Milk and Cookies 2023

 Just in time for the end of the year here is the 2023 happenings on and off the funny farm. We hope this finds you rested, loved, & full from the holiday season. 🎄

Milk and Cookies 2024 by Melissa Kane

Milk and Cookies 2022

I probably should be cleaning the house so it is presentable to family on Christmas Eve but instead I decided it was time to get the annual electronic Christmas letter done and posted. So here is - the once a year blog to let you know how our year went. (One of these years I will post more often like I always plan, but this was not the year, again) We hope this finds you all warm and well this holiday season!

Milk and Cookies 2022 by Melissa Kane

Milk and Cookies 2020

For sure 2020 has been one for the books! It seemed like every month brought something new to learn how to deal with, but we have made it to the end and are here to tell about it. Check out the annual Milk and Cookies letter to see how we kept our glass over half full this year. We certainly hope you and your family find yourself the same. 

A Family Tradition

The theme for the county fair this year is A Family Tradition and Gracyn always likes to make a collage of pictures that has to do with the theme. As she was picking the pictures I started to think it would make a great blog post as the reason I started this blog was to help remember all the things we did on our funny farm as a family growing together.

Here are the words she came up with when describing the pictures in her collage.

Farm - You can't describe our family without including the farm. We spend time each day together working and being together on the farm. From calf chores to picking up rocks we always find a way to spend some time with each other and find dad when he is busy keeping the whole thing going.

Wedding - Last year we were lucky enough to add two Kane girls to our family when two of our nephews were married. We had a lot of fun being with family and dancing to the music. We also took some time to get together and take a picture of everyone together. As our family grows it is amazing to get a good picture of who we all are.

Easter - Piñata - Every year for Easter the Kane family gets together to eat, hunt Easter Eggs, smash a Piñata, and enjoy a peanut butter rice crispy shaped bunny treat from the kitchen of Aunt Marcia. This year we decided to take another family picture on the front steps of the house in Quasky. The last time we took the picture seven people in the picture were not an official part of the family or even born yet! It is not as easy to organize all the people but still great to hear all the laughter not caught on film. The Piñata started as a tradition when we celebrated together after the holiday and Grandma picked a bunny shaped one up in the clearance aisle. Since then we have had bunnies, chicks in eggs, homemade brown bags, and Olaf! The 'bat' to break open the candy has been passed on from the Kane kids to Bryan or the McEnany boys to the Kane girls as the kids have grown.

Pumpkin Patch - Tire Swing - Gus @ Pumpkin Patch -  Corn Maze - Carving Pumpkins - Trick or Treat - Cotton Candy on Halloween - I did not realize we seem to pack a lot into Halloween time at our house! Sherban's Pumpkin Patch in Manchester seems to kick off our Halloween fun. The girls always love their turn flying through the air on the tire swing. And I always makes sure we get pictures behind all the wood props. The last couple years we have met my Aunt Shelia, cousin Cyndi, and her boys for the trunk or treat celebration as a practice run for finding all the pieces to our costumes. Two of the three girls have taken turns going through the haunted bus at the end of the trail of trunks. One has always been too scared to try it out - they must get that 'scaredy cat' from their mom who used to read instead of watch scary movies at sleepovers. We have also enjoyed finding our way through the themes corn maze each year. Luckily we have always found our way out! Then we pick out our pumpkins and have a picture with Gus the scarecrow before we go. On Halloween we Trick or Treat twice! We start by checking out the candy at my dad's store for downtown Trick or Treat in Independence before we snake around the streets and fill our bags for the first time. We finish the night hitting the streets in Walker - being sure to get cotton candy from the house on the corner with the delicious treat each year. Whew - I am tried just writing this...

Girl Scouts - 4H - The girls have picked some pretty good activities to be involved in outside of school. Despite the fact that I was worried about both of the girls selling Thin Mints and Samoas in February, they have both learned some fabulous communication and commerce skills. I am so glad they both have wonderful leaders to help them in their journey. This is our second year trying out 4H and the girls have had a great time attending meetings with hayrides, holiday games, creating crafts, and touring to see the animals other members have to show at fair - from rabbits to pigs to fainting goats. They have also enjoyed some time before fair working with their dad on some woodworking skills to create a flower box and hook hanger to share at fair. Gracyn continued her fashion events with a romper for clothing selection and shorts with a tank top and attached scarf for the $15 Challenge. And on Sunday all her hard work paid off when she earned a purple ribbon for her dance during Share the Fun!

