Here are some highlights from 2025. Enjoy the things we have accomplished and places we have been with a grin!😁 We hope your holidays are filled with love and laughter as you make your way into 2026. 🥳

weMilk and Cookies 2025 by Melissa Kane

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 2017

Well I guess last year was an anomaly when it comes to Christmas cards as we just got around to taking the picture on the 21st of December this year. So I think cards might just have to be digital as well this year or maybe a little something to ring in your new year. We will have to see how this week after Christmas on a Monday goes.

The two big G's had some fun Black Friday shopping with their Aunt Michele and found these fun reindeer jammies for all three of them. They have had fun wearing them to school, dance, and cookie baking weekend (when the littlest G was warned about wearing a deer costume outside on opening deer season weekend) So we decided to have fun with these comfy PJ's in our annual around the Christmas tree family picture as well. Hope you enjoy!

Also enjoy the annual Milk and Cookies letter to see what we have all been up to this year. 

The true reason for the season

I am sure you have all heard the saying, it is better to give then to receive. And as I think back to getting caught sneaking a peek at my Christmas presents a few years in a row (what can I say, I have always been curious and at times impatient!)  I can see why this is such an important concept. 

As a child I did not always realize the joy was in the giving and receiving, not just the gift. But I do think I have enjoyed the action of giving for quite some time. It always made me feel good when a friend liked the gift I gave them for their birthday or when I could help someone smile with a small item they liked to use. I was the coordinator of Secret Santa, Cupids, and Fluffer Butts with a group of friends my senior year in high school. And while some of my friends were busy trying to figure out who had their name I found myself listening to my person to see what they would enjoy to find in their locker most. 

That is the part of giving I truly enjoy the most. Asking questions and listening to conversations to make note of what might help them smile as they tear off the wrapping paper. I love to personalize gifts and make them mean something. That is where the joy is for me - knowing I got it right for that 
person. 

I also love the journey of finding that special gift, using my searching skills to find out where I can find the best deal or item for each person, and even customizing and creating items that are one of a kind from inside my mind. My husband would tell you Pinterest is my biggest time waster, but I love seeing ideas people have put together and making it my own. I borrow from the best and turn it into what I can do, so my items never turn out exactly like they are online, but my own version of what I see. My favorite gift from last year was the canvas collages I made with pictures of letters on signs from places that were important to those people to spell out their names. I had more fun finding the places to take the pictures of the letters then anything else. And this idea came to me as I saw a photo collage of doors important in my hometown. It was especially fun to hear them talk about where the letters were from as they guessed or matched it up with the laminated card I put inside that gave the information. 

Each year I am trying to pass this on to my girls and show them we can work together to make presents or put together a few small items with a theme for their teachers, friends, and cousins that are even more special then something expensive from the store.

 I am even playing around with an idea in my head to start a new tradition this year to help pass our waiting time Christmas morning that involves making something for our siblings or finding a way to give back to our community. 

I have always tried to work with my girls to give back at the holiday time when we clean out our toy box and toys to donate to others who might not have all the nice things we have. We discuss how we are fortunate to have our family and nice things to share with each other, but that doesn't happen for everyone for a lot of different reasons so we can help make that happen for someone with something we loved to play with for awhile, but is ready for a new happy home. I need to work on this all year as a way to keep the kindness going. 

The girls have also really enjoyed shopping the last two years to put a present in the box for a toy drive started in our local school to remember a special little girl taken too soon in a car accident. They look forward to picking something out and telling me how it will be played with. They also like to see the pictures of the girls little sister with all the toys before the family donates them. I like to hear them chatter about 'wow, look at all those toys kids will now have to play with' and 'isn't she lucky to give all those toys away.' And to read the posts about how this toy drive is helping the family remember their daughter and her giving spirit makes my heart melt even more. 

I have been reading many stories of Random Acts of a Kindness and Paying it Forward as part of stories on Random Act of Kindness web page and the 26 Acts of Kindness Facebook page that started after the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary. It is heartwarming to hear the good in our country as sometimes we tend to focus on the bad. Another friend also posted his girls with the toys they bought with money they saved in their piggy banks to buy toys to put in the Toys for Tots bin at Toys R Us. What an an amazing tradition to start with their family! 

When I was a middle school librarian my announcement team worked ever year to spread the word on live morning announcements via the TV to gather items to share at the holiday time. We did movies for soldiers overseas, books for the book mobiles in Africa, canned goods to forgive library fines, and sold candy-grams to raise money to donate. We also did a penny war each April to celebrate reading month and donated the money to places like Camp Courageous, the Heifer Project and local students after car accidents involving them or their parents. The kids looked forward to it each year and really got into the idea of giving back. And the ladies at the bank we extra kind when they saw me coming with my buckets of change to run through their machine.

