and now what to do with all the stuff! It was a two day job to put it all up and now it has taken all day to take it all down. Every time I think I have it all, I find something else! Well 11:30 pm and it is finally almost all back in boxes ready to go back into the garage for another year. The house looks pretty naked.

(we start blogging and take pictures of the dumbest stuff sometimes!)

and then I came home and had a little fun getting creative with our pictures!

watch out! Corynn is going to show you a few tricks.

Last night a group of us met at Doug and Kym's to go caroling. We have done this for several years now, but I think this is the largest group ever. Even Papa joined us this year!

We go from house to house letting one of the smaller kids run up and ring the bell. We sing two carols and end each session with a rousing "We wish you a Merry Christmas" and then move on to the next house. It is fun, brings cheer and always makes me a little teary eyed. Mark said it touched him also. We missed our friend Terri (who is always such a big part of arranging these festive get togethers with Kym) as she was under the weather. We did stop to give Christmas hugs and song.

We then headed back to Doug and Kym's for desert, coffee and hot cocoa! What a great Christmas tradition!

Yesterday Chelcie, Madison and I finally managed to get together to make some frosted sugar cookies. The girls had fun coming up with some creative decorating, even making the beloved UCLA cookie and of course, the rival USC. There is a lot of rivalry that goes on in this family regarding those two teams!

Two batches of cookies and 3 batches of frosting later (recipe for frosting says will frost 4 dozen cookies. Yeah, if they are the size of quarters!), we were done. They are now ready for the eating!

Saturday I made a run into Downey because my dad had a mini stroke. When I got there, he was in ER, but by the time they got him to a room, he could move his left leg again and we knew he was better, because he was complaining that he couldn't get the football game on the hospital TV. (was on ESPN and they only had local channels) I would call Mark for updates and pass them on to my dad. He came home the next day and is doing better.

Anyway, back to mom's tree. I just love my mom's tree. It is always so festive and fun! Spent the night with my mom just enjoying some time together.

Love you mom and dad!

Christmas Extravaganza!

Our friends Ed and Sheila and the two of us have wanted to go attend this the last couple of years and finally got tickets. What a great show! Everything from Stray Cat Strut to Mozart to Jingle Bells to Rock This Town to Nutcracker! Of course, Mozart and Nutcracker have never sounded so cool!!

It was a great rockin' night!

I still get a little carried away when it comes to my Christmas candy making. There are so many things I like and so many I want to try that I don't know when to stop.

Saturday I made the peanut butter balls and the coconut balls. This morning I got up to start on all the others. After spicing up some nuts, it was time to break out the new digital candy thermometer that Mark got me last Christmas. This was to come in handy as I made all my batches of peanut brittle.

Well it took me a while to get the hang of placing it on the side of the pan. It kept falling off the side and onto the stove. I am not proud of the words passing these lips! Then I am getting the comments from the peanut gallery (haha) - "Remember I like it light colored." Well, imagine my thoughts at that comment! I took out the old thermometer and started using it and then finally got the hang of hanging (huh?) the new one on the pan. I used them both at the same time to see how they compared. Temperatures stayed the same through the soft ball stage, but when we got to the critical hard crack stage the new digital hovered around the high 280s, while the old regular shot past 300. What to do? Better trust the tried and true old one cuz, we need to make sure it is "light colored!!"

Anyway, hope y'all are ready for some sugar cuz I need to get rid of this stuff before we eat it all!

and the SNOW was LOW!

moved to our house for the family dinner. Men were allowed!

Besides the regular desert part of the family, we had Dawn, Toni, and Jody brought her brood in to surprise Grandma! It was a great family night. Of course, we missed all of you that have moved to the nether regions.

After Grandma managed to blow out her candles (trick sparkler candles! and I think spit was involved at some point, cuz the kids started helping out also), Corynn showed GeeGee how old she was with a count of the fingers. We then had presents, some great hilarity, and a family pic.

Evening ended with Grandma and Grandpa snuggling on the couch.

and looks damn good!

Louise started the countdown to her 80th birthday with a luncheon at Augusta restaurant with her women friends. No men allowed! We were pleased that Toni, a longtime friend from way, way back was also able to join us.

Dawn did a great job as emcee and had everyone come up with one word to describe Louise. Generous, gracious, classy, swear! (only at the bridge table we were informed), to name a few. Helen recited a cute poem to the tune of "Those are a few of my favorite things" taking aim at aging.

We ended with the blowing out of the candles and laughs! Just the beginning...

but got a beautiful sky instead!