Chucky Cheese - Hu Hot - Since Gretchyn decided she needed her birthday at Chucky Cheese when she turned 5 we have tried to get back there each year for some fun family time. Gwyn even kept her ski ball on the write track this year! And it was fun to watch the girls work together to earn tickets and eyes light up when daddy joined in to play like the big kid he is! Gracyn, Gwyn, and I have always enjoyed finding a time to enjoy Hu Hot together. But this year we finally got Gretchyn to join us as well. All I have to do is let her eat S'Mores for lunch - included with her own small fire at the table to roast the marshmallows. Now we can have our spicy dishes on the grill and she can enjoy a sweet treat all together.

Ice Cream Cake - Pie in Face - It is great to have a tradition that includes such a sweet treat as a Dairy Queen ice cream cake. Each birthday my mom will have the girls pick out which character or activity they are enjoying at the moment to put on their cake for them and us. We have enjoyed Max from The Secret Life of Pets and a deer so far this year. This year also ended a tradition on birthdays for us as Gwyn had her 5th birthday party - the last that will just be family. Next year she will have friends from Kindergarten over to play with. So this year we broke out some extra fun when Aunt Manette brought out Pie in the Face. It was a little more fun to watch everyone else get pie in their face, but I did try it out against the birthday girl once myself. It was also fun to watch Gwyn play against Kane as we celebrated her party on his 18th birthday. There were giggles and finger licking all around.

Sister Smiles - Indoor Pool Pirates - First Day School Pictures - I have always loved to take pictures and with three smiling girls it is always fun to get them together and show of their pearly whites. With Gretchyn suddenly doing everything she can to avoid a picture it is a little harder to get them all together, but before she became photofobic we did get some good ones this year - one even with them just messing around on the living room floor and one as they say 'ay mate' before heading into the indoor waterpark at Honey Creek Resort on Lake Rathbun. But the ones that end up as my lock screen on my phone each year are the tradition we have continued from when Mark was a little boy - pictures on the front steps on the first day of school. It has morphed from just Gracyn when she headed off to preschool to all three girls together and one at a time as they proudly show off their new backpacks, outfits, and shoes. I hope they still have the same smiles when I have them standing out their on the first day of the Senior year.

Cheerleading Camp - This year was the first time all three girls could spend a day of Christmas break with the NL Cheerleaders at Little Lynx Cheer Camp. It was a quiet day for mommy, but a day of loud yells, floor pounding, and high jumping for the girls. And then it is always fun to go see them shout it all out at the half time of a Girl's Basketball Game in January.

Christmas Cookies - Christmas Card Picture - Moodolph - Christmas Concert Christmas - is another busy time of traditions and probably my favorite holiday of the year. [The six rubbermaid tubs of decorations in my storage room might be a good indication of this.]  We kick off the holiday season with cookie making with Mark's family. We all bring recipes, supplies, and something to make for dinner and turn the kitchen into a factory of cookie making and decorating. And because I love a challenge we always try to take our Christmas Card picture after we have had a busy day baking. This year instead of getting us matching shirts, we all wore a shirt with 'a few of our favorite things' from deer to tractors to Paris to fish to books. We had some words about sitting still and smiling, but then had couple that could be used for the card and a lot of goofy ones that tell the story of our funny farm. This year we even invited our version of Elf on the Shelf - Moodolph 'the reindeer in training' to be part of the picture. The magic of the season begins when he shows up at the beginning of December to keep watch on who is naughty or nice. He even leaves some gifts along the way - the favorite this year were the PJ's to wear until we see him again next season. We also dress and bundle up one night in December to go watch the girls sing and smile as they sing songs of the season. The tradition came to an end for Gracyn this year as she leaves elementary, but Gwyn will pick it up for her next year when she enters Kindergarten!

Since I could not get the actual collage to embed here in the blog [oh how touchy technology can be] I am attaching a link to the collage of pictures Gracyn made to capture these family traditions. We also created a candy cane word cloud to help explain what the pictures represented. That is embedded and linked below as well.

I am already excited for the theme next year to see what she comes up with to create!


http://www.getloupe.com/v/n8nrywmc?r=u

Bushel of Blessings

I set out to start writing this post at the beginning of November and add to it each day as I thought of new things I was thankful for each day until I made it to Thanksgiving, but each day was over before I knew it and here I sit on the day after Thanksgiving with a blank page in front of me, but I realize that is what I am most thankful for - a life that keeps me busy.

