How on Earth did you turn 14? I swear… it has happened overnight! Here we are on your birthday and I absolutely love to ask you these questions every year to see how your answers change. Happy Birthday baby girl!!
1. Why do you like being a kid? Because you have less responsibilities
2. What is your happiest memory? Spending time with my family.
Ah, the joys of Christmas are over. I know I complain a lot about January, but I really just don’t care for January. Tbug on the other hand does because her birthday is that month, although once upon a time I asked her if we could celebrate her bday in June. She looked at me like I killed her puppy. She was like 7. Then… last year, she asked me if she could celebrate her birthday with us in June. I told her NO. She asked why and I laughed and told her about this 7 year old who was offended I even mentioned such a thing. We all got a good laugh.
But that was just a side note… the real reason for the post is Christmas. And here is the calm before the fury… or something like that. Right now hubby, the girls, and I are living with my parents until we decide our next move after selling our house this late summer/early fall. We decided we were going to set our Christmas tree up in our little living room and we were going to open our presents just as a family Christmas morning (since Tbug was with us Christmas Eve through Christmas Day).
Years ago I started a tradition. I would make cookies for people who helped me throughout the year and on Christmas Eve I would go around delivering them. I missed a few years, but not many. When I got married, hubby continued that tradition with me. This year was no different. This year I made sugar cookies and spent a week decorating them so that they’d be ready to plate up and deliver on Christmas Eve. We then piled in the little red “sled” (aka hubby’s truck) and off to deliver cookies we went. And out of all the plates we delivered, we only spoke with 2 of the recipients. All the rest weren’t home so I left them in the normal places I have in the past and off to the next place we went.
Earlier this month my dad was reading the Big Nickel newspaper and saw that the Christmas train happened this last weekend. One day it was from Seligman, MO to Rogers, AR and I don’t remember the other day. I don’t remember because we were planning on the Saturday trip, we had plans for that Sunday. We were excited because it happened to be a Tbug weekend so we bought our tickets and made plans to ride the Christmas Train.
I really wasn’t sure what to expect and it wasn’t quite what I thought I might expect, but it was a lot of fun either day.
Every year I have the best of intentions and every year I fail when it comes to making a Ginger Bread House… until this year. Truthfully I think last year was the first year I really attempted to even try, usually I mention that we should but we run out of time. Last year I actually made the house pieces although they were horrible and we didn’t wind up putting it together so at the end of the season on clearance I bought a kit. Then I forgot I did that… sorta.
So jump forward to this year and while we were in Ft. Worth I found this really cool kit that had all the cutters and everything you’d need for making a ginger bread house (not the actual pieces, oh no, recipes to make your own!). We bought it and away I went making the dough… The dough was easy to make… SCORE! and for the most part it all worked out good. I had a few hiccups along the way, but isn’t that to be expected the first time out of the gate?
Ah, the yearly pilgrimage to Ft. Worth, Texas. Every year is different, obviously. This year as I was playing on Facebook during the 7 hour drive I saw where you ask Siri “What are you doing for Christmas?” This was her answer.
If you play in Snapchat any at all I’m sure that you’ve seen you get the ‘Tis the season from the different states you’re in. I should have taken one from Missouri before I left but didn’t think about it. I can also tell you when you get right inside the Texas border, it doesn’t show up yet. So I feel bad for those people… I forget which town I was trying it in. It took getting closer to McKinney before it showed up.
We made great time. Usually we make good time but somehow we made great time. When we got into Ft. Worth we decided to go on and eat. We decided on Hoffbrau’s. YUM!
Happy Thanksgiving! I hope that all your meals turn out as fabulous as our first Thanksgiving of the season did. Holy Wow! 1st Thanksgiving what? So, the NCHA futurity is going on in Ft. Worth, Texas right now and my uncle has some horses entered. When we started discussing Thanksgiving plans last month, we weren’t sure when he’d draw to show, plus the fact that this isn’t our year to have Tbug on Thanksgiving so we just decided to celebrate Thanksgiving last weekend. It was perfect.
There are 6 of us that headed to my aunts house in southern Oklahoma and right now we only have vehicles that will haul 5 people at a time so Abug, Mom, and I loaded up first thing Friday and drove down to AC & UB’s. Hubby took the day off to try his luck at deer hunting and be ready to pick Tbug up after school, come home and have chores done, pick dad up after work, and then they headed out. I should mention that they swung by J.L’s BBQ in Pryor (which is a little out of the way…..) for dinner before heading on to AC & UB’s but that’s okay 😘.
When AC & UB were up last month for a horse show, we ran to Sam’s Club and AC bought me a Cast Iron cookbook with the “stipulation” that I had to make something out of it for Thanksgiving. I decided to make the Orange Rolls (kind of like Cinnamon Rolls) for breakfast for Saturday morning. They were a little dry, but very good.
A lot of people will have an opinion that is not favorable for the fact that we put up our Christmas tree, but that’s okay. We’re happy and we’re still very excited to celebrate Thanksgiving. And also, my big thing is to make sure that Tbug is involved with decorating our tree. I always want her to feel included and this is a way that I make it a point…. So 2 weeks ago, yes 2 weeks ago we put up our Christmas tree. No, I haven’t forgotten about Thanksgiving!
Anyway… We actually bought a new tree at the end of last year. We went out the day after Christmas and actually found this tree at Lowe’s. It’s so friggin cool. So it is prelit but there aren’t cords you have to plug in together to light it all up. Instead once you place this piece to that, the plug in is in the tree base itself. Very cool. Only bad thing is there is not an easy way to get light to our tree topper, but it doesn’t fit anyway… hit the ceiling so we left it off. I do believe it needs a topper but I’m not sure what to do just yet.
Picture overload! Jody, her kiddos, my kiddo, and I went to a trunk or treat done by a local hospital. Then there was Halloween. Abug had the best time and this is really the first time she’s gotten the concept of Halloween. She had a bucket, said Trick or Treat, and Thank you. We missed a few of our friends, for that I’m sorry, but now… picture overload :).
And they’re off
