Merry Christmas !

Hi all,
I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas weekend.  We sure did !  It started out on Friday, Christmas Eve with the annual gathering of the Neumann family at my sister Denna and brother-in-law Rusty's house.  With both of my parents passed away, each one of us 6 kids hosts a holiday, so we still get together during the year as a family.   I, (and I know my brothers and sisters will agree) am so happy that all of us kids (and now all the extended families) can still can get together as a large family and have a great time.  You hear of some families that have these huge fights and can't stand to be in the same room together.  We were raised with a good family foundation and it's so nice to pass this on to the next generation.  We decided this last Thanksgiving that instead of the traditional holiday meal, we would just have Hors-d'oeuvres.  I brought taco dip with chips.  There was so much food...UGH!  I over ate for sure and will have to do lots of exercising the next few days (or weeks or months) to work this off.  We all had a great time catching up on each others family news.  We played the Dirty Santa game and I ended up with a lava lamp and a real cool lava lamp glitter night light.  Shane helped me play the game and picked out my present  for me. I , my sisters & nieces do a ornament/craft exchange & a cookie exchange between each other.  With the ornament exchange, it's real fun to see what ideas each one of us come up with each year.  This year I painted some ornaments.  I received a real pretty wall decoration from my sister Denise.  How pretty!!!

The cookie exchange produced alot of different types of cookies and they are all very tasty...Another reason for the diet/exercising comment.  It was so good to see everyone again.

Saturday, we went to the Winters' side of the family's gathering hosted by Grandma Winters.  We had the traditional meal and everyone brought a piece of it.  I brought the seven layer salad and again there was alot of good food. Everyone was able to attend except John's older brother Pat who lives in California and Andy (John's sister Mary's husband) who is in Washington D.C. working for the State Dept.  It was so nice to have all the 2nd cousins there to see and to get to know each other.  Dannette came through again with her delicious cookies & candy that she makes.  Um, um good....Another reason why the diet/exercise comment.. .Umm.... that's starting to be a common theme in this update....
Sunday John & I went over to Matt, Sarah, Kaylin & Shane's house to celebrate our immediate family Christmas.  Sean went home with them from Grandma Winters house and stayed overnight there.  We loaded up the truck (yes, we needed the truck) with the presents and left our house around 8AM.  We got there around 8:30 and everyone helped bring in the food & presents from the truck.  We had some breakfast and then proceeded to open presents. 
Here are some pictures of the present opening:

Here is John, Kaylin & Shane using the tools that was one of Shane's gifts:

Here is Sean with a superman snuggie from his good friends Holly & Chris:

Matt baked the ham and it was done around noon.  We had to wait until the potatoes I brought over were warmed up in the oven.  We sat down to eat around 1PM and everything was real good.  Sarah made caramel apple salad...Great!  The kids ate real well and then again.....Real good food...another reason why the diet/exercise comment was made..ha,ha.  We had lots of fun playing with the kids with the toys they received.  Some of the kids gifts were....a couple of Barbie's & a playhouse for the Barbies, activity books, Zhu Zhu pets, Super big truck with trailer and ATV, nino, nano (Shane's name for a fire truck/police siren), soccor net with ball,  puzzles, play tent, coloring books, fishing poles, my little ponies, very sparkly pink shoes with gems, tool box with a drill, painted ornaments and more but I can't remember it all.  Sarah got some slippers & a bath wrap and Matt recieved some snow boots.  They both received a Blue ray DVD player.  Sean got a wireless hard drive, the "Band of Brothers" DVD set, a couple of zip up fleeces and the latest Twilight movie DVD. Sarah, Matt, Kaylin & Shane made John & I a beautiful patchwork quilt.  Our first! and it was their first in making one.  Everyone helped put it together as in the design & sewing it.  What a nice gift ! We love it !!!

As we all know, some good things have to end, so Sean left to go back to his house around 5:30. We stayed until around 7:30 just before the kids went to bed.  It was a great day visiting with the kids & Grandkids and now we all look forward to the new year.
Hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and I hope everyone has a healthy & safe New Year.

