HAPPY BIRTHDAY ERIC!

Happy Birthday to My Favorite Cuz'!
Hope you have a fabulous day!!
Hugs
Min & Glen

It's beginning to look.....

a  lot like Christmas!! 

The Christmas Tree is lit and the kids are fast asleep under it.  A fire is lit in the fireplace,  the lights outside are all aglow and yep, the C-O-L-D winter weather has arrived.  Snow to arrive  next week......
 Tis the season!

This was Gizmo & Tucker last night no joke, maybe an hour after we got the tree decorated.  They both LOVE the Christmas Tree skirt for some reason.  This is usually where we find them during Christmas.

What is it about Christmas time where you can just sit and enjoy the lights and the spirit of the season?

We're so glad we got the lights outside put up before the weekend.  I can't even imagine putting up the lights outside this weekend.  BRRRRR!  It was super freezing just running back and forth from the house to the garage freezer while we were making chocolate and when we got down the Christmas boxes.

I made a crazy amount of chocolates this weekend.  Of course, no photo yet.  I made, kisses for the cookies I'll be making on Saturday for our exchange on Sunday.  Chocolate Covered Cherries and Mint Chocolate Covered pretzles, mmmmmmm.  Yep, they all had to pass the 'quality control inspection'.  :o)

Here's hoping the Christmas Cards will be finished this week and in the mail.  I always start to panic a bit when we start getting everyone elses cards.

Wishing you a wonderful holiday season! 

Min & Glen

A Happy Turkey Day!

Whew, what a whirl wind LONG weekend we had!!  Every year for Thanksgiving, we host the 'Turkey Day After Thanksgiving' Dinner at our house for Glen's mom & dad, bro, my mom & dad, my favorite cousin Eric and his friend John.  We celebrate it the Saturday after Thanksgiving because Glen's brother drives in from Indiana.  This year was no different. 

On the actual Thanksgiving day, Thursday Glen and I celebrated quietly at home.  We saved all the 'extras' for Saturday's meal, but nonetheless, we both went to bed WAY TOO FULL!  Tis' the season!

Friday, we finished getting things ready for Saturday's dinner.  Picked up the rest of the veggies and added extras we'd need.  I even made a quick run to Michaels.  After getting run over by a woman with a cart because apparently I wasn't moving fast enough when she said excuse me, I decided that I'd had enough 'Black Friday' shopping and headed home.  Friday night we spent the evening celebrating with some of Glen's family and friends at Nicole &Tony's wedding reception in Livonia.  They got married in California earlier in the month and came home to celebrate with family and friend here in Michigan.  We always have such a great time with our family.  We got to hang out with Glen's three cousins, the kids, my pen pal Claire, Glen's aunt and uncle and friends.  I'd love to show you photos, but realized AFTER we got there I'd forgotten our camera.  Glen's cousin Geanine took some photos, so once she e-mails the photos, I'll be sure to share. :o) 

Saturday morning we were up early.  I made my first Lemon Meringue Pie - this has always been my dad's favorite.  And I found out Saturday it's Glen's dad's favorite too.  The basa & kraut went into the crock pot about 9:30 and by 10:30 the house smelled WONDERFUL.  Usually Glen and Rick deep fry us a turkey, which is always fabulous, but this year in addition to a small turkey, they deep fried us some FABULOUS melt in your mouth beef tenderloin.  Can you say YUMMO?!?!?!  WOW! 

The photos I DO have to show you (because apparently I couldn't for the life of me remember to get the camera out) were taken today.......DOH!  My  mom and dad got to our house first and my mom is always on the look out for fun Christmas decorations for our house.  Well, she outdid herself again!  She found these super neat lights at Ikea (yep, I'll be there one day this week to pick up another strand of them).  Aren't they cool??

And then she found this neat magnetic snowman, er, snowwoman, er, well, it was a bit of both yesterday with all the silly minds that were in the gutter.......This is the G-rated version. 

We were all still laughing about the snowman this morning when I talked to my mom. If you can't laugh and do silly things with your family, who can you laugh with?

We had such a great Thanksgiving weekend. This is the part of the year that we love because we get to spend some wonderful time with family and friends. It truly reminds you what life is about and just how blessed we are to have such a wonderful family.

My apologies for not cleaning up these photos a bit.  For some reason, since we've upgraded to Windows 7 which runs a 64-bit operating system, I'm not able to use the editing software on photobucket because it uses Flash that only works on the 32 bit browser.  Of course, I don't know enough to figure out how to 'fix' the browser situation we're having.  Ah, the joys of technology. 

We hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving, with full tummies and great Black Friday bargains!

