Another year-December 31, 2018

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

 

I wish for all of you a wonderful 2019 filled with happiness, good health and fun times.

 

As for me, I cannot believe another year has flown by!

Cookies-December 26, 2018

How could I fail to show you our Christmas cookies? All three girls decorated these cookies last Friday. I needed to clone myself to keep up with all three of them. This is my old and favorite sugar cookie recipe, but I left the sugar off and instead put buttercream frosting on top.

I told the girls to make a pattern on the cookies like decorating a

tree. Well, that didn't work, obviously.

 

All of the decorations were so hard I called them tooth breakers.

By the second day, everything was soft and edible. And the cookies

were actually delicious.

 

Wild and crazy though they be, the cookies were good and I hope I provided a memory of what we did at Christmas.

 

Greeley Griswalds-December 25, 2018

On the television show "Great Christmas Light Fight" a house here in Greeley lost the $50,000 prize to a house in a tiny town in Alabama. Go Bama! Anyway, we went last night to look at it. It is not the best display we have ever seen. I think my brother holds that honor. Another story for another time. I will say the airplanes coming into the Birmingham airport tipped their wings so passengers could see his house. It was that good. The house here in Greeley is called the Greeley Griswalds. To me it was just clutter. I have forgotten how many lights this house has in the yard. No doubt the power company loves this time of year at this house. I took a few pictures that may or may not make sense.

 

 

 

You can see there is no rhyme or reason to this display. However, hundreds and hundreds of

local residents have enjoyed this sight. It is colorful and bright and Christmasy (is that a word?).

Drivers were polite last night. But I guess Sunday night became hectic and the police were called

to direct traffic.

 

When you get down to it, Christmas lights do make you smile no matter what mood you are in. They are a great part of the season. And it is very unselfish of this family to put this display up year after year for others to enjoy. No doubt it is very exhausting work.

 

I hope everybody had a Merry Christmas. We are recovering.

 

 

 

Projects and playing-December 14, 2018

We have had some days to play and do art work since we got back from WinStar. Zoey calls them "projects".

These are the cutest dress up dolls. They are made of wood and are

finished very nicely. They are also magnetic. So you can change

the clothes and they stick to the body of the doll. It's a great thing

to play with. For some reason Daisy thinks her fingers taste good

so thy need to be in her mouth for pictures.

 

Zoey especially loves these magnetic dolls. She is learning to

mix and match clothes. I encourage that.

 

 

Here we are painting Christmas ornaments. These happen to be

trees. This was fun to do and very easy to clean up.

 

Today we made Christmas cards for them to give their parents. We have 3 ring binders full of pictures that will be sent home with them when the binder is full. We have no room left on the walls in the playroom to put any more pictures up for all to see so now we are filling binders. The girls seem very pleased to see their artwork displayed so I go out of my way to save it for them.

 

We will have all three tomorrow. I think we will learn how to play Go Fish.

 

WinStar-December 7, 2018

We just returned yesterday afternoon from another trip to WinStar. We are starting to call it our home away from home. It sure feels like home when we get there. It was cold this trip but without storms. We feel very blessed to have had clear weather. And we are wonderfully thrilled we had another fabulous trip. Christmas at WinStar is beautiful. They know how to decorate tastefully.

At this entry point we know the fun is only minutes away.

Look at the pretty blue sky.

 

The Casino Tower is the complete building you see in the center.

The South Tower looks thin but it isn't. It is facing in this direction.

The North Tower goes to the left of the South Tower. 19 floors.

Over 1900 rooms. All towers connect directly to the casino and

all 20+ restaurants, swimming pool and the convention center.

Once there you have no need to go outside until you leave.

You definitely do a lot of walking however. Miles per day.

 

This is the lobby where we are greeted like royalty. When I walk

in here the outside world no longer exists.

 

This tree was in the hallway going to the North and South Towers.

I wish I could tell you how tall it is.

 

This tree is in the hallway that leads to the Convention Center.

It was stunning. The lights were so bright and that affected the picture.

 

This tree is at the main public entrance. It is humongous.

They are giving away the two Cadillacs which are only slightly

visible in this picture. I can't even guess the height of this tree

but if you forced me to guess I would say a minimum of 40 feet.

Is that a lot? I don't know.

 

For a reason we don't know we were given a 3 room suite. When we arrived the lady who checked us in handed us the card keys to a suite on the 16th floor. I nearly fainted. I never stay higher than the fire department ladder can reach. I would be so terrified on the 16th floor I would sit in the middle of the floor and cry. So when I explained I don't do "high" she dropped us to the 6th floor. Jerry fussed at me all the way to the room because we could have had a suite, a 3 room suite. He kept saying it would have been a real treat, not that the regular rooms are bad. They are not. They are extremely nice. So when we found our room we opened the door to the same suite we would have had on the 16th floor. Two walls were glass. That's called a two view suite. We just stopped in our tracks. Then we started walking around and I bet we were squealing like kids in a candy store. I have never seen anything like that in my life. The gorgeous bathroom was bigger than our living room and kitchen combined in this house. We just stood and stared. It was complete disbelief. However, we adjusted quickly. We spent more time in our room than we normally do because we knew that may never happen to us again. What a fabulous treat. There are no words to describe it.

 

 

This is the shower with, unfortunately, a reflection of the sinks in it.

The shower had two separate shower heads. We are so stupid we

didn't know what they were for. The little one pulsed water, almost

like a massage. The huge one was one of those rain shower heads.

It was fabulous. I love rain anyway so to have it in this gorgeous

shower was like frosting on a cake.

 

There was one tiny problem. It was migration time for ladybugs. Who knew? We didn't. And those tiny little critters were everywhere. They were dying rapidly because there was nothing for them to eat. They wanted in because it was so very cold outside. But we can't really complain about that. We were in South Dakota one time when it was stink bug migration time. Trust me, we will take ladybugs over stink bugs any day. We have also survived the love bug migration on the Gulf coast. We simply could not complain.

 

Plus, on Monday night, we watched a helicopter flying from the direction of Dallas land on Terry Bradshaw's Circle 12 horse ranch. One might assume it was Terry and others returning from the Sunday NFL games. We have no way of knowing but we do know where he lives and it was clear that's where the chopper landed. But what do we know?

 

Today we were back to babysitting so we have returned to our usual life. We probably will never forget this week in Thackerville, Oklahoma.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday play day-December 1, 2018

We had a play day with Zoey and Daisy on Friday while Hannah was in school. We felt bad that she did not get to take part but it's life when you are in school.

Play Dough is always fun.

 

Jerry, in his old age, has shown us his creative side. He made

the daisy while Daisy and I made the butterflies. What fun!

 

Then we washed our hands and took out the collection

of old jewelry. They always love playing with this stuff.

And they always break one every time they play.

Keeps me busy.

 

Never mind what all that jewelry weighs.

It's still fun.

 

Zoey and Daisy together are great fun. They never fight and they play well together. It's when the third one is included that war breaks out. We had a wonderful day on Friday. Love these girls!