A little left over Christmas

The following pictures were to be posted way earlier, but we have been quite busy. Even now, Ty is not home, he is at his NaPa's helping them to get ready for "Christmas". So, in his absence and because I just have to show off his decorating skills, here is what our house has looked like since the day after Thanksgiving.

Don't mind the polar bear, he was having a hard time staying focused on his job, the wind was quite strong this night, and I also heard he had been in the eggnog while we were at Mommy's. lol

And because I saw these when I uploaded the lights, I just had to upload a picture of Mommy's little guy!

Effigy

And the word of the week is, EFFIGY.

I hope you all enjoyed our "break", I will be looking for your responses! Thanks for playing.







And the answer is.......



Effigy: a crude image or dummy of someone disliked.




Congratulations, momma! You did good! You earned a gold (or in this case yellow) star!

It's a Monday...

... and I have started this blog a few different times so far. We will see if this one works. The last few, I just did not know where to start, or they sounded really lame! lol :-)

Being on vacation makes Mondays a whole lot different than normal. Of course when the children read this, they will say they aren't on vacation as they had to do a couple of subjects today. We were on complete "no school" last week, and we will be taking time next week as well. Since Ty is having 4 teeth our next week, Tom is taking vacation and is going to be working around the house. Today, I decided the children needed to have some "routine" and not get too much out of the "school" attitude.

We have so much to be thankful for. We have seen most of our family since the 20th of December! To count we have seen (from my generation): 1 Grandma, 3 sets of parents, 3 Aunts & 2 Uncles, 2 sets of siblings, 6 nieces & nephews, 4 cousins, 2 second cousins & 3 third cousins. Some of the cousins, I had not seen in probably 20 years, and the 2nd/3rd cousins I had only heard about or seen pictures of. Talk about feeling old! For my children, they had never met some of the family. It was great to see them all and spent time catching up with them! Plus, on New Year's Day, we will be spending the day with family to celebrate Christmas with Tom's side of the family. So we will be seeing some of the same family and others as well! We are looking forward to that!

I guess I really do not have anything to blog about. I am enjoying the peace and calm of the day, and I hope all of you will be able to as well.

BTW, I finally was able to post Luc's b-day wishes! I has some technical issues :-)

Merry CHRISTmas!

We want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. We trust that everyone took time out from the hustle and bustle of the season and paused to remember why we celebrate. This year at different times our family sat and sang Christmas carols and we read the Christmas story. We are grateful for the Gift that was sent so many years ago.

Yesterday we spent the day at my parents' house with my older brother and his family. It was a nice day and it was good to see them as we had not seen them since last Thanksgiving. They are traveling home even as I type this.

Today we spent the day at home, which for our family is not the normal, usually we are at family's house. It was a different to celebrate Christmas on Christmas, and I think the children all enjoyed it. They all got dressed up and even told Daddy he had to change his clothes! It was pretty funny :-)

Everyone received things that were on their list and were very happy! I will add some pictures so you all can see. Again, Merry Christmas, we love you!

Yes, I am alive!

Things here have been busy. Yesterday was Luc's birth-day, and we celebrated that. Nothing too exciting, but God sent him a "snow day"! We had oodles and oodles of snow, and he enjoyed playing out in it. He and Ty spent some time cleaning up the drive-way as well. Ty enjoys using the snowblower! Of course it makes Mom a little nervous, but Dad says he is "old enough".

I spent the day wrapping presents, organizing, and more wrapping. Then Tom and the children made our yearly "Christmas" cookies to take to Mommy's house for Christmas.

Beth has been busy baking, yesterday it was sugar cookies and today it was apple pie. Plus she helped Lys make brownies.

Today I had to finish up some last minute shopping and the last of my wrapping, and now I can say that I am completely done for the Welch Family Christmas (which is tomorrow)!! YEAH!!!

Tommy is currently out shopping. He tried to finish today after work, but was unsuccessful, and those who know him know how much he likes to shop! :-)

Well, I guess that brings me up-to-date on our current activities. I hope you all are making progress with your last minute preparations.

Happy Birthday, Luc!

I tried to post this last week, but was using a different computer and it did not want to work. Last Monday was my baby's birthday and he turned 8. Do you remember where you were at 9:00 a.m., the 22 of December, 2000?

Lots of news!

This week Mommy sent this to us. This is a yearly gift, and I love it. It smells so good and it is even prettier in person. It is currently on our outside door. Thanks, Mommy for the "early gift"!

Next, yesterday was Luc's party! We all had a good time and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves! Below are just a few of the happenings of the day! Some of L's presents were: a John Deere night, books, clothes, and yes, the last picture is a whoppee cushion! Thanks so much Grandma Welch!