We'll be dining on leftovers tonight, but hmmm, beef tenderloin left overs, no way we're arguing!!

Min & Glen

A Blessed Weekend!

What a great weekend we've had.  Spending time with family and friends reminds me just how blessed we are.

Yesterday we enjoyed the day with both sets of parents!  My mom and dad came out so we could work on CUSTOM pillowcases.  My mom is the pillowcase queen - over the years she's made us some of the funnest pillowcases.  We got several cut, ironed and sewed, until we broke one too many sewing machine needles.  I know I have some in my studio, but do you think I could find them?!  Of course not!  Needless to day, we were able to make a dent in the fabric we've been collecting all year long.  We'll start over again the day after Christmas!  Glen's mom and dad joined us about 6 - even though we planned Ribs and home made french fries (which Glen grilled (ribs) and they were AMAZING!!!), Glen's mom wanted us to taste some city chicken, kupusta (I'm not sure if it's spelled right), Pierogi and meatballs, which was all FABULOUS.  Probably not a good thing to know this little Polish restaurant is just a few miles from where I work! 

We always love when we can get together.  It's so nice to invite our folks out and just let them sit and enjoy while we get everything ready for dinner.  Their company is wonderful.  It's nice to be able to do for them what they have spent so many years doing for us! 

We are so grateful that our mom's and dad's get along.  My mom and mother in law sat and talked while balling up yarn my mom spun for me to use on all these slippers I'm knitting for Christmas.  That yarn will be used for a special pair of slippers for myself and my two moms.

Our dad's sat and chatted and talked at the football game on and off throughout the evening - we were hoping for an Iowa win over OSU - didn't happen......(we do a lot of talking to the TV during football season at our house.....).

Today was a clean up & take it easy day. 

We like to think we're pretty tech savvy to a certain extent at our house, but for the first time today, I Skyped with my best friend Shelly in Topeka.  It was so much fun to be able to craft and actually show one another what we were working on instead of just spending hours talking on the phone like we usually do.

Thank you Shelly for such a fun day - I know we didn't get much done, but it sure was a fun experience!!

So, tomorrow we have the day off (Veterans Day observed), so we're going to get a head start on getting ready for our Turkey Day After Dinner we host every year the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

Nothing like getting a head start!!

We hope you have a great week this week!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Min & Glen

Halloween has come and gone.....

But not without some fun pre-Halloween and Halloween photos to share!!

So, Friday afternoon, Glen and I decided we'd carve pumpkins.  So, on my way home, I stopped by Kroger and all the carving pumpkin's that had been outside the store, were no where to be found.  It was raining, so instead of heading inside, I went home.  Not too long after that, Glen called Kroger to confirm they had pumpkins.  "Yes, they're inside." was the response we got. 

So, we hopped in the car and headed to the store.  Much to our surprise, there were NO pumpkins (except the super small gourd like pumpkins) to be found.  And so the Great Pumpkin Adventure began.  Off to Meijer we went.  Meijer has everything, right?  WRONG!  No pumpkins there either.  So, we decided we'd go to Peel's - surely they HAD to have pumpkins.  On the way, we stopped by VG's, just incase THEY had pumpkins.  No Go there either.  So FINALLY, after three stops, stop four was fruitful (in the rain and dark), we went to Peels and got our pumpkins.  Always something, isn't it?!  Note to Self - GET PUMPKINS PRIOR to October 30th!

So, from this -

 

to this -  

Our pumpkins are on the front porch and will be lit again tonight when I get home (we're going to get all we can out of our spooky Halloween creations!)

We also got to celebrate a very special boy's 4th Birthday on Halloween!  We Celebrated Colin's Birthday (and of course, went trick or treating) with a little purple dinosaur who can "ROAR" like nobody's business.  Glen hung out at Amy & Andy's and passed out candy and shook his head at the less than stellar college football officials calls.

This was my attempt to take a pic of Colin before we left to go trick or treating......Can you say up close and ROAR?!

Here's the Trick or Treat Trio, complete with little purple birthday dinosaur.

Last stop, home to Trick or Treat with Uncle Glen (Colin kept telling Amy and I we should keep trick or treating and he would go home with Uncle Glen).

Aunt Min, Colin & Uncle Glen with the Birthday Boy (Colin was ready for Birthday Cupcakes!!!)

And of course, photos of the birthday boy blowing out his candles!

 

We can't wait until next weekend when Colin has his BIG birthday party with all his friends & family at the jumpy jumpy place.  Guess Glen and I should get working on our Dino-related costumes, huh?

Hope you had a fabulous Halloween and enjoyed the weekend AND that extra hour of sleep we gained with Daylight Saving Time.

Min & Glen