...and to All a Good Night!

 It's a little late, and I'm supposed to be in bed, but I'm going to at least leave a little note :)
Christmas was wonderful.  Here are a few pictures.  I promise, there will be more to come :)

A little snow and a lot of friends :)

I followed the girls outside today when they went to play in our dusting of snow with their friends next door.  They had so much fun!  (Then a big cup of hot chocolate.)

 










 

And to think I was cringing!

My girls had school until yesterday.  I admit I was cringing while thinking of these last couple of days before Christmas.  They're SOOOOO excited -- and they don't typically specialize in patience, LOL.  I figured they'd be climbing the walls and at eachother's throats by this time.
Instead, we've had a perfectly glorious morning!  Laundry is running, dishes are loaded, they're even making their beds and tidying their bedroom right now!  Sabrina helped me fold and put away the clothes in the dryer while Kate and Lizzie did dishes, then Liz and Nina swapped so Lizzie could help me load the washing machine. 
Yes, I'll reload the dish washer before running it, but I'm going to make sure they girls are very busy first.  I don't want them to feel bad about what they've done.  I'm thrilled! 
We have just a light dusting of snow outside right now and occasional flakes coming down.  I'm glad I don't have to go out today!  (I wanted to run one errand, but it can wait).  It's just beautiful, though.  Now I'm going to make a yummy lunch with hot chocolate and we can enjoy the afternoon :)

Merry Christmas to All...

Happy Anniversary, Sweetie :)

Money can't buy you love

With no money, but a lot of love, I figured out a present to make for my sweet husband to celebrate 9 years of marriage. I used the Robert's coupon to buy a little stretched canvas for about $2.50. Painted it black, mod podged on the image, and stapled on the ribbon.
The significant part is really the image. I spent quite some time looking like a stalker across the street from this house, lol. This is the house where I was living when Michael and I met, started dating, and got engaged. It is a different color now -- it used to be blue. The text reads "Every Love has a beginning". Sorry about the lousy pictures, it was hard to get a good one in my dark basement without getting too much glare.

 

 

Jarbh Family Popcorn and Reading

For any of you "out of the loop" -- my family is known (from within) as the Jarbh family. Jarbh means the whole family starting with my mom down to the grandkids. Put simply, I made up the name using letters from each last name in the family.

"Popcorn and Reading" is a time-honored tradition for the family. I grew up on Sunday afternoon popcorn and reading time. Now we get together as a family once a month for some sort of activity. This month we had another popcorn and reading time.
Each family brought a short story / book and we had popcorn and hot chocolate.

The last story was done by my mom. She was sharing the Nativity with help from the grandkids. We had a chorus of angels, a bunch of shepherds, three wise guys, a real live baby, and a real live manger. (Well, Baby's daddy was the "manger").

Here are a few pictures I got from the evening: