelli in Alabama, Shannon in Utah, and Sora in Arizona) and I don't get to see them often. In fact, it had been well over a year since I'd seen any of them. When we're together...it's like no time has passed. I love friends like that!

Also - we're leaving today to spend a few days in Chelan. Here's what it looks like there:

Hmm...not a whole lot different than it looks here, although the snow did melt quite a bit yesterday. I've been looking forward to going to Chelan for a few weeks now. Last year was our first year going with the Connell gang (Vanderbilts, Mauseths, Hogaboams, Nobles, Smiths, Walkers, etc.). It was a lot of fun! I'd never been to Chelan before, but I love that little town! We enjoyed doing a little shopping downtown, wine tasting, playing Rumoli, watching movies, and just chill-ax-ing. :) Hopefully it will be a lot of the same.

I'm taking my computer, but not sure about wireless options there, so I may or may not post while I'm there. I'll be back Friday and will catch up then if I don't get to in the meantime.

[ day #28 - journal your christmas ]

Holiday Weaknesses:

• Red Starbucks Cups
• Little girls in Christmas dresses
• White Almond Bark covered pretzels
• Sweet Potatoes
• the smell of evergreen
• Christmas Lights
• a well decorated Christmas Tree
• Samson in a Santa suit
• Candy Cane Hershey Kisses
• Christmas Break
• shopping after Christmas sales
• Christmas Cards from friends
• pretty packages
• Packages in the mail
• Hershey Chocolate Mint Candy Canes
• Lefse
• Games with the family
• Christmas music
• Yards that are full of tacky Christmas decorations
• Christmas Hymns
• Delivering Christmas to our Adopt-a-Families
• Gold and White
• Online Shopping
• Decorations on Main Street
• Gift Exchange Game (I played it three times this year!)
• a great New Year's Party

[ day #27 - journal your christmas ]

Sleep.

Today, I slept in until 8:20am. That's pretty good for a girl that's been having trouble sleeping. This week, I've been up at 5am, 6am, and 6:30am. Not fun when everything in me wants to sleep in while I can!

Samson is now sleeping on my lap while I mess around on the internet. Dogs are so lucky to sleep whenever and wherever they want. :)

[ Merry Christmas ] (and days #25 & #26)

Ok - I've been slacking the last few days, so here are a lot of pictures to catch up with our Christmas festivities...

Dad coming home from the liquor store with our loot...oh my!

These are the ranch pretzels that Dad makes every year...

"frosting pretzels"

my very favorite treat at Christmastime...or anytime...

Decorating sugar cookies....thanks for the idea Kim! :)

Zeke hard at work in the craft room making Christmas cards...

On Christmas Eve Eve, we watched my favorite Christmas movie - "White Christmas"

On Christmas Eve, we spent a fairly relaxing day - watched a few movies, took a nap, and enjoyed the day.

Then, we went to Mark and Kim's for our Lefse dinner before church.

Here are the Lefse chefs:

Craig - Melissa - Karlye

Marcie - Amber

Karlye - Paige - Melissa - David - Amber

After church, everyone came up to our house for our gift exchange...

Dad with the lazy dogs...

We all gave our gifts to Grandma before our exchange game.

Here's this rockin' picture of Melissa and Grandma dancing at a wedding reception!

Of course, we had to take family pictures - apparently there was a lot of *attitude* in the room!

Craig - Doug - Vicky - Paige - David

Baby Rein's Grandparents...poor baby!

Wow ah wee ah!

Amber - Karlye

David - Paige - Craig - Melissa - Marcie - Grandma - Karlye - Amber

I *heart* this picture!!

Melissa & I

Karlye & Craig with the gifts they won!

Lucky dogs...

Karlye - Nordstrom Gift Card

Craig - PF Changs Gift Card

On Christmas Day, we spent the morning opening our stockings and presents...

We are all very blessed...

In the afternoon, the Heiders came for dinner...we enjoyed a wonderful Prime Rib dinner with Mashed Potatoes and Sweet Potatoes (remember the love affair with sweet potatoes?!). We then all vegged in the living room and watched the Lakers game - or slept.

After the game, we had dessert (yum! Pumpkin Ice Cream Pie, Peppermint Cheesecake, and Mocha Almond Toffee Cheesecake!) and played Bingo! Freda plays Bingo at the Rose Garden, where she lives, so we thought we'd make her feel at home and play Bingo...she was so cute!!!

Freda

Mark - Karlye - Mom

Amber - dang photo bomber!

Freda looked radiant yesterday!

Enjoying a laugh...so fun!

Whoop Whoop!!! I won!! 2 in a row!!!

Marcie & Amber enjoying a rousing Bingo game!

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were a lot of fun...great family, great food, great memories.
We're going to get together again tonight to eat leftovers...and probably more games...more food...more memories!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!!

[ day #24 - journal your christmas ]

Today's journaling is supposed to be about Christmas Eve traditions, but I feel like I've already journaled that...so - I'm going to journal about my favorite Christmas movies! We got a lot done around the house yesterday (more pictures to come), so today we get to watch some movies before we go to Mark & Kim's for dinner.

I think I've actually watched all of these this season... or I will have after today!!

I'm going to put these in order of preference...

#9 - A Charlie Brown Christmas

#8 - The Polar Express (it's too long for me...I loose interest) #7 - The Santa Clause

#6 - Home Alone (A classic...I have a great memory of watching this with my Grandpa Walt on Christmas night and him laughing so hard. It's a funny movie!)

#5 - Love Actually


#4 - How the Grinch Stole Christmas (so funny...and I love the set design and costumes!)

#3 - Elf...so much to love about this one!

