Little Women

 My Aunt Phoebe sent this photo from August 20, 1979 to my sister and entitled it "Little Women". Not sure about that hair-do of mine!

My google picture came from this photo taken at my grandparents house in Nebraska. Baby Chrissy was actually my sister's doll (I received Baby Alive), however in reality every doll became mine. :D

Happy Feast of Epiphany

Happy Feast of the Epiphany

Rosie's Art

Happy New Year!

 haha!

We were going to be having guests for New Year's Day so I thought I'd pick up a bottle of wine. I wonder who is in the picking-out-names-for-wine club?

 Skeleton - no thanks, not a good omen for the new year.

 Pessimist - um, definitely no, enough of those types around, no need to drink it all in.

 Au Contraire - enough contrary people, no thanks to that either.

 Three Theives - um no thanks.

 Whispering Angel, sounds better.

In the end, we didn't even have any as a friend brought some homemade wine from a relative. No photos from New Year's Day, but we had a lovely time.

To start the year, I was reading from Padre Pio about forming excellent and noble principles:

• Understand that God truly knows how to bring forth good even from evil. He will do this for those who have given themselves to Him.
• God is your Father, what do you have to fear, our only thought should be knowing, loving, and serving Him
• God will provide all, have the courage to overcome adversities
• These are fleeting moments of life which matter little to the sons and daughters of God because they will live eternally in glory with Him.

On another note...

 I found the nicest little hammer. Mom's hammer. I really never knew there was a cute hammer. This is so cute and it's heavy, so nice trusty hammer. Where are all the other hammers anyway? I really just wanted to hang a picture.

Separating the goats' from the sheep's ... cheese

Hope everyone has a blessed New Year!

New Year's Planning

Christmas Day to December 29

A Blessed Christmas to you and yours from me and mine!

We started the day with Midnight Mass.

 After about 5 hours of sleep we were all up unwrapping gifts while breakfast was cooking.
We have tried any number of gift opening regimes like waiting until Epiphany, 12 Days of Christmas but since we are on vacation, it just works for us to open gifts on Christmas. It gives everyone time to enjoy their gifts for the duration of vacation time.

 We start with the stockings which were re-stocked after St. Nicholas Day on December 6th. Stockings contain small in size gifts, notes, and whatever else fits.

 Eowyn needed some *ahem* dental work and she had said all she wanted were teeth for Christmas. So Aragorn got her some teeth. 😂

 Gifts can be anything from gift cards to gift gags to any combination thereof.

 Aren't these sweet ornaments that Eowyn had made! They are ceramic.

 Probably the sweetest gift was from Marigold to Goldberry. She made a bride's dress for a doll and included this note:

 💕

 These dolls were for the 2 little girls. Yes, we like dolls... alot... forever... including me!!!

 The funniest gift was from Belladonna for Celeborn. Perfect for his hiking backpack! I love seeing friendships and connections of joy and fun being created between my children and extending this to the fiances'.

 Belladonna made these for me. She is very artistically talented. I think we have an art teacher in the family! :)

 Couldn't resist this t-shirt for Samwise and his arm in a cast (fishing)

 Belladonna was gifted a rifle from Samwise. The comical side is that she opened the bullets from Aragorn first. 😂

 Keeping the wrapping paper contained is always a feat.

 I don't like bacon so my plate looks a bit empty but we had Joan of Arc French Toast and Ham, Egg and Broccoli dish. The crackers that Rosie put together were awesome!

 And, hence, everyone, nearly everyone, was wearing a crown. I'm not sure why in every picture there is a roll of paper towels on the table.  I always have this Christmas dream that looks like something out of Martha Stewart, but always looks more like something from the Far Side.

December 26 is the Feast of St. Stephen

First Martyr - by blood

 On this day I had to run to the grocery store. I discovered a man putting out Valentine's candy. Wouldn't want to waste a day!

 We also opened bank accounts for the last 3 children. All of which has nothing to do with the Feast of St. Stephen but just what we had to do.

 Wood had to be cut and hauled. The boys were thrilled with their find of gigantic GRUBS! ACK!

December 27 is the Feast of St. John the Evangelist - White Martyrdom

 I attended an excellent (free) concert with a friend.

 The violinist was exceptional. Having been a violinist (unsure if i could pick it up again with any elegance at all), I thoroughly enjoyed this violinist. She made the violin sing. It was beautiful!

 Rosie put together the poster for Kili who received one of the two Taekwondo students of the cycle. His poster will be up in the frame for the next 10 weeks.

December 28th is the Feast of the Holy Innocents

The sweet baby martyrs at the time of Baby Jesus. 

 The secret ingredient in our cut out cookies is 6 hard boiled egg yolks (run through a sieve)

 We were supposed to use sweet butter (unsalted) but when I ran to the grocery store to pick some up I had forgotten my wallet and had no money. 😂 We used regular salted butter...

 While the dough chilled in the fridge we went out for a walk. It was almost 60 degrees in Wisconsin on December 29th, glorious!

 We stopped and visited the pigs.

 And the cows who were busy enjoyed brewer's grains.

 Did I mention glorious?

 The girls wanted to show me their fort.

 Back to the cookies.

 These are mine - my favorite sprinkle are the tiny sugar balls, which is why all the ones I frosted and sprinkled had these.

 The other advantage to making mine all the same is that I knew which cookies were safe to eat! haha

Meanwhile, Pippin was looking for Irish Rover's music to decorate Christmas cookies to. Only a bit seasonally off. ;)