December Daily - December 20th

One tradition that didn't happen this year is our outside lights. Of the 9 strands necessary to icicle our entire house 3 of them didn't work. By the time I got around to purchasing three more, the roof was ice/snow covered, making it way too unsafe for one of the girls to get up there to put up the lights. Another tradition, the snowman tree, almost had a similar fate. You see, I am a fan of snowmen. I just don't think there is anything happier than a chubby, snowy, snowman face. I love them so much that I have a whole tree with only snowman ornaments. Kristina brought the tree up from the basement, arranged all the ornaments and replaced the snowflakes. She plugged in the tree and fsssssss. The top half was dark. The tree sat that way for at least 10 days while I shopped for another strand of white lights. Oh, did I mention I'm cheap? I'm not paying $8 for a strand of lights, so I was shopping for the $1.50 strand. I finally found it yesterday at Target...so now my snowman tree is back in business! Kristina was so kind to undecorate the top, put on the new lights, and redecorate the tree for the second time this year. Merry Christmas my little snowy friends!

December Daily - December 19th

Today was the 4th Sunday of Advent. We started the day with Church and then spent the day with Aubrey and Ashlyn. Ashlyn was amazed at the ornaments on the tree and must have spent at least a half hour looking at all the ornaments!

December Daily - December 18th

Stephanie has begun to carry on the traditions started at home...she now makes almond bark pretzels for her friends/teachers at Christmas :) Of course, her dad was annoyed there were none left for him!

December Daily - December 17th

Today Santa came to Easter Seals. The kids were so amazed and happy to get their presents from him. Wendy (my boss) came today from Chicago and brought a present for Lacey from her honey Charlie...Lacey loves her new squeeky toy. She even takes him outside with her when she goes potty!

December Daily - December 16th

Today was the most amazing day. The Voices of Harlem came to sing for the kids at my school. It was so nice to see 27 kids with autism, just being kids and enjoying the holiday music.

December Daily - December 15th

Mmmmmmm, can you smell it? The amount of baking that goes on in this house at Christmas is nothing short of world record setting I tell you! This year, in addition to the hundreds of dozens of Christmas cookies that will be made, I decided it would be nice to bake each of my staff members a baby loaf of bread using my sister-in-law's terrific banana bread recipe. The glitch with this recipe is the baking time is an hour...so it's quite the production. Especially considering I only have one oven and one rack in said oven (For 5 years now...heaven forbid we actually plan to, remember to, and purchase a second rack). At this point I have16 loaves baked, but need 42. I had planned on baking all night on Thursday, but got a call last night that I now have to host a Christmas Party for one of our staff members who had a family emergency. At this point, I believe there will be a whole lot of late night baking and not a whole lot of sleeping going on at the Ruchus.

December Daily - December 14th

I have spoken before on the ole' blog about being a procrastinator; actually about how I can turn procrastination into a fine science. The Ruchus Christmas cards are a fine example of the difficulties that can arise when the gal in charge participates in procrastination with a capital P. Some years I call them New Year's cards. Some years I hope to call them Happy Summer cards, but to save myself the embarrassment, we just begin looking forward to next year :) This year, things are different! I started the cards in October when I was at a weekend long scrap retreat. Fabulous I KNOW!! Then, we planned the Christmas picture to be taken when we cut down our tree. Even though my sonshine didn't cooperate and ended up being grounded over his less than stellar enthusiasm toward our group family photo AND even though I have now discovered that each card requires 88 cents in postage, which do the math equals a small fortune....the Ruchus Christmas Cards went in the mail TODAY!!! Well....most of them. I have a few folks that are address hold outs...and if you're one of those GET ME YOUR ADDRESS!!! But other than that, people on the far coasts of this country will be receiving their Ruchus Christmas card on time...Merry Christmas y'all!

December Daily - December 13th

Today's December Daily is about the tradition that wasn't. Every year when the kids were little, my mother always bought them an advent calendar. There was always some kind of fiasco that included someone eating someone else's candy, or someone eating all 25 pieces the first two days, but none the less, it was tradition. After my mom moved away, I began purchasing the advent calendars and more of the same continued. No one ever fessed up to eating anyone else's candy, but as they kids got older they got smarter and began hiding their calendars :) This year, in the flurry of all things Christmas, I overlooked the advent calendars until this December Daily project got me to thinking about our traditions...So today...December 13th I began calling around to find their calendars. After 11 phone calls...count them 11 to various Walgreen's, CVS, other pharmacies and Hallmark, I have sadly decided there will be no Advent Calendars this year. The Advent Calendar in 2010 is the tradition that wasn't.

December Daily - December 12th

I'm proud to announce I'm half way there! Half way through my December daily and haven't missed a day. That in itself is a great accomplishment for me! Today has been THE BEST day. I started at church, then picked up some party supplies at GFS for the holiday party at school, then picked up my best friend's babies whom I had not seen in MUCH too long. After I picked them up and we drove to the grocery store, I found myself just smiling and enjoying every word that came out of their mouths. I surely love these babies as if they are my own and even if they're not babies anymore, they'll always be babies to me! These super precious twins, look to me just like they did the day they were born only slightly bigger :) Today we built a ginger bread house, made corn flake wreath cookies for their mama, watched frosty the snowman and talked...A LOT!! They are so wonderful and I am so blessed to be able to spend just a little bit of my day with them!

