All Decorated Up

We had a nice Thanksgiving and I ate too much as usual! 

On Friday I put up the rest of the Christmas decorations. I used to collect small Christmas trees but I've decided to stop collecting those.  I gave some to Shauna and one to my friend Marie and the rest of them I just distributed all over the house. I do like my miniature tree though. 

Every year I buy one miniature ornament from Hallmark. This little butterfly is my ornament this year. It's pretty enough to be a necklace!

This is the ceramic tree my mom made a long time ago and a couple of my left over small trees, along with my echo. I should decorate that too! I asked Alexa if she would like to be decorated and she said, "Sorry, I don't know that" so I guess she doesn't care! 

This is my snowman collection including the new one I bought a few weeks ago and told you about earlier! 

I have them displayed on the built in bookcases in our family room. Not too sure I like the beading around them, though. It looked good last year when I had them around the small trees but not so much for the snowmen. I may change that. 

This is the personalized ornament we got for Levi this year. 

And this is the one we got for Maxwell.

That's about it for now. 

Got about 1/3 of my Christmas shopping done which is a record for me! It's supposed to be 50 degrees today (Sunday) so we are going to put some Christmas lights up outside. I'll show you in my next post 

Until then stay safe and be well! 

Thanksgiving, Christmas Tree and other Things

 I have one more day left on my job. It's been nice getting out of the house and getting a paycheck again. But I'm ready to be off for the holidays now and hopefully will be able to find something part time after the first of the year. 

We don't see the geese at our bird feeder much anymore. Usually we get a visit every day but now it's several days in between. We did have these guys come by the other day though. 

Wild turkeys! They are much shyer than the gees are and immediately started to walk away as soon as I opened the door! They are huge! There are 5 of them and I count them every time I see them in the park. I'm expecting a few to go missing the closer we get to Thanksgiving! 

Rich and my son Chris have been hunting since last Friday. They are coming home today. I took this time by myself to get the Christmas tree up. 

I originally planned to use a child size Santa hat for the tree topper but immediately did not like it when I put it up. 

The boys will have nothing to do with wearing Santa hats so I think I'll finding something decorative to do with it. There are quite a few good ideas in Pinterest. Stay tuned to see what cleverish thing I come up with! 

I decided to use this stuff instead of garland on my tree this year. 

It's nice but a little annoying to put on as it snags on the branches. Plus I bought two of them and had to go buy two more to get enough to go around the tree a few times.  Note to self: Next time put the garland on before you put the ornaments on so you are not constantly knocking them off! 

Anyway, here is the finished tree. 

I'm happy with it. It definitely looks better in the dark where the lights reflect on the gold garland. Plus I need to dig out my tree skirt. It looks naked without it!

Shauna and the boys came over to help decorate. Maxwell helped for a minute and hung about three ornaments before he lost interest and Levi wasn't interested at all! They were more interested in playing with the monster trucks their Uncle Chris bought for them!

Maxwell just wanted to know where the presents were that are supposed to go under there! 

Finally, my Thanksgiving cactus is blooming like crazy! I have never seen so many blooms and so big!!

Kind of crazy but definitely fitting for this year! 

We are having 11 people at our house on Thanksgiving. The governor is shutting some things down again here in Michigan or 3 weeks to hopefully flatten the COVID curve again. Movie theaters, indoor dining in restaurants, casinos, bowling alleys, and asking people to not have large gatherings for the holiday. We will be taking every precaution including wearing masks and keeping as much of a distance we can. Considering last year we had 25 people in this house this is a small gathering! 

Until the next time...stay safe and well my friends!  

Halloween and Other Things

We did not pass out candy on Halloween. Actually, we haven't passed out candy for several years. When we lived in our other house the family room was in the rear of the house and it was a nuisance to keep running to the front of the house when the kids came. Plus the doorbell would freak the cats out! We only ever got a handful of kids when we did pass out candy anyway.

Since we moved two years ago we have spent Halloween night at Shauna and Brads so we could go with the boys trick or treating. 

They usually only bring them to the few houses that are within a couple blocks of their house. This year most people had the candy out on the porch or on a table in the driveway so the kids wouldn't have to walk right up to the house. 

They were both the cutest little fireman!

It was fun and they were professional trick or treaters! 

My friend and I went to Hobby Lobby because they are having 50% off of their Christmas decorations.   I know, its early! But we couldn't resist! 

I bought this snowman for my collection. 

I love that it has the animals on it and I couldn't walk out of that store without it! 

I also bought a small child size Santa hat. I saw few pictures of Christmas trees with Santa hats as the toppers and I want to try it! If I don't like it I will just buy another one and give them to the boys to wear!

Speaking of Christmas trees for the first time I am putting mine up before Thanksgiving! We are hosting a few people that day and I want to show it off! We don't have a lot of people over for Christmas and I want some people to appreciate my hard work! 

