Holiday Greetings!

Man oh man, things have been busy around here!!! We had a great visit with Jason's dad and step-mom, and his sister and her family. Truly wish Janean and her family lived closer! We will be going out to visit them in Cincinnati this summer for vacation. (This is a warning to them that they better reinforce their home because Hurricane Rusley is coming!!!)

We did presents and I made tacos and chicken chimichangas on Sunday for dinner. We also had birthday cake and ice cream for Jason's dad and Kori. We went to Longview Lake to see the lights at Christmas in the Park. Another beautiful display. It was a LONG wait but the kids all enjoyed it.

Today I did some baking. I made chocolate chip cookies, Amish sugar cookies. pretzel/rolo/pecan candies, fudge, peanut butter cookies with Reece's peanut butter cups in the middle of them, pecan balls and white chocolate covered pretzels. I do a platter every year as a gift to my brother and his family, my sister and her family and my parents. Hope they like my baking, otherwise it's not such a great gift huh?

I do enjoy baking. The girls were cooperative and Jason was available to keep an extra eye on them so it went well.

Tomorrow we do Christmas with my family at my parent's. We'll have spaghetti (or Basta as we call it) and meatballs, Italian sausage, garlic bread etc. I am in charge of the salad so I have to cut that up tomorrow. It's alwasy good food and a good time so it will be fun. The kids will surely love it. While Christmas isn't my favorite holiday, I always found it more fun with my oldest sister around. Since her passing five years ago it has lost so much of it's luster. If not for my kids I would stay in bed and watch movies and maybe eat ice cream or something. This was her most absolute favorite holiday. She loved spending it with family. It just always feels like a huge part is missing, and rightly so.

Tomorrow night I should tackle some gift wrapping as I've done none of it. That's right, not a single thing. How pathetic am I???

We got sad news today that Jason's grandpa Marvin has been hospitalized after a fall and also has pneumonia in both lungs. His health and been in a steady decline for months and things aren't looking so great right now. We hope he improves and we can get back up there soon to see him. He gets sooooo much pleasure from visiting with my girls.

At any rate, I wish you all a wonderful holiday!!