December Daily - December 11th

Tis the baking season...and at the Ruchus that means purchasing in large quantities. This year I added to my baking list a mini loaf of banana chocolate chip bread for all of my staff members. Evidently so did many other people because when I went to the store to buy bananas, I bought all the rest that they had. Buying large quantites of bananas didn't even garner a 'what on Earth' look from the checker...

December Daily - December 10th

Forth time is the charm. Do you ever know how something needs to be just so? Well...that is the issue with our Christmas tree star. We had a star for many years that we loved...Finally it died and we through it out. Last year we bought a beautiful angel for top of the tree, which really wasn't so beautiful. Nobody liked it. Maybe if it had lights it would have been better. I'm not sure. It matched my Mom's tree so we gave it to her. This year, we started on a search for our new star. I refused to pay 20 or even 30 dollars for a star. No way. So I bought a $5 one at Target and after I got it home...well let's just not mince words here, it was butt ugly! My husband and I searched at least 8 more stores and couldn't find anything we liked. Some were pretty, but open in the back where you could only see wires. Since you can see the front and back of our tree, that wouldn't do. I finally resigned myself to the fact that we weren't finding a star this year and bought red sparkly ribbon to make a big bow. But then! The Christmas miracle...I went to Hobby Lobby and there...was the exact star we had before, 50% off, making the grand total $6. Now...our previous star had red lights. When I got home I told the girls...the only way this could be better was if this star had white lights. I plugged it in and behold~ I bring you tidings of great joy~ The star shimmers in the night.

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December Daily - December 9th

Ahhhhh, the Christmas Choir Concert. I surely didn't get through this without a few tears. What a beautiful evening, and what beautiful daughters I had performing!

December Daily - December 8th

One of my favorite holiday traditions is sending but most importantly recieving Christmas cards. I especially love the photo cards to see how everyone has changed over the year...It's always so exciting when we recieve our first cards!

December Daily - December 7th

Writing has never been a favorite past time for Brennan. When he was younger, one of the only ways we could get him to write was to tell him he wouldn't get any Birthday or Christmas presents unless he made a list...He's become pretty proficient at list making and proudly displays his wish list on the fridge!

December Daily - December 6th

Along with our first single digit days come the first of the non starting cars. Usually we are pleased with these happenings since they cause the shop to be busy. Today...not so much, since it was Stephanie's car that wasn't starting. I took her to her Voices performance at 8:15 this morning and picked her up from the drama club meeting at 4:30...it's 8:17 pm now and her dad is fixing her car at the shop...so she can resume her busy schedule tomorrow with her own transportation!

December Daily - December 5th

We went today to Williams Tree Farm to cut down our first Christmas tree! It was freezing cold but lots of fun!

December Daily - December 4th

Easter Seals Christmas Party!! SO Fun! It was so nice to show up to a party that I had no part in planning. what a wonderful evening of dinner and dancing.

December Daily - December 3rd

This was such an exciting day for Brennan. Today he got his class ring. I had picked out my own design choice and he picked out his. You can rank your maturity as a parent when you let your son choose his own deisgn. In this case, he chose the gaming design with his gaming nickname -Dusk. He is so pleased with his choice and I wouldn't have it any other way!

December Daily - December 2nd

December 2nd NHS Induction Banquet. We are so so proud of Stephanie and all that she has accomplished in High School. Dr. Morris, Superintendant and Mr. Hazen, HHS principal pose for a photo :)

December Daily - December 1

Nothing says Christmas to me like kids in jammies :) Especially footie jammies! My great nephews and niece Robert, Ryan, and Lizzie in their jammies. Trying to get them all to look and smile at the same time is similar to herding cats!

December Daily

First let me start out by saying that I'm not very good at doing something every day for any length of time...except for the obvious things like breathing, being a mom, sleeping, etc. I have tried several daily photography projects without success...the ones with the three digit numbers come to mind as especially large failures on my part. Despite all of these past fails...I have committed to December Daily...let me tell you why.

Before I know it, our Christmases will be changing as my young adults begin to leave the nest. *sigh Soooooooo, before that happens, I'd like to document this last Christmas, day by day, so we can look back fondly on our family traditions while the kids were growing up.

I have taken December Daily pics for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd...and I have today's in mind. I did not create the album in advance like Ali Edwards recommends, but I know I have a scrap day planned for December 29th AND I'm anticipating great sales on Christmas fodder at that time, so that is the day I plan to make my album :) So...stay tuned...

I am hopeful I can stick with it for 25 short days. For more on December Daily, visit Ali's website here... www.aliedwards.com and stay tuned to the ole' blog for December Daily photos...

Now, where did I put that memory card?