There was a day just a few years ago that I would have told you that the thought of busy day made me pull the covers over my head and hide. When I truly believed I was not good enough to do those things that were ahead of me. When I wondered why a person with a cloudy mind deserved to have a body that worked just fine. Those thoughts are still in the back of my mind, but the things I have to keep me busy and be thankful for are able to be my focus now.

So I did not make my goal of writing down what I was thankful for each day and even if I did it would never be a complete list, but I would like to try to come up with a list of 11 [you know me and my odd numbers and since it is the 11th month we will roll with it] to share with you here -

11. A messy house - I am sure you have all seen the quote that says - please excuse the mess ~ we are busy making memories here, but I saw a sign online the other day that said - please excuse the mess ~ the kids are being jerks - which I think is a little more true to what life is really like. There are times at home when I think I talk to myself as I try to name off the things all over the floor that need put away. I even caught myself sounding like my parents the other day when I told my girls everything on the floor when they went to bed would be thrown away and this was not my mess so I was not cleaning it up. I guess it must be something about being a parent that makes a dirty house annoying. But as the quote hanging in my kitchen says 'no one notices what I do until I don't do it' so with no mess how would I know they needed me.

10. Giggles - in a house with three little girls and a husband that considers making girls giggle a second job - we rarely have a day without giggles in the house. Even after an express ride on the scream train from a super angry three year old a giggle can be found deep down to make a quick u-turn. With all the moods in this house, I think laughter will be the best medicine most days.



9. Hard work paying off - I was so lucky to watch most of the students, staff, and community at the high school I work at pull together and reach a goal that was set out for them. And the pay off will be more than just the $100,000 prize from the competition. We will be able to make our school a place for students to feel at home and learn together.

Anamosa Students Get Big Surprise

8. Students who complain but care - I have to smile on the inside and keep my face neutral when I hear students complain about school. It must be the teenage brain that has a bigger capacity for complaints and I find it fun to make comments to make them think and it used to bother me to hear them say they didn't need to learn, but I have learned they only complain because they care and even if they don't know they are learning despite their complaints. When they stop complaining, then I will wonder if they are learning.

7. A family at work - I have heard "if you do what you love, you will never work a day in your life" I think having amazing co-workers to help with that journey is the key to this. I have been lucky enough to find this not once, but twice. I cannot say enough about all these people that work so hard each day to make sure the students get the best experience at school, but I am so glad to be a part of it and have these amazing people available to help me grow as an educator.

6. Young Adult Fiction - Loving to read clearly took me down the road I am on today and I love that there is an entire genre of books dedicated to try and hook other teens into that love too. I have read so many books I could not possibly remember them all, but I do know they can make me laugh out loud and wipe tears from my eyes. I also watched close to 50 students celebrate that love for reading  this month at the Dystopia Duels Bring a Book to Life Challenge - pretty amazing!

5. Open Windows - It did snow last week, but until then and even looking into next week we may be able to open the windows and get the germs out. We have had plenty of germs slithering around this house the past few weeks so open windows can only help kill them off before they sneak in to hide and avoid the cold of this wonderful midwest winter.

4. Laundry in drawers - If anyone ever creates a machine to fold and put away laundry they will make millions - the biggest G says this is her goal to create someday so I hope she can make it happen. By the time I sort, wash and dry the clothes I have little energy left to fold and almost none to put it away. So around here laundry baskets usually stay full until I run out of them in the basement. I look forward to getting them empty this weekend and have all the clothes tucked in their drawers until it is time to do it all over again.

3. Fun with family - The best part of this season is time to spend with family. A time to slow down and enjoy the time together. As I watched the girls bounce up and down on the trampoline with their cousins, run around chasing their uncle around the yard, beg to play BINGO and search for prizes when they won I know these are the times to just sit back and be thankful it is here.



2. Growing girls - I am so fortunate to have three girls to snuggle, run to dance, Girl Scouts, 4H, friends houses, scold, and love. The biggest G turns double digits in a few months and I can hardly believe it has been 10 years since I first held her. Her and her sisters change and grow each day and this is the best show to be a part of.


1. A husband who supports me - I may not always tell him and some days I may even wonder why he spends so much time outside the house, but I really could not imagine being on this crazy ride with anyone else. It can be hard to see at times, but we do compliment each other to pick up the pieces one of us may leave behind even if at times it seems like our pieces do not fit quite together.


