a day of hope and promise...

 I still wake up in the morning and get so excited for the day.  This fine morning is very quiet.  All four of the animals are here in the living room, where the little fake fireplace warms us.  They've all been fed their chow, and the kitties have had their heavy cream.  They've figured out that when mama puts the kettle on, coffee means cream!  

Suri...

Kitty thinks we Christmas shop just to provide him with more boxes.

So yesterday I baked up some cookies, butter cut-outs, and gingerbread men.

There were also gingerbread girls and babies, too.

This morning, I'll make some frosting, and tomorrow the kids at church can decorate these.  Confession:  it'll be hard for me.  It was always hard for me to have the kids decorate cookies.  I want them neat and pretty, especially after all the work put in to make them.  They just slap on the frosting, use way too many sprinkles, and I have to lie, and say how pretty it is ha.  I am sort of kidding, with my own kids I always encouraged them to go easy on the sprinkles, and if anyone was caught with fingers in their mouths while decorating, I made them go wash their hands, you know, lessons for life, right?  If you're sharing food with others, you CANNOT put your fingers in your mouth then touch the food!  Anyway.  off on a tangent I go.  I will have a package of wipes at my cookie station, but each child will have a pretty little box to put their own cookies in, so it won't matter much what they do.  I just want them to have fun, really, and I think they will.  There are M&M's, and gumdrops, and lots of sprinkles, and little tubes of different colors for eyes and buttons...oh it's hard, I want to sit down and frost all of them...but it's okay, next week or so I'll bake more.

Today, Margaret will be coming over with Wulf and Tennyson, whom I haven't seen since before their Oregon trip.  (Adrian is finishing up the semester and has a big test to study for).  We are going on an adventure with Ashley and little Anya and Elise, to a small museum which has over a hundred Christmas trees on display!  Then, we'll come back here for a while to play...I invited Molly and her girls, but she doesn't have many weekends off from work, and has so much to do.  

So I need to sweep and mop and clean up, and make frosting, and and and.  Yet here I sit.  Paul got up and went hunting, he likes to be in the woods when the sun comes up.  He was watching videos the other night where these guys were preparing different cuts of venison with all different seasonings, and he is inspired to get a deer.  I tolerate the whole shebang, because I love him, and want him to be happy and do what he enjoys, but yucky blucky.   I am Miss Picky, and I do hate it about myself, so I try to be thankful for free meat, but I don't really enjoy the venison.  Paul makes some good dishes, too, a roast in the crockpot with oranges, and rosemary...it's kind of good, but I just have one thought of how cute Bambi is, and blah.

I do like the quiet of the morning.  I know I should exercise, I did do ten wimpy push-ups while waiting for my coffee water to boil, but try to do that with two Labradors afoot, they think it's time to give me kisses.  

It's the most wonderful time of the year, to get fatter.  I bought a bag of Hershey's Kisses with almonds, which are irresistible.  As luck would have it, the girls here don't like them, they like the regular smooth ones, so I have to eat them ALL.  Once you have one, it's game over.  I did wait and have them after dinner, I fasted all day except for coffee, so it's not too bad.  The girls made a buffalo chicken wing pizza, and I made wings in the air fryer.  We had some nice salads, too, and I stayed away from that yummy looking pizza, but then ate around ten kisses, but you can't blame me!  We were watching some chocolate show, where they make sculptures and lighthouses out of chocolate with pastries inside!  How can you watch that without thinking, "I need to eat some chocolate."?  

So the girls are sleeping in, the animals are snoring, and here I sit....it's not too shabby!  Have a good day, and enjoy the season!