The 'tail' end - I hope the 'spirit' of the season finds you merry and bright during this holiday time. What do you do to give back or pay it forward during the holidays or any time of the year? 

A simple fact that is hard to learn is that the time to save money is when you have some. - Joe Moore

Another holiday season has come and gone and another month of comments from my husband about my spending habits has started. I will be the first to admit that I am terrible when it comes to worrying about money. It is not something I really thought about growing up. I started babysitting when I was 10 or 11 and I had my first part-time job when I was 13, so I understand that work equals money, but I never really worried if I had money or did not. Some people have said I was spoiled because most of the time when I asked for something growing up I got it. And some said my parents were 'rich' because we lived in a new house, drove nice cars, had name brand clothes, and took vacations to Disney World and cruises to the Virgin Islands. I knew those things did not just happen, my dad spent most of my childhood on the road building carwashes and my mom worked 80+ hours a week (yes I said in one week) to give us those nice things. And I heard my share of arguments about money - especially when April rolled around and taxes were being done. But still I never really 'worried' that we would not have enough money to do things. My parents always just made it happen. Like I said, I worked for extra money and I balanced my checkbook every month and made sure I paid for things I wanted so I knew what it meant to not spend more than you had.

But, I still remember when my husband and I went to pre-marriage classes with the pastor and took the compatibility survey that money was one of the areas we were furthest apart on. He is very interested in making sure he knows where the money goes, what we are spending it on, and that we have money saved in case something comes up - which is sort of funny to me since when I met him he never balanced his check book and when I tried to do it for him it was like $200+ off... I, like I have said, don't really worry about it. As long as I can pay my bills then it is okay. I never really think about saving and the future because money will keep coming in right? We both had jobs so it was okay. 

Even when my husband decided he needed to quit his good paying job in town as an electrician to take over the family farm we still did okay. We made it work. Every year at holiday and tax time I got comments about my spending and credit card debt so I started a Christmas Club account to hopefully help with that.

Then the postpartum depression hit hard and I needed a break from my job. As I told you I never really worried about money, so I did not really think anything of the pay cut I would take to work part time for my dad and be home more with the girls and focus on my health. I was slightly freaked out when after six months my dad told me he really could not afford to pay me and my family health insurance so one was going to have to give. It ended up being the push I needed to get back into education and ultimately led me to the position I am in now, but I am not going to lie - it has been rough moneywise. My husband thinks I don't understand because if I did I would just stop spending money and we would be fine. But I am a sucker when I find a 'good' deal and I tend to go a little overboard with gifts at Christmas so the combination does tend to get me in trouble around the holidays and we spend the rest of the next year making up for it just to have the cycle happen again. 

I want it to stop and I have found an app on my phone to do this, but I am a little overwhelmed at getting started. I know I can do it - I was the only student in my class to take Advanced Accounting so I know all about checks and balances and inputing it into the computer. But right now it looks really bad because I haven't had a 'real' paycheck since I stopped working at school. And even though my dad paid me more then he should have, I have only had a few hundred dollar paychecks each month from the schools I was subbing at since September so I am not going to lie that all of the months are in the negative on my budget and graph on the website and the amount of money in our checking account just keeps going down. 

I do have to say though that January is always a tough month for us as we pay an 'estimate' on what we believe our taxes will cost us based on the previous year. You see when you are a farmer tax 'return' is not in your vocabulary.... And looking at the neat pie chart from the website from last month, the biggest chunk of the pie is for taxes. But all my husband sees are the packages that show up from a deal I found online of something I do not 'need.' 

I will admit that I am far from perfect and I am sure I buy things that I do not need. But I also spent a majority of the last year and a half in a stupor of self pity and I am sure if you look back my spending was probably half of what I normally spend. There were times when my husband did the shopping because the thought of leaving the house was too much to handle. I am sure I probably made up for it during the holidays this year, but I sort of felt like I had my life back and I wanted to embrace it to the fullest. I know I made some impulse buys and should not spend as much, but a wise woman has told me, you can't take it with you when you go...But hopefully that will not be anytime soon, so I need to do better. 

I am going to try hard to change. I think it is my late resolution for 2014. I hope I can make it happen! 

The 'tail' end - do you make sure you are saving money for the future and stay on a budget?

 - If yes - how do you do it - If no - why not? 

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

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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.