Celebrating the Season and It's 2025

 So Pamela, Kaleb and the boys came up Saturday (12/21) to celebrate Christmas. 

After a dinner of BBQ it was time to open presents.

Killian and Braxton were excited to get BB guns to have at Gpa and Cici's house. David is gonna fix them up a target too.

And these two were so excited about their monster trucks. Braxton had the biggest grin and Killian got so excited and started telling me all about his truck.

Our fireplace mantel has a natural front so our stockings could hang from the bracket you'd put on a shelf and I didn't want to put hooks in the wood on the bottom so I did the next best thing. I bought a stocking hanging stand. Worked at very well. Had room for all of us and the dogs stockings.

After a bit of clean up and dessert we drove to West to the Christmas Lights.  "Lights of West"   I took one picture and then Braxton asked if he could use my phone camera to take some pictures. 
And of course there had to be some silly pictures. Killian was sitting on Gpa's lap and I had Braxton.

 There was way more lights this year. We went the first year they were open in 22 and missed going in 2023 but made it this year with the boys. Pamela's co-worker and her husband with some friends started the park. They had a line of cars waiting to get in. Before we knew it we were through the park. The kids got out at the end to see the petting zoo and whatever else they could get into. It was almost 11:30 before we got back to the farm and the kids had to drive another 40 to get home but it was a fun evening.

Bruno, Sadie and Bri got a stuffed cow for Christmas. Of course Bri took hers home but it seems Bruno thinks the 2 left are his.  He's guarding these 2.  He doesn't always want to share and Sadie will willingly give it to him if he try's to grab it.

Got a picture of them waiting for a treat from their furless Dad Christmas morning.  Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday to David. He's a Christmas baby. It was pretty quiet with just the two of us and the pups.  PamelaPamela had to work Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and the day after this year.  Life of a nurse but she did get to stay home for a couple hours to see the boys open their presents Christmas morning. 

Saw these gloves on FB with lights on the fingers and got them for him.  He's always needing light when working on vehicles and thought these might help. He can do a "phone home et commercial"  LOL

oooo Furless Dad may have another treat for us so let's sit and stare at him.  I got this picture Christmas. Our little reindeer elf

Now check this out.. That's a red bird/Cardinal.  It's attacking our master shower window.  It's been at it for almost 7 days.  

This guy should have a migrane. After about 7 days of this I put bottle of shower gel in the window and he hasn't been back.  He would start at 7am and crash into the window until almost noon.

Happy New Year for us to you.

I was going to get my last post in yesterday but that didn't happen so I'll end with a Happy New Year. Here's hoping that everyone had a happy and safe evening and 2025 is better to all of us.

Until next post...May God's blessings shower upon you and bestow upon each of you a bright, healthy and peaceful new year.

Life is about to get real ... Holidays... Wedding Planning ...shopping Oh My

 So Thanksgiving came and went without me taking any pictures. Pamela and Kaleb came up but they had to drop the kids off at their mom's house so we didn't get to celebrate with the boys. But our friends John and Kelli came over to celebrate with us. Of course Kelli waited until she got home to mention that they got away before I took pictures.  She does that same thing at book club too.  What I do have a picture of is the placemats I finished 3 days after Thanksgiving.  LOL!  Better late than never. Very simple but I had Donna quilt them with pumpkins. Simple but cute. Next year I'll get to use.

Maybe I should have titled this blog, "Life is getting very real".  LOL  The wedding is less than 30 days away. It seemed so far away when the engagement happened and before I knew it,,,, here we are. Vendors wanting final counts and of course money. Always money. Plus additional questionnaires now that we have all our vendors lined up. Oh what fun we're having.  I keep worrying there's something we'll forget but hopefully our coordinator will keep us in line.  That could be a big job with this group.

I'm trying to get back into creating birthday postcards that used to mail in clear envelopes but now I have to put a real envelope. I guess at least I have less chance of someone taking it instead of getting to the recipient intended via the mail. I haven't been real consistent. I get one made and not the next. I managed to get our friend John one made.

 

Kelli asked us to join them for dinner to help him celebrate. We ended up at Mas Fajita's in Caldwell. Good times with friends.

Tuesday (12/3) Kelli needed to go to Cameron to get their tax statements and asked if I wanted to come along and I said sure. I needed to our tax statements too. That was a wasted stop. 

The county had a glitch in the process and the statements weren't ready so off we went empty handed but 3 more stops to go including a light lunch at ZX Made in Texas where we might have had a glass of wine too.  We shared a turkey sandwich and a charcutier box. 

That picture of the sandwich was my half. It was so full of meat that I couldn't finish but half of it. Took the rest home and ate the rest the next day for lunch. The charcutier box was full too. Plenty for us to share.