What are you thankful for this holiday season?

Milk and Cookies 2014

As I tried to take care of two things at once this year and help Gracyn with her Girl Scouts fall product sale AND get my holiday cards paid for I should have known better. Because then I got busy and didn't realize it was past time to order our picture shirts so they were not ready in time for the usual post cookie baking picture [which was actually OK because Gretchyn and Gwyn had far too much sugar!] Thanks to Marcia for coming out again that week to try to wrangle us for our annual craziness of trying to get five people to look at one camera without sticking their tongues out [like their dad taught them!] After a short rest from the insanity my insomnia kicked in that night and I got the photo loaded, rhyme written, and card made then ordered in the wee hours of the morning. But even paying the extra $10 for quick shipping, the card is still not here or ready to mail.

So here I am with Christmas over finishing up the letter [as my procrastination kicked in even more when I knew the card was late so the e-letter did not have to be done] hoping to email out the link to those I have in my electronic address book and send cards out when they come for some extra holiday cheer after the big guy and his reindeer have jingled their way back to the North Pole.

Happy Holidays from us on the funny farm - and if you are reading this now or later we hope family and friends filled your homes, , you can still get your pants zipped after all that good cheer and food, you are down from your sugar high, Santa made all your wishes come true, and you continue to pass on the true reason for the season as 2014 comes to an end and we hang on for another trip around the sun in 2015!




The 'tail' end - What would you share about the wonderful things that happened with you this year?

There is always, always something to be thankful for

What happened to Thanksgiving? I saw this comic on Facebook and had to immediately share it with others!

In my house Christmas decorating does not start until December. The only thing I might do a little early is pick up some presents (to save a lecture from my husband about the amount of money I spend in December) so I can spread out the spending! 

I saw Christmas items up in stores before Halloween and Black Friday has creeped into Thursday at many stores. Retail is taking over time with our families to enjoy talking, laughing, unbuttoning pants because we ate too much, and random naps from the turkey. But I cannot just blame the stores, they are reacting to the supply and demand system our society is built on. It would not pay for them to be open on Thanksgiving if no one was there, but the problem is - there are people there to get the deal. We are helping to create the monster. Why is saving a few dollars more important to us then being with the ones we love? If everyone stayed home there would be no reason for stores to be open.

 But instead I see stories on the news about women camping out at Best Buy 20+ days before Black Friday (how do you afford to buy anything if you are not working for 20+ days?)  and the woman who K-Mart is going to fire because she is refusing to work on Thanksgiving to be with her family. (I know there are many jobs that work holidays - including my husband the dairy farmer who works 365 days a year as the cows don't know it is time for turkey - and I am sure those people would like to be home with family too, so why are we creating more reasons to break into family time.)  When will it end? When will we stay at home to be with family instead of pretend we are saving money. (You know a sale is only marking it down so they don't make AS much, but don't kid yourself they are still making a profit) 

We have forgotten the real reason the Pilgrims and Indians sat down together to enjoy a homegrown meal - they were thankful to have the food and friendship. 

The choice is yours - help big business or stay home and love the ones you are with. What if everyone took the money and time they were going to waste in line and spent it to help a needy family or serve Thanksgiving dinner at a homeless shelter. Just imagine the impact of that. 

The 'tail' end - What are you thankful for this fall season? 

Cold and snow go away the kids are SO ready to go out and play

To say it has been a long winter would not really cut it! We have had snow on the ground since November and sub zero temps most of the winter. It is now March and we are jumping for joy at above zero temperatures. Recess and snow days have been spent inside most of the winter because being outside for more the five minutes this winter could mean freezing your tush off. I have never seen so many calves dead and frozen littered around the farm or had to wrestle coats on calves to keep them warm. The cows and my husband messed up their legs from all the frozen manure, snow, and ice. My middle daughter is ready to go find the groundhog and have a talk about making sure spring happens exactly six weeks after he saw his shadow.

So I thought I might put together a list of 7 (I do love my odd numbers) things we did to keep us from going stir crazy this winter. And I am adding a few little ideas we should have tried if we would have known winter would have been so long. 

7 - Put your pinkies up for a 'tea' party - well in our case it is usually a hot cocoa session - especially since I order myself a Keurig machine for a holiday gift with my well earned Kohl's cash. The girls and I have really gotten our use of the hot cocoa cups! 

