December Daily: Day 13

Today we began working on the cards we will take to our church's shut-in members when we visit them this week and by "we" I mean "I" but Lily sat beside me very nicely and colored...and threw pencils.
This evening we were invited to a Christmas open house where we saw a lot of our friends and drank punch.

December Daily: Day 12

Lily woke this morning to find our Christmas tree all lit up in the living room. She stared for a minute then laughed. Just like her daddy, she's not very fond of anything new or different so I'm glad that she has warmed up to it quickly and we don't have to avoid the living room or be right next to her when she's in there for the next 12 days!
We also received a package from UPS. A gift for the girls from their grandparents which we have hidden until the big day. It's so exciting to have packages delivered during the Christmas season!

December Daily: Day 11

Today we cheated and opened a couple Christmas presents early. The girls received beautiful quilts from aunt Mary Jo in Alabama and a teddy bear and doll from St. John's Ladies Mission Society. We made M&M cookies with our friends Rebecca and Caleb. Lily and Caleb had such a good time playing together.
After supper Phil went out and for the third year in a row saved this year's Christmas tree from a cold and lonely ditch. Lily was not very happy to see it coming through the door and wouldn't get too close. I didn't want to get too close at first either. There were strange looking nut things attached to some of the branches. I've never seen these on cedar trees before so I made Phil do some research to make sure it wasn't hosting an alien species that would hatch and kill us in our sleep. He discovered that they are "cones". I'm still not sure about this. Anyway, we turned the tree a few times to find its "best side" (a bit of a challenge with ditch trees) but it looks very nice now with all the lights and our ornaments.

December Daily: Day 10

Yesterday I turned up the Christmas tunes I keep going 24/7 and wrapped presents, one of my favorite things to do in December. Today we shipped them off to Texas. I wish I could hand deliver them all. Not being with my family is especially hard during this month but I love thinking about all the traditions I'm getting to start with my girls.

Today was also the first time Lily played in the snow!

December Daily: Day 9

Well we survived another snow storm. The snow drifts we woke up to this morning were pretty deep. Here's the bench on our back porch.


And here's our front porch.


And here are my famous Christmas biscuits!

December Daily: Day 8

We've been getting some nice snow fall the last couple of days and temperatures below 10 degrees. We should have 7-8 inches by tomorrow.



Mr. Vernon braving the weather to bring the paper to us!


Some bunny's been on our porch.

December Daily: Day 5 Get Behind Me Santa!

Santa came to Bancroft last weekend. I thought I'd take the girls so they could ask why we didn't get the flat screen tv Lily so nicely asked for last year and have them put in another request.

I knew how Lily would handle sitting on Santa's lap so we let her watch the other kiddies with him for a while.


Since Phil was out of town the Munderlohs helped me out. It was finally our turn!

And it went down exactly as I had expected.

Santa told Leanna to sit on his lap with Lily...so she did.

That was a little better. Clara didn't know what Lily's problem was.

She and Santa were totally BFFE.

I think we'll be getting that flat screen this year!