Saturday (12/7) morning the kids took the boys to breakfast with Santa. The boys had lots of fun. They got to tell Santa everything they wanted for Christmas.

Then they all met us at Men's Warehouse to get fitted for their suits along with Gpa and Kaleb his tux. It was so cute. The Braxton and Killian were really good and cooperated the clerk when she was measuring them. This next picture made me think of the movie called 'Big'. You know where Tom Hanks becomes a man and at the end when he returns to being a boy his suit was too big. These little guys were so cute.

  Everyone got fitted without any fuss.

Sunday (12/8) David started pulling the Christmas decorations out of the attic. Thank goodness at this house it's a tad easier than climbing the rickety ladder that goes into most attics. Our builder built us a stairway. So much easier.

As I decorated the tree I went down memory lane of sorts.

In 1997 while working at Mustang Engineering David got an ornament. I want to say it was also their 10 year anniversary but I could be wrong.  And the next ornament our good neighbors the Walsweer's started buying us ornaments. And our realtor and long time friend Barbara Borchers bought the street ornament listing the street name of each house we've lived in at the time. Except I just realized the first street is wrong. LOL Our first house was on Machala. How funny. I think she lived on Shady Grove though.

David spent a lot of time in St Croix and one year I went to visit him and bought ths sugar cane mill ornament. There were a lot of them around the island. And there is the ornament my friend/co-worker Samara @Cyfair ISD gave me while working with her. I miss my peeps.  Most of the people have actually moved on or retired. Just a few of them left.

 

Every year I'd buy or make an ornament with Pamela's picture. This is one of my favorites. She was about 4 maybe. And of course David and my's first tree ornament.

Okay I'll stop reminiscing. I got all the ornaments on the tree and David always puts the Angel up and gets the timer set for the lights to come on and go off. This year he had some help. LOL  Sadie thought he needed some love and attention. Sadie was making sure he hooked it up correctly.

Ta Da... the tree is done. Click on the highlighted word to see the tree lite up.

The grand-dog went for grooming and the groomer did her photo shoot for Bri's Christmas grooming. Bri is so good for Missy at Top Paw Pet Spa. in College Station.

Wednesday (12/11) David drove into Houston for the monthly 

Bell Gang Luncheon. Tommy brought out the ole camera and had the waiter snap a picture of the guys. It's a great shot of all the guys. Thanks Tommy for sharing!

Our book club had our Christmas celebration. Debra was our hostess and she went all out and we were fed well. We had roasted duck, Alantic trout, acorn squash, artichokes, dressing, potato soup, roasted garlic, rolls, wine, egg nog and various other beverage choices. 

What a night of fun! Of course I didn't get a group picture. Kelli waited to remind after we all got home. LOL 

We ate, laughed and played a dreidel game making bets with candy. And Debra fed us on real china. We're special. Of course after we all handled the M&M's no one chose to eat them.  OOPS

  

There was also lots of desserts. I snapped a picture of one of the girls plates where she tried several of the desserts available.

Snowball cookies, bread pudding, pineapple rum cake and I can't remember what else she had on her plate.

I made everyone a bookmark/reading list for 2025 with a fabric backing of their favorite colors and I made a Mug Rug in their favorite colors. I made a friendship star block on the rug. I thought it was appropriate. Here's a couple examples.  

 And Here is a couple of the Mug Rugs with the Friendship Star on it. They can use it for their coffee cup, wine glass, snack, juice glass whatever. Here's a couple of them.

Two of the girls put theirs to use right away. 

I mean really!  This is crazy. Thank goodness the trucks inside for the boys Christmas were still intact and no damage but that's kinda sad to get a package tore up like this.

Saturday (12/14) we went for Pamela's final wedding dress fitting. It looked beautiful and so did she. 34 more days and she'll be wearing it down the aisle.

Thursday (12/19) We met up with the Jackson's our friends from Austin in Georgetown at a new restaurant to try. It's called Wildfire and it was good!. We'd never been there before but they had a good size menu to pick from and everything I saw come out looked really good. After lunch we walked around the square and shopped/browsed the different shops. One day we'll go back in the evening when the Christmas lights are lite up. I've been told it's beautiful. The square was packed with shoppers.

Loved these t-towels. LOL

We hit most of the shops and we were back where we started. Time to head back home. Until we meet again.

Made progress on the wedding stuff. I think Pamela finished the seating chart and layout and questionnaires. Yay! Do I dare say we're in okay shape. We'll see when we meet up with the venue and the day of Coordinator in a few days.

I've bored you long enough for this post. I'll try again in a couple days. Tomorrow, Monday 12/29 I get the pleasure of having a 2 day nuclear stress test. Yippee. 

Until the next post...o   “Only your real friends will tell you when your face is dirty.” — Sicilian Proverb