Had we known this was going to be a winter for the record books we should have set our table in the basement and invited all our stuffed friends and dressed up with scarves, boas, and big hats! I think this summer it may be my mission to find some of those items at garage sales to stash away for our next hibernation cycle. 

6 - Set up an oh la la fashion show - it turns out the center of our living room doubles as a runway with the curtains making a great place to start the show. Changing clothes is also a natural occurrence in this house so fashion shows happen quiet a bit sometimes just to show off our walk and dance moves. 

If we would have known this winter was going to be colder than the North Pole we could have hit the thrift store to stock up on our dress up supply. We could have also looked for some red fabric to make a red carpet runway and brought up the karaoke machine to MC the festivities. 

5 - Create your own paradise - blankets, the couch, and kitchen chairs make a pretty good fort to spend lazy afternoons. It even makes movie watching an adventure. We also added a pretty amazing teepee to our collection via Grandma and made by my sister-in-law so it makes set-up even easier. And my youngest thinks it makes peek a boo even funnier as she peeks out from inside. 

 

If we would have known this winter was going to cause us to hibernate we should have found some inflatable palm trees, flower leis, and hula skirts to make it feel like an island paradise inside our forts. That may be as close as I ever get to the islands again... 

4 - Extremely girly makeover - when your oldest daughter is a girly girl nail polish, make-up, and hair bows are a staple in this house. Santa also picked up a fun pump up chair that has found a place in our bathroom for makeovers. I have even got a nice updo with bobby pins, hair clips, and lots of hairspray! And finger and toe nails are never one shade of pink for too long. A few nights we had a full out salon and I received a bill for $42 for getting my nails painted at the salon! 

Had we known we were in for subzero temps a majority of the winter we could have created a poster for the bathroom door to name the salon and tell the prices of all services. We could have scanned Pinterest for hair updo's and finger nail designs. We could have also invested in those nail pens and learned how to create designs on our nails. 

3 - Family Fun Night - always a good stand by - this gets everyone together and usually results in some great giggles. Our new game of choice is a card game called Ruckus. We all get cards and try to make matches. Once you have a card in your hand that is the same as a match you can say the name of the card and move the pile to your collection. If you don't have a match you draw from the pile in the middle until you do? This continues until all your cards are matched up and you yell RUCKUS! We also had fun one afternoon getting all the mega blocks we had in the house and making the highest tower we could w!

If I had known it would be a winter even the polar bears would be cold in we could have featured a new game to play each week or stocked up on more puzzles to put together as a family. We did do some sticky back wall puzzles the girls got for Christmas and redone small puzzles many times, but I think we could have done a few larger puzzles to glue together and add to the collection of puzzles on the walls from my husband's childhood. 

2 - Arts and Crafts Corner - it is no secret that Pinterest can be one of my biggest time wasters and I am always trying some new craft to share with family and friends. I have passed the love of creating on to my girls already. We love to color, paint, create with play dough, and draw. Sometimes the kitchen table and counter are over run by our crafts. Before the holidays we had fun turning rice filled socks into snowmen that I found on Pinterest. I have created a Snapguide to show how ours turned out. They are not as neat and professional looking as the ones we found, but they were a heck of a lot of fun to make and made the teachers we gave them to smile, so that was all that mattered. 

Had we been aware it would be a winter longer then the lines on Black Friday (and just as brutal) we might have made Sunday afternoon Pinterest Playday and found a different ideas to do each Sunday. Just think of all the great items we would have had by now? 

1 - Do a room swap - this was probably the most fun we had this winter. The two big girls decided they were old enough to stop sharing a room and move to the basement. Which meant a lot of sorting and moving for a pack rat such as myself. My father-in-law was in awe when we switched housed and I was able to fill up a house in one weekend that supposedly took him 40 years to do so (and that was before two of the three girls- so imagine what I have picked up in the last 6 years!) but we got things done and over the course of this never ending deep freeze we have got all of their belongings situated - yet I still wake to find girls sprawled on the couch, curled up in chairs, and even tucked up in their old beds sometime, so the transition is clearly still happening! 

Well with all the fun the last few weeks of the littlest chickadee having pneumonia and the farm boy having knee surgery to fix some torn cartilage it took me awhile to compile this list so hopefully we are on our way to muddy boots and dripping wet snow pants (I never thought that would make me smile!) and you won't have to pack yourself (or your sister up) and ship yourself to a warmer climate! 

