Playing with new Christmas toys

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Guess what new Christmas toys I was playing with today?! I asked for hot rollers and Santa (aka Mom and Dad) got them for me. Since my hair is getting longer, I wanted to have some options with doing different things to it. Lately I've perfected the ponytail, and that's about all I do to it. So today I decided to give the curlers a trial run and see how well I could do on a day when I don't need to go anywhere. As you can see, the results are obvious. They give me much more body and bounce. I'll keep practicing during break, and perfect it before I go back to school.

Christmas evening greetings!

Since we decided (or Mom decided) that we would do brunch as our main meal we were finished early and I'm already home for this Christmas evening. Yesterday in my excitement to take pictures of my fabulous trifle, I decided to take some pictures of my little tree and some of my fave ornaments. I have a small 4' tree that I got when I first moved out into the Osborne's house. I have never upgraded to a larger tree for a couple of reasons. One reason is that I kind of like my little baby tree. It's cute! Another reason is that I worry that I wouldn't have enough decorations to fill a large tree if I got one. So, in the meantime I just keep collecting and collecting, filling up the little tree, hoping that when I do decide to get a normal sized tree I will have enough to make it look decent. Another reason is that they take up so much room. I put my tree in my dining room this year so that I wouldn't have to rearrange any furniture. It's always a dilemma for me. I liked it where it was this year. I could see it from the couch or from the dining room, where I sit at the computer a lot.
My tree is a themed tree and is decorated in all snowman or snowflake decorations. Many of them are homemade and came from craft shows. I went to Frankenmuth one year with Rachael, Mom & Dad, and we got a ton of ornaments at Bronner's. That's one place that you need to visit if you are into Christmas stuff. Here are a few favorites:

This was one of my first snowman ornaments. I got it at a craft show and it's made from one spoon. He's unique and kind of cute.











This is another craft bazaar ornament. It's made from a gourd. He was painted and received a scarf.










I don't quite remember where I got this guy, but he always makes me laugh. I'm not even sure why I bought him, because I'm not a cowgirl, or anything, but his hat and dangling legs with boots caught my eye. He's kind of bigger, and heavy, but very fun!








This is a new ornament this year, but I like this one because she's definitely a girl snow"man"(?) and is pink. She brings some color to the tree and is a cutie!

Watch out Rachael Ray!

Usually the words cooking and Christy don't tend to end up in the same sentence very often. But around holiday time I'm typically asked to bring a dish or they might even trust me to attempt two things. I'm not sure why I've never decided that cooking was fun...I learned pretty early that eating is fun, and since cooking is the predecessor to eating, I should try to work on that.
Well, after attending a Christmas party with great food on Friday night, I decided to try and recreate one of the fancier looking desserts for tomorrow's celebration. This is how special this is...I had to go buy a special bowl to put it in. I'm not sure about a dessert that has a special bowl named after it so you have to go drop money to purchase a container just for this, but that's how Trifle has ended up, I guess. I was pretty proud of the work, and the end result, so I took a pic by the Christmas tree and thought I'd display it. I hope it's good when we eat it tomorrow. If so, I'll have to attempt another trifle--at least I've already got the bowl this time! :)

School's Closed--let's craft!

After a pretty bad snowstorm this weekend and a 2 hour delay called last night, we ended up being closed today, due to weather. I got up at a decent time and took advantage of the day to get some errands run. I went to a friend's house to pick something up, took Lucy to get her nails trimmed, to the post office, to the bank, and then to Rachael's to craft.
I have this party that I go to every year and it requires that we bring a homemade gift for an exchange. I always try to come up with something pretty creative and crafty to take. Two years ago I took one of the nativity sets and it was a huge hit! This year I decided to go easy, but cool. I made chocolate candies and then wanted to put them in some kind of fun container. Here's what I came up with. It is so cute in person! It's an empty gallon paint can, decorated with scrapbook papers and ribbons. I think someone will really like it...and there's chocolate inside--how can you go wrong?!
I also made some little decorative things to put on the top of other chocolate baggies I'm giving to some teacher friends. They turned out really cute, also. Here's just one of the five designs I did. They were all different. I think they'll make a small gift seem really nice.

Pomp and snowstorms

I'm finally officially finished with IWU! (All except paying the money I borrowed--minor detail!) Last night was the commencement in Marion. I had always wanted to walk, but had to talk several of the other cohort members into going. We had 7 out of 13 people there, and we had a blast! We were so glad we went. They really made us feel special, and made us feel proud. It wasn't a formal, stodgy ceremony, as I had thought it would be. They encouraged the crowd to cheer for their people and show their pride in creative ways. Too bad all my friends bailed because of the winter storm warning. I could have had some "creative cheering" when my name was called for sure. : )
So, the weather was fine heading down there. Coming back was beginning to get bad, and it took us a little longer than usual to get home. It continued to snow overnight and most everything in the Fort was canceled today. I got up and shoveled the driveway, not knowing that I didn't have church. Heather was planning a party for me this afternoon, and we went back and forth over what to do about it. We finally decided to have it and let anyone who wants to come out, come and party with us. It's looking like at least a delay tomorrow, and it would be great to sleep in. Hopefully it won't continue snowing. I'm beginning to see a snowblower purchase in my future...Merry Christmas to me!