Dec 2016

The second half of December has been pretty eventful.  Firstly, we got our fireplace up and running.  We have a gas insert to get the wood going.  No kindling or anything needed.

Look at that gas fire!  Maybe sometime
that'll be all I need.  :-)

Gas part is turned off and we have a nice fire going now.
We have been doing school and reading by the fire regularly
now.

About one day a week is really cold (upper 30s).  And about one day a week is warm - in the 70s.  All the other days are in the 50s, which this northern girl doesn't think is fire-worthy.  Anyway, all the family gets together in one room for the fire and it's lovely.

The trees out front are finally down!

That was a whole day.  They took 6 trees down out front, plus hauled away our pile of logs out front. They will come back to get the pile of logs out back.

This is how our weather looks in the winter.  Warms up
to the 70s, huge cold front comes in to lower temps by
about 40 degrees, bringing thunderstorms and tornados.

Kara and I decided to make cut out cookies for Christmas with the Days.  It takes a very long time, so we did it together while watching movies.

The only child gets both beaters.

Different angle made the light much worse,
but she was in charge of cutting out the
cookies while I put them on the pans
and rolled out the dough.

We made a double recipe, which equates
to like 7 dozen.  And 6 hours.  We don't
do them every year, but this was a great
year for it!

Driving to Michael's parents house.
Here we are driving through the Great
Smokey Mountain National Forest.
Absolutely stunning.

Traffic was light and we picked Hannah up on our way to Winston-Salem.  The hotel made a mistake with our room - I booked a King room, but they gave us two queens.  (Michael and I cannot sleep on a queen), so when I went back to the desk, they upgraded us to a King Suite for no extra charge.  It was HUGE.  With these girls getting so much bigger (and older) they need more space, so I think we'll book the suite from now on.  Eventually we'll move on to adjoining rooms.

Hannah and Kara still get along so well,
even though they really don't have much
in common.  They love each other so much,
it's all they need.

Kara is a bit taller than Hannah, and a whole lot taller than Ryan (who is Kara's age), but we just remind them that girls shoot up before boys!  They can see that from their cousin Michael who has to be about 6 foot tall by now.  When I hugged him I had to reach up.  He's such a great kid.  <3

It's tradition to pile up on poor cousin
Michael.  More and more kids every year
(although I think everyone is done having
kids now), means Michael is strong to hold
them all!

The three oldest grandkids during Christmas service at
church.  Michael and Hannah are 15 and 12 and have
really passed on from kid stuff, but Kara has some in her
still and played with little Thad (sitting behind them)
quite a bit.  Kara's still in the in-between stage.

We had a wonderful visit, as usual.  Vicky hosted and cooked and cleaned for us.  All we had to do is come to the dinner table and eat!

My ear infection isn't going away, so I got stronger antibiotics.  24 hours later and I almost feel like it hurts worse.  Ugh.

Well, I'm going to keep an eye on the weather - another cold front / thunderstorms / tornados are on their way!