1. tonic solfa TONIGHT with carin!

2. santa mugs and plates

3. cards-currently on the missing list. waiting for daylight to send out another search party

4. new jammies

5. SOUPS

6. the coat rack completely filled with christmas day guest’s coats

7. looking up the tree butt

8. fudge

9. a present? for me?

10. pitter patters of little pairs of feet coming down the stairs

11. christmas morning bed hair

12. christmas eve story hour

13. the greed game

14. tinsel

15. hanging stockings

16. filling stockings!

17. ribbons, wraps, and tags

18. hugs

19. cocoa and cookies for santa

20. home for the holidays movie (the first in my collection of movies about disfunctional families during the holidays)

21. new slippers!

22. shake rattle and rolling gifts to guess what’s inside. then opening it in secret and rewrapping.

23. lefse making-not the eating so much but the making is fun!

24. taking in all the outside christmas lights while relaxing in a limo with a bit of bubbly

25. jesus is born!

dec 5

amid all the hustle and bustle and frantic frenzy associated with the fact that christmas is ONLY 20 days away, i am calm and collected in my very own bubble bath.  almost nothing soothes my soul more than hot hot water topped with 10 inches of bubbles.  a book to either intrigue or distract me.  a crystal flute of champagne.  and of course my phone in case harry connick jr. calls and wants to get together.

it could happen.  meanwhile, calgon-take me away.

dec 4

bring me a card!  i LOVE every single one.  from the fancy store bought ones that fold out into a pop up village complete with a glittering ice rink and skaters to photo cards to the hand crafted ones.  and oh how i love me a “dear _____ (fill in the blank) mass letter detailing the years events and accomplishments.

my cards this year are wonderful!  how lucky was i to snag a photography session with kris while she was here in september!  mr. postman should be delivering the cards to me any day now and then i can lick it, stick it and mail them off to 75 of my favorite peeps!

a few days ago i popped 8 of these postcards that i made in the mail.  this is my december card, titled “santa’s nightshirt”

did you get one?  maybe next month if you didn’t!

dec 3

it’s starting! the first few flakes are falling. right now! tiny little sparkles floating about. ice crystals crunching beneath every snowbooted step.  swoosh swooosh.  slip sliding down the snow hills.

dec 2

for a moment in my life:  the clock relects 10:47 am.  i just finished lecturing the D O G advising him i would let him out of the kennel if he would agree to behave like a decent human being.  ????  dog is loosed.  ian needs to sit on the potty.  read potty book.  dog wants out.  let the dog out.  ian comes running out of the bathroom kicking the roll of toilet paper.  do i wrap it back on the tube?  or is it now dirty?  wrapping.  dog wants in.  ian escapes (with a nekked butt) while i’m letting the dog in.  run after child.  corral kid, dog gets out again.  dog comes in.  wipe wet paws off.  replace wet socks (on ian not dog).  flush.  and wash hands.  dog needs a drink.  ian wants hot cocoa.  nana wants booze-just a nip.  a scoetch more.  just top that off a smidge. 

the clock relects 10:50.   my socks are wet.

i voluntarily signed up to for one more thing to do each day.  just shoot me.    kidding.  all you hunters put your shooters away!

um yeah.  look at him all “johnny on the spot” when i mention shooters. go back to sleep scott.  i was KIDDING.

if you’ll look to the left of the tour bus this morning, you’ll find a little button that says “journal  your christmas”.  i took the plunge but with limited expectations of myself!  i’m not a scrapper so i intend to participate on my blog for the most part.  no doubt mine will dull in comparison to those in full on participation mode but it’s not a competition right?  right!

i hope to find something interesting to blog about, a photo or two for each post and the TIME to “journal my christmas”.  dec 1

so yeah, i’ve been reading and listening….have you?

i was completely charmed by this book on cd. “the guernsey literary and potato peel pie society” by mary ann shaffer and annie barrows. the book was read by several people. the entire story is told via letters written between the characters of the story. the letter writing begins in 1946 by coincidence and allows the tale to unfold describing the effect the german occupation had on the members of the “guernsey literary and potato peel pie society”. it’s a quaint little novel that has it all…..love, loss, bravery, gossip, sacrifice, humor…plus pie! really really liked this one. i think i might even be tempted to find me a pen pal.

i also recently read valerie bertinelli’s “losin it: and gaining my life back one pound at a time.”. it was a quick read. nothing overly captivating but i’ve always liked valerie’s acting so it was interesting to me. i didn’t experience any life changing “aha” moments while reading it tho. and maybe that’s okay.

i listened to michael j fox’s “always looking up”. what an extraordinary normal guy. michael reads this book himself, and i found it a bit of a challenge to keep up with his speaking at first. he speaks fast and it seems some of the sentences kind of run together. this may be a symptom of his parkinson’s disease. i got used to it though and it think the book is actually better for him reading it himself.

another listened to was “into the wild” by jon krakauer.  it’s also a movie and i think i might want to see the movie someday too.  jon pieces together information he’s dug up on christopher johnson mcCandless into a heartbreaking story about a complex young man who experiences too much and dies too young.  i don’t think i spoiled the ending for you by saying that because the bones of this story was newspaper headlines for a bit….”young man freezes to death in wilds of alaska”

there have been a few other books here and there that escape me at this time.  now i’m off to listen to anderson cooper read “dispatches from the edge”

.

what books are you reading or listening too?  what are your favorite ways to get book recommendations?

last night!

and yes, that’s the last christmas ornament to be placed on the tree.  and it’s not even 8 am.

i’m gonna need some diet coke today!

here in south dakota. we’re almost closing up november and today the temps reached almost 60!  these pix were taken last week when it was even warmer!

we will all be sad when we can’t toss the d o g out the door for a much needed break!

kaiden cutting the grass one last time.

ian and mack driving on the platform.

zero fear

ian:  my beautiful arms will catch you kaiden!

catch and release……sort of

wagon ride!  wheeee!

oopsie!  you’re all right brother.

this kind of pushing is okay.

amazingly enough, there is still sand in the box.

we love to run.  well not “we” as in me.  but “we” as in “they”!

what a lovely autumn we’ve had.

the girls and i are “trying” to continue a peterson family tradition of lefse making.  we’re thinking our “niche” is in “artful” lefses.

i call this “poodle in a tutu”

this is a tribute to “marshmallow” man from ghost buster’s fame.  it wasn’t easy getting the “eyes and smile” in just the right spot.  ok, it wasn’t hard either….it just happened.

and finally, “flour power”.

once again, i have a whole new appreciation for my SIL debbie who for years and years, did all the potato cooking, dough making, ball forming and rolling of the “family lefse”.  even when i’m in charge, i get relegated to flipping and packaging…..

we’ve still got a ways to go on the learning curve.  according to the recipe, we should have had about 15-18 dozen lefse.  we ended with 6.  hmmmmm

ps if my excessive use of quotation marks is annoying you, visualize me  doing THIS (you know, holding up 2 fingers on each hand and “quoting” with them.  yeah….so little time, so many people to annoy.