Diggin out

Hi all,
Well.....have we had enough snow yet? I don't mind it when it comes down nice and fluffy, but with this wind and cold it's not fun. 
John and I decided to go Christmas shopping yesterday and knowing my husband, I was very leery about this.  He doesn't like to go shopping for one thing and then secondly, with the extra people out there, I was bracing for a very long day.  He surprised me!!! Way to go John! We found out that Toys-R-Us was open at 6AM on Sat., so we left the house at 8AM (yes...a little late!..ha,ha), but we got there and it wasn't too busy yet.  We found the things we wanted to get and were out of there by 9:30.  We then needed to stop at Wal-Mart for some spray paint for another craft I'm making for Christmas. We were out of there with in a 1/2 hour...Yeah!! Making progress!  Then we went to Best Buy...in and out.....It was getting close to lunchtime so we stopped at Chili's in Oconomowoc to eat.  We then stopped at Steins Garden Center down the way because I had to get some more craft things there.  After that, we were done for the day and it was 12:30!!!  It was getting pretty crowded on the road by then. I still have to go to Kohl's during the week to buy a few more thing's and then we are done.
Today, Sunday, I am finishing up my painting and craft things and I will be set for Christmas gift giving.  Here is a picture of what the kitchen table looks like right now....

Got the crock pot going with Hunter's Style Pork Roast going, so it's an easy supper tonight.
Have a great up coming week and stay warm.

Another uneventful weekend

Hi all,
John and I went up north this weekend to check on the cabin.  We have a sense-a-phone hooked up that monitors the temperature in the cabin and if the electricity is on or off.  We can call the cabin and it will give us this information and it is supposed to call us at home if either the temp has changed or electricity is off.  We found out that it wasn't working right.  It was supposed to call us a couple of times when we found out from our neighbor that the electricity had been off.  We couldn't even get it to answer the phone when we called. 
So we left Friday night around 5PM hoping we were going to miss the snow that was coming in.  We did......We got up there around 8:30 and the snow just started coming down around 9PM.  There was a little snow on the ground already, but not much maybe 2 inches.  We unloaded and settled in for the night.

Saturday, John re-programmed the sense-a-phone in the morning and then we left to go to lunch.  We then went to Walmart to pick up some plastic to put on the patio door for the winter and some food items for supper.  John called the cabin and did get the sense-a-phone to answer, so that's a relief that it is working again.   We came home and then John wanted to check to make sure that the ATV's started ok.  We can ride them on the road now for the rest of the winter.  He went over to Dewey's house to chat for awaile.  I didn't know that he had left.  I hadn't seem or heard him for awhile, and was thinking about going out to the barn to check, but then I heard him on the ATV pulling into the driveway.  During the day the snow was coming down on and off, some of the flakes were very big and fluffy...real pretty.

We did find Sarah & Matt's Christmas tree pole that they were looking for too.  Not sure how it ended being left up north, but I do remember it seeing it in the back of the truck after they moved to Amsterdam.  We brought it down home for them, but Sarah already told me they were thinking about getting a real tree this year.  At least they know that they have all the pieces now for next year.

We then made supper, beef tenderloin with mixed veggies and John had some potato pancakes.  For dessert we had Skinny Cow brand truffles on a popcicle stick....100 caleries.....yum! 
Sunday, John put the plastic on the patio door and then we got packed up and left around 11:30AM.  Nothing exciting on the way down and got home around 3:30PM.  Looks like we got some snow down here!!! John snow blowed the driveway while I unloaded the truck.  I was going to go to store to pick up something for supper, but nixed that and ended up making hot dogs and left overs for supper.
This coming week we have to get going and get some Christmas presents bought so we are not rushing around at the last minute.  We have a list of what we want to buy, so hopefully it shouldn't take too long.
I have a few things that I have to make as in crafts...I don't want to say too much more because some of them will be Christmas presents.

Oh, I do have some news that will be changing the inside look of the Winters homestead.  Several changes to the rec room downstairs: New 2nd bathroom, 2 more windows on the west side of the house (more light..yeah!), new carpeting & wall taken down to make the room larger.  In the kitchen we are enlarging the dining area & new countertops and lastly, putting in a gas insert in the existing fireplace.  I'm so excited!  Can't wait to see how it turns out.
That's it for now...Hope everyone has a good week.