Dreaming of a White Christmas
This year we will be in Florida for Christmas. I can hardly wait. We will meet my brother's girlfriend for the first time! We will also meet our new baby cousin for the first time. These two ladies are long anticipated additions to our family and the excitement is hard to contain.

We will take long walks. We will admire the lavish displays of lights. People who are not freezing their buns off take holiday yard illumination to whole new levels. 

I will wear a new short sleeve satin top with no jacket. Boots will be solely a fashion statement.

Truly, I am only "dreaming" of a white Christmas. 

A white Christmas stands for Cliff's family in the icy tundra that is Rochester, NY at this time of year.  

A white Christmas means seeing my dear friends in NJ. 

A white Christmas includes my Grandpaw. 

I miss you all.

"And sorry that I could not travel both and be one traveler, long I stood and looked down one as far as I could..."

More Fun With Picnik

Flickr's new edit button takes you to a site called Picnik and that is where I added the hat other do dads to this picture of my Aunt Janet. 

Possible Post Titles: 

Greetings Coast to Coast 

When a Good Idea Goes Bad

CIA Scandal Christmas

Last year when I took this picture Cliff emphatically said, "Wow! That picture has to be our Christmas card next year!" Since he has never had an opinion about our Christmas card, I thought I would go with it. 

Then one of his friends sent us a homemade Halloween photo postcard and I thought, "I could do that too!" In fact, I had the cards, the photos and the stamps all before Thanksgiving. I even had most of the addresses printed out. File this under "No good idea goes unpunished" because that was the upside of this story.

I put the project aside while Cliff's parents were here for Christmas. I meant to send them last weekend, but I lost the stamps. 

I meant to send them Saturday afternoon after I bought new stamps and thus guaranteed that I would find the old stamps in my other purse. Unfortunately, the glue had dried funny and all the photos started popping off the postcards!

So today I used double sided tape to fix all 50 postcards. Tomorrow I will go to the early post office on my way to work and finally send them off.

I got to thinking that postcards might not be considered first class mail and they may take even longer to get delivered? Or if the picture pops off, you might just get a plain green postcard from us. Klassy!

CIA Christmas?

Oh yes... Cliff emailed one of his friends:

"Bill, Thanks for the Christmas photo of your children. Our card will be coming soon. In honor of the CIA prisoner torture scandals we have our boys posed spread eagle on a metal rack. Merry Christmas!"

Photo Hunters: Small

Small little cookies... big job! Actually, I love to decorate cookies. And, I really love these  awesome tiny candy cane decors! Jodi sent me the cookie cutters and a big bag of the small (tiny really) candy canes  for the November Swap. 

The fun part is decorating. The not so fun part is the postal deadline to get them sent out to all of my family members on the East Coast. So, with that, I will be around to all of your pictures Sunday morning with more time and a leisurely cup of hot chocolate!

More Photo Hunters...

Green and Cheap and Not Half Bad

Each year I wrap packages for a hot potato game I play with the Crayons at our holiday party.  I wrap each gift with tons of layers of paper, so to save money and waste I start with magazine pages and then newspaper. Only the last layer is actually wrapping paper. 

I have to say, between Tiffany ads in the LA times and the gorgeous pictures in the Smith & Hawken and Williams Sonoma catalogs, I really didn't need wrapping paper at all. 

Most of my gifts this year are wrapped in gift bags made from my sister-in-law's bridesmaids dresses. Next year though, I will be sure to save the best catalogs for our gift giving! I love how these three came out. With some simple ribbon you would never know they were catalog pages.

Another Scrappy Notebook

This notebook is for my colleague and dear friend Ms. B. She is starting a mentoring  group for girls at our school to help foster positive self esteem, strong study skills and even early financial planning and job skills. It's an ambitious task and she feels truly called to this work. 

Ms.B  & her nephew Little Robby came over for Advent dinner on Sunday. We were able to talk about her plans for the girls group. After we lit the advent candles I was ready to read my devotional from this book, when she asked Little Robby what he sang for his school show. He broke out into the sweetest rendition of Away in the Manger that I have ever heard! It was so perfect!

To encourage her passion for this girls group, I made her this notebook for Christmas. I was so thrilled to find some sweet drawings of black girls in the Magic Cabin catalog. I also discovered some very cool adhesive scrapbook paper at Target. It comes in small pads with about four coordinating designs. Using crafty hole punches I was able to make assorted stickers. Also, no wrinkling!

Cookies For A Cowboys Fan

Michelle at Scribbit is hosting a Winter Bazaar of holiday ideas. Almost every year I give cookies as a gift, but I try to personalize it with a donation to a charity that would be meaningful for the recipient.

I know for sure my brother-in-law doesn't read my blog so I get to share! He is a huge Dallas fan. Like most of us, he has everything he needs in my price range. So I thought I would send him a gift he doesn't have to keep around.

The Cowboy's colors are navy and silver, but I wasn't going to make gray frosting and I couldn't get a true navy. Instead I used these blue sprinkles. 

The little footballs are just ovals laid over the hand of a regular gingerbread boy. They cooked right on.

I ended up writing famous Cowboy's numbers on the little stars with a special cookie marker. I think the santas look a bit sunburned. That's what happens when I get lazy and just add some red food coloring right to the frosting in the bag and hope that squishing it will mix it enough. Santa could get a sunburn. Right? Right.

 

I also included a donation to the Salvation Army since that is the official charity of the DC's. Let's hope this good chi brings his team a "super" new year!