The 'tail' end - Share what you and your family have done to make it through this Arctic Vortex/ Polar Freeze of a winter? 

Girls just want to have fun

I have seen a few blog posts by moms about having all children of the same sex and being the mommy if three beautiful little girls I thought I would chime in.

We have not found out the sex of my children before they were born. I feel there are not many things in life that are a surprise so why ruin it. And this is coming from a girl who once carefully unwrapped and wrapped back up her Christmas presents because she couldn't take the suspense. Plus it gives me something to think about during labor other than the pain. We only had a girls name picked out for our oldest daughter because I really wanted to name her after my great grandma Grace. I was pretty excited when she was born and I heard my friend Mandie say 'yes' because she was right that she had guessed she was a girl. With our second daughter we only had a boys name picked out. I was so huge when I had her I was sure she was a big baby boy like her daddy (he was 11 lbs. when he was born.) I was surprised to hear she was an almost 10 lbs girl and we had to go back to the drawing board for a name. I was kind of excited though because I only have a brother and always thought it would be fun to have a sister, so now my girls had each other for that. When we decided to have our third child I am sure my husband hoped everyday for a boy in this crazy house of estrogen. I wanted him to have that little boy to follow him around and hopefully someday take over the farm, but in the back of mind I thought another girl would be nice. We already had all the clothes and I was used to the giggles and girls in the house, what was I going to do with a boy? In the excitement she gave us when she was born by surprise in the bathroom of the hospital room that I was more worried about how the nurse caught her before she splashed into the world in the toilet then if she was a boy or a girl. It was probably really the next morning (as I was pretty tired from the sleeping pill I had taken to get some rest before my epidural) before I truly realized we had another girl. Even after my extreme bout with post partum depression, I would not trade her for anything as just like all my girls she can make me smile when times are hard.

Do I wonder about having a boy to follow my husband around the farm and learn all about dairy farming, of course... My grandma had three girls and then my dad and I tend to share other things about me with her and that really makes me wonder if we should try just one more time. I already have the perfect name picked out and I always wanted to have a big family. But do I wonder about having another baby and going through postpartum depression again, absolutely... Should I let that fear stop me? I am still not sure, so stay tuned.

The 'tail' end - comment below with what you like about your family dynamic - all girls - all boys - a mix of both.

Milk and Cookies from the funny farm

I hope your card found you in happy spirits for this wonderful season and you were able to find the blog okay. It was quite a road getting them to you, but well worth the journey! (See the story below letter)

I have decided to go digital with my annual milk and cookies update. So I hope all of you have been able to take a minute and find the link on or in your Christmas card. Please enjoy our yearly update as much as I enjoy writing it. I hope it finds your family happy and full of holiday cheer :)

 

More pictures from what we have seen in 2013

This photo album created with Smilebox

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My Christmas Card Creation Catastrophe...

 It all started when I sat down to make the card on Snapfish when they had a 60% off sale and my pictures were too large to fit in their boxes and shrinking them did little but lose quality. After a sorry but there is nothing we can do chat with Snapfish I opened Picaboo to try out their cards. At first I was having the same problem, but their online chat was much more helpful and I was off creating what I wanted. They happened to be running a buy 40 get 20 free promotion so I jumped on it after checking with online chat to make sure the promotion meant if I ordered 40 I would get an additional 20 so 60 cards in total. An hour after I submitted the order I remembered I forgot to put the web address for the blog on the card so I again hopped on to online chat where I was very kindly told you only have 30 minutes to cancel and change orders. No problem, it was my fault for being forgetful. I then waited 10 days for my cards to arrive and get them ready to send. But when I opened the package I had only 40 cards.... I promptly called Picaboo support the next morning to see what happened. The nice customer service rep explained to me the discount was applied and I received 20 cards free, but misunderstood the 20 additional cards statement from my online chat, even though it made perfect sense to him because he worked there... I am still unaware how I misunderstood 20 additional cards, but I guess I do not work at Picaboo... So in panic mode I tried to figure out how I was going to get additional cards in time to send for Christmas when one hour photo from Wal-Mart popped in my head. I went searchimg to see if cards were available in one hour and YES they are. So I went to work creating a card to order, but the pictures would not upload. After trying different browsers, restarting my computer with some choice words I emailed Wal-Mart and found out you can email pics and they will upload. Problem solved, right? An hour and a half before I needed to take girls to sitter for Christmas presents I was finally creating. Once again I ran into the size issue (as Wal-Mart and Snapfish are identical sites) but I found a layout that would work and I very quickly pasted in picture and our names with one hour to when they would be ready and I was dropping girls off. Problem solved, right? I waited 10 minutes in line and Wal-Mart photo counter and watched employee 'search' for my cards. He finally found them in the drawer he started with and I was on my way. When I opened the cards at home, I noticed in my hurry to get them made, I did not see the pre entered names of the people in the store-made example card....So my card had our names and 5 additional names....Well since I forgot to put web address on cards, I decided to put stickers on these cards with web address and create small cards to put in Picaboo cards. I was in business and the girls were stuffing, licking, and labeling (until their attention switched to something else) We were all stuffed and ready when I realized I had like 20+ extra cards and some of my addresses were missing, so I went to work checking off who I did and did not have. I am not sure what happened during export of addresses, but it seems middle column was deleted... I managed to figure it all out and was ready to finish the stuff, stamp, label, and send! And as I sit here and type this I have 20 extra cards because I guess I got excited when I ordered and added 20 extra cards to the number I needed. So we will see what kind of craft project I can experiment with.