This year has been so different and somewhat depressing so I want to try to be extra festive for the holidays! 

Lastly, there was a white duck hanging around with the other ducks at work the other day and I don't think I have ever seen one before. 

Only three more weeks left to work. They have already cut their hours down and I am only scheduled for about 15 hours this week. Pretty soon I'm going to have to figure out what else I can do for a little extra income! 

Until the next time stay safe and well, my friends! 

More This And That

Work is getting less busy now and a couple days this week I was sent home early! I actually volunteered to leave so some of the younger people that need the money more than me could stay. I don' t mind at all! I've been spoiled with the leisurely summer I've had! 

When I do work until 8 it's dark out and my car is parked right by the river. It's a little bit scary when I get to it because it's beyond the parking lot lights. 

Last week I went to a rummage sale at Catholic Central High School. It's a prestigious all-boy high school that is pretty expensive. I used to go to the rummage sales every year because you could get designer women's clothes for really cheap. 

I hadn't been for quite a few years but I had a free morning so I thought I would drive over and see what I could find. I didn't look at the women's clothing at all. They had a ton of pictures and home decorations and that's what I mostly browsed. 

This picture caught my eye so I bought it to hang in our bedroom. 

And these two pictures also caught my eye and I thought they would look cute in the bathroom. Our bathroom is blue so I painted them blue and put white paint over the blue because it was too bright! 

  

They are hanging in my bathroom now and I'm trying to let them grow on me! So far it's not working! I wish I would have just left them the way they were! 

Anyway, I also bought two little toy airplanes for the boys and spent a total of $4 for everything! I love rummage sales sometimes. I definitely will go back to Catholic Central for the next one. They had lots of pictures and home decor stuff! 

That's about it for now. We babysat the boys last Saturday and we had fun taking selfies! 

Until the next time stay safe and well my friends! 

A Little Of This / A little Of That

 At my job there is a river that runs along the side of the property and its a pretty popular place for ducks!  

The cider mill used to sell imperfect donuts and crumbs to customers so they could go and feed them. This year they don't really want the customers to stay on the property so they are not selling the donut crumbs. 

The ducks aren't getting the picture though! Every time anyone walks over toward the river they all come walking out to get some treats! 

Plus I listen to duck drama all day when I'm working! They are so dramatic! 

Last week we took the kids to a home decoration store called At Home. They had fun walking around and especially loved the display of large blow-up lawn decorations! 

I bought these fall leave garlands to put on the deck. 

Driving on the way home we saw this....

That is called Carvana and it is basically a car vending machine! You purchase the car online, go to the dealer and they vend it for you from this machine! It's pretty ingenious I think!

Lastly, Shauna and Brad brought the kids to a different cider mill from where I work. 

They sure were loving the cinnamon sugar donuts! That is until those darn wasps chased them away! 

That's it for me right now! 

Until the next time stay safe and well my friends! 

Levi James Turns Two

 Last Sunday, September 27th our little Levi turned 2 years old. 

Shauna and Brad don't like having big birthday parties, especially for one so young! The did it once when Maxwell turned 2 and vowed never again. Too overwhelming for little guys!

So it was just his parents, his brother and us grandparents there to help him celebrate! 

Doesn't take them long to understand presents, that's for sure! He kept saying "present, present" until they finally caved and let him open them! 

He did a good job. Of course his brother helped too! 

Then it was time to sing!

He didn't care much for the singing! 

Even with his brother sitting right next to him singing away! 

He did a good job blowing out the candles though! 

I can't believe he's already 2 years old! 

Goodness, my babies are getting too big!!!

Until the next time stay safe and well!

Another Thing Done

 We finally got our deck stained after it has been weighing on my mind all summer! 

I wrote about how we built it in 4 posts starting  here, if you care to read about it. I was so proud of Rich (and myself too!) because he never built a deck before and did a really good job! I helped but he did the majority of the work! 

We built it with treated lumber so we wouldn't have to stain or paint it for a while. It took me all Winter and most of the summer to decide if we should paint or stain. 

We finally decided to stain it figuring we could always paint it later if we changed our mind. I always liked the way the wood looked when it was wet so we decided to just use a transparent waterproofing stain on it.

Here is the deck after we scrubbed it off with a solution of  water, Oxyclean and Dawn dish soap and let it dry. It was so dirty! 

 

And here is it after two coats of stain. 

It looks exactly the way I wanted it to!  We're happy with it and I am so glad to get this project off of my mind!

We have a busy weekend ahead. Friday I'm getting my hair done and having lunch with a friend. Saturday is Levi's 2nd birthday party with just the grandparents and Sunday I'm working! 

Until the next time stay safe and well my friends!