A Few Ornaments

I have boxes of Christmas ornaments.  They don’t all get used each year.  I rotate, or do less trees, or go with a different theme.  It’s one of my favorite things about the holiday.  I wish we had a Christmas Mouse store close by, just so I could go check out all their glittery, shiny ornaments on a regular basis.

I thought I’d share a few of the favorite ornaments that made the tree this year.  First we’ll look at our “fancy tree”.  This is usually done with a Victorian/tea/girlie theme with purples, mauves and beads and baubles.

My first star ornament doesn’t fit into that category at all, but it’s one of my oldest ornaments.  My older brother bought it for me when we were kids.  It’s a little porcelain mouse singing out of a book.  The white trim on his outfit is velvety.

The next ornament is also from my brother.  He bought it for me in 1994 when my life fell apart.  Funny thing is, this is Lindsey’s favorite ornament.  Every morning she opens it up to wake her “people” up.  Every night at bed time she closes it and puts her “people” to bed. 

Next is my little Victorian lady, and my nativity made of olive wood from Israel.

My tiny little glass basked or porcelain roses is always on the  tree.

This little gingerbread house is glittery and as cute as can be.  A light bulb goes up through the bottom and makes the windows light up.

Now we’ll move on to the antique or outdoorsy tree.  This tree doesn’t always get put up, but this year we were feeling especially Christmassy as the snow fell and we decorated the house.

These first two ornaments are handmade, and belonged to my aunt who passed away in 2007.  She didn’t get much recognition from the family while she was on earth, so I always put up her ornaments in honor/memory of her at Christmas.

Next comes the first Nutcracker I ever bought.  I got this back in the 80’s, before I even knew how big a part of my Christmases it would be one day.   The father Christmas on the left is a porcelain bell, and I just think he is the most regal looking little guy.

Lastly, here is our newest little Nutcracker dude.  He’s a big chubby, and has twins in green and silver too.  To the bottom left, you’ll see a little pinecone with two little mice peaking out.

I hope you enjoyed a tour of my tree.   Here’s wishing you all a Merry Christmas!

A Day at Home

I think my blog title is misleading.   When people hear, or read, that I’m stay at home mom (S.A.H.M.), they envision someone who…well, stays home all the time.  That is a gross error in interpretation.

You see, even though I’m a S.A.H.M., I’m rarely just home.   A typical day includes homeschooling, then off to ballet or Awana, or the grocery store.   I rarely have a day to just be at home and do “home stuff”.  

Today was different.   The girls are only working on math and handwriting, which they do independently.  We have no outside commitments for the day, which truthfully I find hard to believe and I’m secretly worried that I’ve forgotten to write something down on my calendar.  Seriously.

I was able to get up and have a non rushed cup of coffee, while I read my Bible.  A friend stopped by for a brief visit (a real live person, just stopped by, it was truly amazing).   Then I was able to clean house, weed my flower beds, sit down and eat lunch with the kids, water plants and then joyous day, I TOOK A SHOWER, in the middle of the afternoon!  I may be just a bit giddy over here!

Now while I was in house cleaning mode, the kids went out back to do stuff with the dog.  We have an enclosed back yard, and a very protective dog so I tend to not keep an eye on them while they are outside.

Then they came in, one bloody and in tears.  After bandaging Lindsey up, ahem, we had an interesting discussion.

"How'd you manage this?"

"Olivia had a rope tied to the other leg and was controlling it."

"I see....Olivia, what was the purpose of the rope tied to the leg?"

"Well, she said she needed to be able to stretch further, I was stretching her." (insert muffled giggles on my part here).

"Lindsey, you had absolutely NO qualms about agreeing to this?"

"Define qualms."

"You know that still small voice on the inside that says you probably shouldn't do something."

"Oh, yeah, I had LOTS of qualms."

"And yet you let your sister tie a rope to your leg in order to STRETCH you?"

"Yeah.....I don't know why I did that." (insert flash back to Bill Cosby's stand up routine).