Sweet Treats

I have meant to get on and post this for two weeks, but things have been a little busy around my house. We are getting ready for the holidays, I have been working on Christmas cards, letter, and making gifts, my dad gave me my Cricut Expression Christmas present early (which took up about three days of time trying to get set up, experiment with, and use) my Internet somehow started to have advertising pop-ups all over, and my laptop suddenly stopped talking to the wireless printer (an of course my husband has waited until December to print of information needed for tax prep and needs it now!) so I have spent lots of time on the computer creating and trying to get everything working properly.

Almost every year since before my husband and I were married we have gotten together with his family to make cookies for the Christmas holiday. It started out as just a small little afternoon gathering to let the kids have fun cutting out sugar cookies and has grown into a whole weekend of baking, cutting, decorating, dipping, and packing the goodies up to share. My sister-in-law even mixes and cooks a few days before to prepare for the weekend.

Each year I pick a new recipe to try (and usually flop) for the weekend. With the invention of Pinterest this has grown easier to find, but harder to choose just one to try. This year I tried two. One was a simple wreath decorating idea with a shortbread cookie and the other was called a hot cocoa cookie. I am happy to say I did okay. The hot cocoa cookie did not look just like the Pinterest version, but it was okay and I managed to only brown the marshmallow on top, not burn it like I have been known to do with S'Mores brownies. So now I think I have a new recipe to add to the festivities.

The cookies are nice to have and share, but the best part of the weekend is opening up our home to family and having the time with them. We have been doing it the first weekend in December for a few years now so the women bake and the men go deer hunting and come in for lunch and cookie dough for a break from the cold. My girls get to spend time with their aunts, uncles, and cousins and learn about baking (which is something I do occasionally, but not as often as my husband wants or as good as my sister-in-laws.) It is a tradition that I hope continues with our family for years to come.

The 'tail' end - comment about some fun holiday activities you do with your family to celebrate the togetherness of the season.

I am also posting some collages I made on Smilebox to show the fun we have :)

I wish we could put up some of the Christmas spirit in jars and open ajar of it every month. ~Harlan Miller

Since it is December, I can now start to acknowledge that Christmas is coming. I think Christmas starts earlier each year, but in our house nothing happens until the first week of December. My husband usually spends time deer hunting that first weekend and all my decorations make an appearance. Christmas is by far my favorite holiday and the five tubs of Christmas decorations I just hauled up from the basement would prove it. I love the spirit and magic the season brings. Growing up my brother would always sleep on my floor Christmas Eve and stay up talking and trying to catch Santa. We no longer live in the same house, but we started a new tradition of shopping together and eating dinner afterwards to prepare for the gift giving season.

After seeing many blog posts about The Elf on the Shelf I decided to start a new family tradition at our house. I love the idea of the magic the Elf brings to the month of December so I set out to make it our own on our funny farm. Before I knew it, thanks to help from my very talented sister-in-law I had a stuffed cowdeer in training named Moodolph ready to entertain my kids this month while keeping an eye on them for Santa. He flew in on the ceiling fan today and has been placed in his perch to watch us after we helped him with his lesson to be a reindeer for the day. Below is his opening note and a calendar of the items he needs help with in the month of December.

The 'tail' end - Share the traditions you have at your house for holiday spirit in the comments below.