The Month of December

It has been a long time since I have posted something.  In the month of December we have been very busy.  We started the month with me having a horrible cold!  I had it at the beginning and now Jeremy has had it at the end.  While I had a cold, I stayed home from work so that nobody else would get sick.  The day I stayed home, happened to be the day the dogs in the back got out of their pen three times.  It was a nightmare.  I was so worried that the dogs would get lost like earlier in the week so I tried to shut their gate, but they seemed to get through everytime!  Finally I rigged up a system to keep in.  It was awesome!

There was no way the dogs could get out again!

 

It was genius!  I was so proud of myself.  I took all the pictures and told everybody that walked in the house to go out back and take a look.  Finally I was able to relax and start feeling better. 

Also in the month of December, we got the basement ready for Christmas.

I absolutely love the Christmas season!  This is my favorite time of the year.  Our tree turned out great!  We had a great family party with the Butlers' and Santa Claus came.  The kids had a blast!  On Christmas Eve we headed to my parents house where we had our traditional Clam Chowder and Rolls dinner.  It was delicious.  After dinner we read the Christmas Story from the Bible and enjoyed family time.  All of my siblings were itching to get to bed so that Christmas Morning would come sooner.  Finally Christmas came...

We woke up bright and early at 8:30 in the morning!  It was fantastic!  This year, Jeremy announced that he wanted us to make our Christmas presents.  I had no idea what I was going to do.  I started thinking about the presents really hard.  I decided to make him a tie rack (Jeremy hangs all his ties on a plastic hanger that is bowing really bad) and a shooting target.  They both turned out fantastic!  Jeremy was really surprised.  The first thing he said when he saw the gifts was that he was impressed. 

The tie rack is the small wooden box in the left bottom corner of the picture.  The shooting target is the big metal frame.  My brother-in-law Ryan, was a huge help in getting the presents completed.  He showed me what tools to use for the tie rack and he welded the target for me. 

The target has 5 individual targets on it.  They swivel on the main bar when a bullet hits.  The hands on the targets were meant as a joke for Jeremy because of his accident earlier in the year.  Everything looked great!  The present Jeremy was going to make me didn't work.  He was planning on making a rolling pin out of Corian with his new lathe, but the material wasn't working properly with the machine.  So he gave me some of my favorite treats (the chocolate and cherry cordials below) and we spent the whole day together, which is a present in itself.

After opening our presents to each other, we spent Christmas Morning with the Butlers eating delicious omelets and opening presents with the family.  Jeremy got a great jacket and some movies and I got a great jacket and some lotions.  In the afternoon, we spent time with my family.  My parents gave us movie tickets and a dinner card.  They gave Jeremy a great socket wrench set and me some new coats.  Our Christmas was fantastic!  We love spending time with our family and friends.  We can't wait to start the new year!

Love ya!