#2 - The Family Stone (one of my very favorite movies ever...)

and... #1 - White Christmas!!! I told my Dad last night that I think I could recite this entire movie in my sleep. I've watched it at least once a year every year since I was about 5.

Ok - just this year, I've heard about this movie called "The Christmas Story." Melissa and I were almost kicked out of Nick & Kate's house the other night since we said we'd never seen it. Seriously? I don't understand the big deal.

We have it set to record on the DVR tonight - so we'll finally catch up with the rest of 20-somethings, I guess. I'm kinda skeptical. What's with this?!

[ day #23 - journal your christmas ]

Today's journal is about Christmas Stockings:

We make a big deal out of stockings. We open those first on Christmas morning - once we get our coffee, turn on the parade & music, and settle in for a fun morning.

Stockings are one of my favorite things about Christmas...plus, I love our stockings. Mom & I picked them out a few years ago and we've added ones for Grandma, Samson, Coco, and Zeke. Samson and Coco's aren't up right now...but they'll be full on Christmas morning!

Speaking of Samson - he's loving frolicking in all this snow we have! When I let him out to do his chores, he stays outside for quite a while and comes back with a mouth full of snow. The other night it was snowing and he was FULL of snow all over his body. This is this morning:

I worry about him staying out so long...he comes back with his paws full of ice and snow. I figure that he knows when he needs to come back...I hope I'm right.

[ day #22 - journal your christmas ]

To Do:

• Make cookies, fudge, 7-Layer Bars, Almond Bark covered pretzels
• Find pretzels to make said Almond Bark covered pretzels!
• Set the table
• Clean bathroom
• Take a nap
• Watch White Christmas

Kinda...boring...

[ day #21 - journal your christmas ]

Right Now...

I'm...

• blogging
• enjoying the snow outside (from the inside)
• being lazy on a Sunday morning
• looking forward to this week
• thinking about what errands I have to run tomorrow in Tri-Cities
• loving Jessica and the Cheerleaders for my Christmas present (it deserves it's own post later)
• drinking coffee with Hazelnut creamer
• contemplating going to church
• looking forward to Nick & Kate's Wii Party this afternoon
• thankful Katelyn, April, and I made it home safely from Tri-Cities last night in the blizzard (I drove 35-40 the entire way...it's normally 70...well 73 for me)
• facinated by my lovely button trees
• thinking Coco and Samson are dang cute in their Santa coats
• considering wrapping some presents (I didn't do it yesterday)
• really enjoying just being home
• also considering skipping wrapping for another hour and finishing my scarf that I've been knifty knitting

Happy Sunday!

[ day #20 - journal your christmas ]

The unexpected...Christmas card.

I love receiving Christmas cards - but the ones with letters and pictures are so much better! I really enjoying getting pictures of my friends' kids - they are all so adorable! - and hearing about what is going on in their lives.

It's also fun to get a card from someone you weren't expecting one from. That happened to me yesterday. When I came back from lunch, there was a card and a jar of homemade jam on my desk from the lovely Makenna Rowley! Her family along with her aunt & uncle & family own Taste-a-Treat (http://www.tasteatreat.com/) and they make the most delicious jams and jellies. I love love love the Berry Special Huckleberry Jam. Makenna wrote a nice note in the Christmas card thanking me for helping her at school and for being a good friend. Aw. So sweet! Her brother, who graduated last year, had given me jam a few times and Makenna is carrying on the tradition, I guess! Lucky me!

I also went to the CHS basketball games last night. I was thinking I wouldn't go - but then I realized it was the only home game during Winter Break and I wanted to see the college kids that are home from college. I got to see a few of the kids that graduated last year that I miss so much. That was worth it! The basketball teams beat Royal too - that's always GREAT!

After school yesterday, Mom and I went down to The Small Mall to pick something up for my Grandma. While we were there, we found a little Santa coat for Coco complete with a black sequined belt. Welcome to our photo shoot:

So glad it's break! I slept in until 8:45am! YAY! My white buttons got here yesterday, so I'm working on my little button tree today! I'm planning to wrap the rest of my presents today and then Jessica & I are taking some of our cheerleaders (and former cheerleaders) to the Elite Cheer & Dance Christmas Show tonight in Richland. I can't wait!

[ day #19 - journal your christmas ]

Dear Santa:

YAY! Today is the beginning of our Christmas break! It was a very long day at school waiting for the end of the day to come, but we found ways to amuse ourselves. (We tried playing Atari, but we couldn't get it to turn on - so Jennifer and I had Sudoku competitions. She kicked my butt.)

I'm not wishing for much this Christmas...just a sewing machine and a Vera Bradley Garmet Bag...oh...and world peace. :)

I got more buttons in the mail today, so I'll be working on my newest button tree creation tonight. Watch out. I might go to the basketball game too.

Merry Christmas!

[ day #18 - journal your christmas ]

Today it's all about food...

We have some traditions when it comes to food.

1. Treats:

We always make sugar cookies and pretzels covered in white almond bark. Sometimes we make a variety of other cookies/candies like Snickerdoodles, 7 Layer Bars, Hershey Kiss Cookies, etc.

2. Christmas Eve:

Mark & Kim make Lefse and we have dinner before the Christmas Eve service with boiled potatoes, fish, and Lefse. Yum.

3. Christmas Day:

We usually have Prime Rib (yum!) with Mashed Potatoes and other delish side dishes.

4. Desserts:
This year, I ordered two cheesecakes from one of the teachers at school's wife. I know I got a Candy Cane one and I think the other is Mocha Toffee Almond or something like that.

Hmmm...now I'm hungry!