Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve. We had some snow. I helped shovel.



The boys in front of the tree.



No rabbit ears during Christmas. You must make reindeer antlers.



The traditional opening of one present on Christmas Eve.



More snow Christmas Eve night.

Christmas morning. See the Uno Attack Santa brought (behind the Legos)? Totally fun!



Snow. Snow. Snow.

Here is our grill.



The railing on the back deck.



This morning, I decided to take a walk around the block and snap some photos.

Here are some trees in the neighbors' yard.



One of the county roads before the plow.



After the plow.



Neighbors' cars.



A bench at the park.



This merry-go-round won't be going around any time soon.



Poor horsie.



Not much room to swing!



Lonely play structure.




More neighborhood trees.



Our street.



Our house.



Hi!

Brrrrrrr and then some

Did you hear it snowed up here?

(These were all taken through windows. That's why they are sorta blue-ish.)

They plow the roads up into big piles all over town...



Then they load the snow into dump trucks, take it out and dump it beside the river.



Here's the side door of the library. One of the medium-sized drifts in town.



This is one of the roads on the East side of town looking out over a corn field. The wind is still whipping the snow around.



Cooper says, "Ha, ha. Now open the door, woman."



Here is the birdhouse on our back deck. I took this yesterday afternoon.



Here it is again this morning.



I find it is better to just not ask questions...



And remember! If the temperature gets below freezing where you are, make sure you go outside and blow bubbles. It is so cool the way they freeze and pop. I'll see if I can get some photos this year.

Birds of a feather

The Commander went to the store last night to stock up for Snowmageddon '09.

Today, while he was in class, I decided to stop by the store and get a few more things. Just in case.

He called me on his way home and, surprise!, he had stopped at the store as well.

Here's where it gets creepy.

I bought a gallon of milk. He bought a gallon of milk.

I bought two bags of chips. He bought two bags of chips.

I bought spiral mac and cheese (we never buy spiral). He bought spiral mac and cheese.

I bought Pepperoni Pizza Lunchables. He bought Pepperoni Pizza Lunchables.

Weird.

Hickory Farms Product Review

The Commander came into the kitchen the other day and saw a box from Hickory Farms sitting out on the counter. His eyes lit up and he asked if it was a Christmas present. I told him that it wasn't. I had gotten it to review for my blog.

The next time I saw the box, it was open and parts were missing.

This is how it looked before *someone* got ahold of it.



He had opened up one of the summer sausages and the sharp cheddar. And most of it was gone. I managed to snagged a few slices of the summer sausage. It was as tasty as I remember.

But the real surprise was the sharp cheddar. I don't like cheddar cheese much. I REALLY don't like sharp cheddar. THIS STUFF WAS OMG GOOD. I ate a healthy portion of it.

We haven't opened the other sausage or cheeses (Apple Pie Cheddar and Edam) yet, but we will probably have them a little closer to Christmas.

Hickory Farms gift boxes have always been a gift we know will get used. We buy at least one every year (if not more!). And yes, we have since purchased one and it is wrapped and under the tree.

If you are looking for that hard-to-buy-for person (or anyone else, for that matter), keep Hickory Farms in mind.

It's good stuff.

(When I was younger and haven't quite developed the palate for summer sausages, I always laid claim to the strawberry candies. I still get a little thrill when I open up the box and see them!)


__________

I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Hickory Farms and received a Hickory Farms gift basket to facilitate my review.

6:30am is too early, but I did it anyway.

The Boy just came into the kitchen and exclaimed, "I woke up to the sound of bacon cooking!"

Yowl!

You remember that sweet, little kitten we recently got?

She's driving my husband up the crazy wall.

We didn't know how old she was when we got her, but we guessed a couple of months.

Evidently, we were off some.

She's in heat.

Yowl! Yowl! Yowl!

Day and night.

Night and day.

We've had to put her in the utility room at night so we can all get some sleep!

The vet says she could be in heat 8-9 days and that he could spay her after that. We told him we would be calling him at 8 days, 1 minute.

Then he said that if she doesn't come out of heat (WHAT???!!!) he could go ahead and spay her.

I hope she comes out of it soon or I'm going to have to buy The Commander some ear plugs. (Being a Mom, I can tune her out.)