Heading Out of Town

Today is the beginning of  Madelyn's Christmas vacation so I decided to take the day off and spend with her. The only thing we actually have planned is to go see the Yogi Bear movie, other than that I will probably be getting ready for our trip to KC. As soon as Ryan gets off work we will make our way to KC where we will stay with our dear friends, the Bosch's. Then on Thursday the three of us will be going to Great Wolf Lodge unbeknownst to Madelyn. Amazingly we have kept this a secret for a couple of months. She will be thrilled when she finds out. This will be her fifth time going and this time she will be able to go down the slides without us which is thrilling to me! I'm looking forward to shopping at Nebraska Furniture Mart and Legends Mall and of course Ryan has Cabelas gift cards that are burning holes in his pockets.

On Friday morning we will travel to Council Grove where we will celebrate Christmas with Ryan's family and then my family. Of course we have to make it back to our house that night because Santa will be visiting.

Merry Christmas to all (the 4 people that actually read this)!!

"Elfie"

"Elfie" our Elf on the Shelf  has appeared in some interesting places this season.

I'm pleased that Elfie joined our family two years ago. It/he has become a fun family tradition that we all look forward to every Christmas season.

Hemming for Dummies

Baking Day

Today Madelyn and I had our annual baking day. Madelyn was quite excited about plans for baking and mentioned a time or two that we bake every year and it has become our "family tradition." Well the family part was short lived as she was involved for about an hour and then found something more entertaining to do, and Ryan is nowhere to be found on baking day. But Madelyn was very helpful when needed, especially when it came to the tedious peanut butter balls. After spending a majority of the day baking and then cleaning up we delivered most of the goodies to neighbors and friends. With the exception of the peanut balls because Ryan prefers to keep those for himself.

The bakers

The finished products: peanut butter balls, puppy chow, choc covered pretzels, rolo pretzels, peanut clusters

Packaged up and ready to deliver to neighbors and friends

Ten Years Ago

It is hard to believe that it has been 10 years since that terrible quadruple murder took place. That day Augusta High School lost a vibrant, young teacher, and families and friends lost treasured loved ones. I often wonder how the sole survivor is doing, and I wonder how the victims' families have moved on. It angers me that the murderers are still alive and well in prison, getting 3 meals a day, heat in the winter, ac in the summer, tv, etc., They are undeserving bastards and should not exist in this world. *Gasp* I guess you all now know how I feel about that.
Below is the link to the article that appeared in the Wichita Eagle today.
http://www.kansas.com/2010/12/15/1633883/ten-years-later-carr-brothers.html

Birthday Shout Out(s)!!

Happy Birthday to the man that hung the moon!

 And to a lady that I will be forever grateful for bringing up an amazing son.

I love you both!!

Gingerbread House

Madelyn talked me into making a gingerbread house on Saturday. I had purchased the gingerbread house kit because I knew I was not crafty enough to build one from scratch. Turns out I'm barely crafty enough to assemble one from a kit. The directions on the box made it look so easy...yeah, not so much. I ended up breaking one of the walls and the roof kept sliding off. After a few choice words and having to walk away before I threw it away we finally got it built. Madelyn loved decorating it but we both decided that it would be much better to buy one that is already put together and then she could decorate it without having to deal with her mama having a mini tantrum when putting it together.

Looks can be deceiving...it wasn't that easy!

Finally the fun part begins.....

 Taste testing...