Then Olivia says "Is this going to be one of those things that ends with 'well, like Grandma Addie always said’ ?" Yes, yes it is.

"Like Grandma Addie always said when you don't listen, you have to feel."

What did we learn from this?

Lindsey: "Listen to your instincts, and don't let your sister tie a rope around your leg."

Olivia: "If you're going to try something like this, wait until the week AFTER ballet performance instead of the week OF performance." All the ballet moms say Amen!

It’s moments like this that I’ll laugh about when I’m 80.   It’s moments like this that the girls will tell their kids about over Thanksgiving dinner.   Just because we got to spend a day at home.   Grins!

The Birthday Week

I turned 46 this week. FORTY.SIX.  That sounds really close to 50, egads!     Several years ago I laid down an edict “I shall never again bake my own birthday cake.”   That next year, I went without a cake, and I was not amused.  The powers that be realized that this was not a good plan for future years, ahem.

This year the birthday celebration started two days early.  The husband came home from work on Monday with this yummy treat.

Then when he realized we’d had the homeschool day from Hades, he retreated to the nearest restaurant and came back with this for dinner.

On Tuesday, my best friend sent me these delicious chocolate covered strawberries.  They were AMAZING!  Each strawberry was about the size of Lindsey’s fist.  Yummo!

My older brother, Nelson,  has taken on the task of making sure I get a homemade birthday cake each year.  He makes the most amazing cake, with homemade frosting.   Decorating isn’t his strong suit, but like he said “You can’t taste spacing anyway.”

Nelson also brought me this vintage hanky. 

There’s a story behind it. 

Years ago I had a vintage hanky, I carried it in my purse just because it had belonged to a family member who had passed on.  Anyway, right after we moved here, I was shopping with the girls and Olivia sneezed, one of those disgusting sneezes that only little kids can do, the kind that covers them from nose to chin with snot.   I didn’t have any tissues with me, so I took out the hanky and told her specifically “DO NOT THROW THIS AWAY, PUT IT IN YOUR POCKET UNTIL WE GET HOME AND I’LL WASH IT”.

We got home and I asked for the hanky so I could pretreat it, and put it in the laundry basket.  “I threw it away.”  Was her answer.  What?  Where?  “At the store.”   Gaaaahh!!!   I had shared that story with Nelson, and for more than six years he’s kept it in his gray matter.  He found this one, which he said obviously wasn’t THE one, but it had purple on it (my favorite color), and it looked old, and he just wanted me to know that it had mattered to him, because it had mattered to me.  That is a good brother right there!

Other birthday goodies, that weren’t edible included this lovely handmade garden flag from Lindsey.

She drew it with marker, and at the top in big red letters it says “Happy Easter” and at the bottom it says “To Mom from your loving daughter Lindsey”.   I’ll have to put it up briefly one day, but I’m afraid rain will wash the marker off, so it’ll go in my mom’s treasure box after it’s inaugural display.

Thomas followed suit and bought me another lovely garden flag as well.  I love the feel of the material in this one, and the fact that it has “Welcome” written on both sides is the bomb!  I hate flags that have wording that shows threw backward onto the opposite side.

It was a good birthday week.  FORTY-SIX?  Sigh.

Blast From The Past

The past is an interesting thing.  It can haunt, shape, destroy, or even elude you.   For example, check out this interesting photo.

The above photo, circa 1971, is something I never knew existed until yesterday when it showed up on Face Book.  That’s me on the left (they say) at age 3-ish, and my ever sneering brother, he’d be about 6 there. 

I don’t remember a great deal about my child hood, for good reason.   But some things a kid should remember.   For example, this next photo of Mom, taken on the same day as the above photo.

Had I not been told this was Mom, I wouldn’t have known it was her.   I have no recollection of her every looking like this.   Although that harsh look in her eyes…that I remember.

I certainly have no recollection of her ever acting like this.

Yes sir, Face Book is an interesting place to find yourself.