The 2nd best gift of all!

Read previous post for the best gift of all!

Now, the 2nd best gift was this one.....

 

As we were preparing to open presents

 

My Sister announced her 'project' this year.

She made each family a memory book.  The book is for the 'kids' of places that their parents frequented when they were kids.  It is basically 'our' (mine, my sister, and my brother) memories.  Since I don't have children she gave a book to me.

 You all know how much I love pictures, and my family.  I have to say I was more than touched by this gift.  She took my nieces to Logansport where I was born, and took pictures of them holding signs in front of houses that my parents lived in when I was born, and when my brother was born.  She took pictures of every house we lived in, including the house my Shug and I just sold.  She also took pictures of the places we loved to visit.  Riverside park, the hot dog stand, the custard stand...to name a few.

 I didn't notice until yesterday that this picture (below)was taken in front of my cousin Vickie's house.  This house, was her parent's house, which we visited quite often.  Vickie and her husband bought it and moved in after her parents passed.  The live there now.

 There were lots of pictures of family....all of us.

 There were several more pages to the book than I am showing you, but you get the idea.

I will say I got a bit choked up when I got to this page....the house I grew up in.  Oh...the  memories that come flooding back from a picture of a house.

Then I got to this page

 and the tears started rolling.  The other house I grew up in.  Seems like we came to this house every weekend.  It's where my Aunt and Uncle AND Grandpa lived when I was growing up.  I must have this picture framed.  And I must find an older picture...of my Grandpa...sitting on this same porch. He was the only Grandparent that I got to know.  My Grandparents all passed when I was less than five years old, except for my Mom's Dad.

 When I come by this house, which I do every time I visit Logansport, I see my Grandpa sitting on this porch, or standing by the wall smoking a cigarette.  I see it like it was yesterday.  My how the time flies.    I surely do miss the days of my Aunts and Uncles all getting together here, while my cousins and I played.  It's why my cousins and I are friends...still.  They were my friends growing up.
I see my Aunt looking out that window to the right.  That's where the kitchen is.  That's where the cards were played. That's the room the laughter came from....

 There's my Grandpa and Grandma.  Bottom left.  And that bar, Polsinelli's, to the right, that's where he worked.  For years, after he retired.  When I turned 21, I went there for a little birthday party.  When I walked in he said, "See this sign..."  It was a sign that said R U 21...Run.  My Mom said, "Dad, she is 21 now."  And he served me my first legal drink. 

Yup....the memories.... they be good peeps. 

Cindy Bee

PS.  Apparently my nieces didn't have as much fun doing this as the pictures look!  I heard all about it from Theresa and Vickie after Christmas. Oh my.

An elf returned! HAPPY NEW YEAR!

 So, here it is New Years Eve!

our Anniversary!....

19 years of marriage....

and I'm still posting on Christmas! 

I'm making resolutions.  Right now.  Writing them down as I think of them...as I type about Christmas.  Resolution #1....my blog posts are going to be smaller! 

 (Yay you say!)  

I'm still going to post about Christmas with my family.  It's important to me.   

And I might possibly post more than once a day.  

Might.  

Anyway...Christmas Day.  

The first thing that happened when I walked in the door at my Sister's house on Christmas day.  Remember when two of my nieces spent the weekend with us?  And two elves stowed away and went home with them in their backpacks.  Well, the younger niece handed me this elf.

 She said, (after jumping up and down and giving me hugs!)
 "Aunt Cindy, You can have this back.  He doesn't move at my house!"
 I said, "WHAT?!?!!"
 "No.  He doesn't move."
Her Mom told me that she thought her daughter forgot all about it.  Then when they were leaving today she asked for it!  Why?  Returning it to me.  She told her Mom she even put the step stool under the cabinet for it in case it needed help!  Oh noooo.  Anyway, we all got a good laugh from that right from the start.

OK - that's it for today.   I know...I can't believe it either.  Maybe later....I have a lot of Christmas stuff to post.  You should see all the pictures I've already downloaded.   But for now....

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Be safe peeps.

Cindy Bee

Christmas morning began at home, with my Shug and I exchanging presents, and giving Winston and Dixie their presents.

Dixie would try to hoard everything under the chair,

before Winston could get a hold of it and shred it. They both tear up stuffed toys, but it takes Winston about two seconds and Dixie a few days. I've been cleaning up stuffed toy innards for days.

Then we went to my Sister and Brother in Law's house. Their daughter entertained herself by dancing to the Wii, while she waited one everyone to show up.

What's this? Andrew is actually contributing to the food/drink items this year?

Could he be growing up.......naaaaaah!!!

My Sister said she was serving Mexican food this year. She felt like everyone gets tired of ham and turkey by Christmas Day so she was changing things a bit. We all loved the idea. Joey arrived wearing a Sombrero! He is married to my brother's oldest daughter, so he'd be my nephew-in-law.

The menu consisted of a yummy Enchilada soup that Dad made and your choice of soft or hard shell, shredded beef, ground beef, or chicken taco's or nachos. Everything was delicious. (I'm going to attempt to get some of those recipes because everything really was yummy. I'll post them later if I get them)

After we ate it was time to open gifts. Our gift giving is simple. All of the adults exchange names back in October, to give us plenty of time to purchase a gift. The limit is $50.00. I think most of us buy gift cards for each other. And those of us that want to, purchase or make gifts for the younger kids. We feel like the gift giving is really for the kids anyway.

Someone told the girls to move over or something and they said, "But we ALWAYS sit like this." Funny how even the simplest of things become tradition.

Adrienne, my beautiful niece, and her husband Joey. This is their daughter, my Great-niece! I bought my nieces a necklace at a craft show this year. I thought they were cool, and they were very INexpensive and hand-made.

Here is a picture of them. E-mail me if you want the information of the person that made them.

I made scarves for all of my nieces, and a matching scarf for their dolls.

Mom made all of the girls fleece blankets.

I didn't really get any good pics of the blankets, but they were big and so soft. I really liked them. Hmmm, I wonder if she will make her kids some warm blankeys next year!

We went together and got Mom & Dad pictures of their grandchildren and grand dogs. I will show you those pics at another time. It's a whole other story.

Mom e-mailed me later and said her and Dad really, really loved the pictures.

My sister made these yummy Mexican fried desserts but I can't remember the name of them. You put powdered sugar on them or drizzle chocolate on them, or both! I wish I had one right now, they'd be great for breakfast!

Mom made Mexican Wedding Cakes (cookies)

And I brought a pinata!

My brother-in-law went upstairs and held it over the railing, and moved it up and down. We were all concerned about those glass french-doors to the left but they didn't get broken.

All of the younger girls got a turn at trying to hit the pinata, blind-folded of course. As we were watching, Andrew made a comment that he thought the pinata was cool and that he never got a pinata as a child. He said he felt sure that he would have turned out a much better person if he would have had a chance at a pinata. We all jumped at that comment! Your turn Andrew!

Look how tall he is compared to my sister! He is on his knees in the above picture. Actually, he's tall compared to anyone! He hit the pinata, and some of the candies fell out.

And because the kids went crazy, we had him take off the blindfold and finish the job, lest he hit a child!

Note to self....do not put candy canes in a pinata. They were individually packaged, but they broke and came open on impact with the floor. What a mess. Sorry Theresa and Trent.

After all the food and excitement we decided to have some constructive exercise and us girls danced to cotton-eyed-Joe with the Wii. I think the Wii is the one video-type game I approve of because you get more exercise with it than just moving your thumbs! Hey Adrienne and Mom, where are ya?

This is my Brother-in-Law Trent.

And this is his I-phone plugged into this docking station playing Christmas music. Well, you can imagine the noise level with 11 adults, four kids, a Wii station, and conversations going on. I was cracking myself up when I saw where Trent's brother, Travis, was sending him text messages and I started replying! In one of them I said, "Theresa's family is still here. They've been here all day long...jeeeeesh."

Molly was telling me thanks for the Christmas presents from Winston and Dixie.

Time to clean up and say Good-night.

ssshhhh, don't tell anyone I stuck this wishnik doll in their window!

Goodnight!

Merry Christmas!

Cindy Bee

PS - The story of the wishnik doll. One year in a garage sale gift game night on Christmas Eve someone won wishnik dolls. I can't remember who started it, but each year Theresa and Trent hide them at our house on Christmas eve, or we hide them at their house on Christmas Day. This year, at Treasure Mart, I found 11 more wishniks for sale. They are in their house right now...hiding out :-)

Christmas Day

On Christmas Day our immediate family gathers at my Sister & Brother-in-Law's house.

When we arrived, their daughter was playing this dance game on the Wii.

My husband decided to join her.

Two of my nieces striking a pose.

The one on the right told the one on the left to NOT smile.

Models do not smile! Oh my what they learn....Time to open gifts.

The adults exchanged names a couple of months ago.

We all give the younger ones gifts.

I changed my gift-giving to them this year. As I've said in some older posts, I'm focusing more on traditions. And I did spend some time with them doing stuff, but instead of buying them a toy, I purchased a bond for each of them, in their name. When they are older, I'll give them all to them at once. I did buy them a shirt, just no toy, and they didn't even notice.

Is that a robe or a hat?

These are Little Tree-sa's, get it? Her name is Theresa and she MADE THESE FROM SCRATCH! Her husband said she EVEN MADE THE APPLESAUCE!!!

(She gets that from me)

The cakes were YUMMY. I'd like that recipe Sister. She drizzled caramel sauce on them and put a scoop of vanilla ice cream beside them. You can also see she made the traditional Mexican Wedding Cakes and Peanut Butter cookies with kisses.

Lots of serious faces here....my Sister is trying to teach us Bunko.Now listen Trent....you have these dice...

Now this is how you keep score....and I'm going to jerk that camera out of your hand if you take one more picture...(Mom wants to laugh - I can tell)
Umm, I'm STILL confused. Is a BUNKO all 1's, or all of any number, or is it all of the same number of whatever round you are on? Like if this is round 5, is a bunko all 5's?

And wouldn't that be a Yahtzee and not a Bunko?

We played Bunko, while the kids danced...

and danced...

then we decided to join them!

Dave and Trent thought they were so cool with their head gear, or is it a robe?

Funny how we are all following along this video and none of us have the same pose!
I'm looking like something out of the Thriller video while Sarah is shaking her groove thang.

Our brother had child care duties...

and I had to take pics...so Theresa and Lorri did dishes!

Twas time to go home.

We had a wonderful day.

Adrienne, Dylan, Joey and Andrew we missed you and hope you had a Wonderful Christmas.

Peace,

Cindy