And after the presents were opened, the cake eaten and the whoppee cushion had lost some of it's appeal?! Everyone sat around talking and helping Nana with her project! We like to make the most of all our family time! Thanks everybody for a great day!

Party Time!

Tomorrow we will be having family over to celebrate Luc's birthday and have dinner. Tommy decorated the cake and we invited Wall-E to join us as well. Who knew a trash compactor could be so cute!


BTW, for those who have seen Wall-E, why didn't you tell me the movie was about Tom?!



Plus, according to the news, we received 9.2"of snow. Ty said it was closer to a foot...

Oh, wait, the snowplow just went by, that means we can go out. Oops, it is 11:36 pm, I guess the only place I am going is upstairs for some shut-eye. Have to bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for all that last minute cleaning '-)

Snow, snow & more snow!!!

We are getting hit with so much snow! The boys went outside to "shovel" and they decided that it really wasn't worth it, they had to just shovel again. Now, they are playing! Luc has been after me to let him have a snow day for about a week, I guess he is happy now :-) They seem to be having so much fun, Lys decided to go and have some fun as well. Beth & I made Luc's birthday cake and apple pie, plus we (Ty started) made chex mix, so we are a whole lot warmer than those outside!

Answer to - A sentence please.......

*Answer-
Convivial---fond of feasting and jovial fellowship; sociable

I thought as Baptists, this would be an appropriate word of the week!


~~Convivial~~

She is a woman of convivial nature.

I hope this helps! hehehe

Knee Update

B went to a new knee doctor yesterday for a second opinion as she has been having pain where she had surgery. They took new x-rays, they did find the beginning of a cyst on her thigh bone. They think that it is benign and will watch it. She also received a shot of cortisone, which they are hoping will help with her pain. When she got home, she told me about the shot and told me it was like having 3 months of morphine :-) she ment to say motrine. We got a good laugh out of that one. :-0 She has been learning about different drugs in Health, as way of explanation! She is in some pain today, and it is somewhat swollen, the doctor poked and proded her pretty good. She goes back in 6 weeks to see if anything has changed and we will go from there.

And the count goes down....

Hi all,

It's Tuesday and we are now down to 4 exams. YEAH!! Tomorrow is the Spanish final and boy am I glad I do not have to take it! Luc is done and starting vacation. Lys only has a couple of things to finish, tomorrow will be her last day! Beth & Ty actually have to go until Friday, but a couple of those days are just exams! Can you tell how excited I am?!

Plus, today is the day for the word of the week. Even though Vocabulary was done last week, I will still see how smart all my "readers" are (that makes me sound almost important ;-0). I'll not even pick a word that I know what is...

~~~CONVIVIAL~~~

I will be waiting to see what y'all come up with. Remember, no peeking!

Have a great Tuesday!

Studying Again!

Anyone want to come and help Ty study for his World Literature and Grammer/Comp Exams? Please let me know! ASAP

It's NY in December!

As I sit here getting ready to blog, I happen to check the weather ( just a little something I like to do on my iTouch) here and in the states where our family lives! Currently, it is 56 degrees in cloudy NY. I scroll through and find out it is -9 in Pierre, SD, 17 in Danville, IN, & 59 in Mount Pleasant, PA. WOW, what a difference! That means all that cold air is headed this way! UGH! I just thought I would pass on to you a little snippet of my day.

One other snippet, today started our semester exams and the countdown to Christmas vacation. Those of you who know me well, know I like to "countdown" to things, Christmas, my birthday, summer vaction............ anyway! Enough of that. We have 5 exams to go! Yippee!

And on that note, that is my blog for the day. Have a great Monday!

2 the 1 who turns 6

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, C!

IT IS HARD TO BELIEVE YOU ARE 6 YEARS OLD ALREADY:-)

HAVE MOMMY GIVE YOU A BIG HUG FROM ALL OF US!

WE LOVE YOU,

UNCLE TOM, AUNT WENDI, TY, BETH, LYS & LUC

P.S. Your birthday card is in the box that will arrive tomorrow with your Christmas presents!

~Truculent~

Ok, without using a dictionary or any other on-line tool, how many of you know how to say this word? How many of you know what it means?
Oh the things one learns when one helps with homework in highschool.
I will be anxious to see who knows.

ttfn


*Here is the word used in a sentence...

His truculent criticism of her work caused her to lash out at him.

And the answer is:

truc⋅u⋅lent:  

truhk-yuh-luhnt - adjective
1.
fierce; cruel; savagely brutal.
2.
brutally harsh; vitriolic; scathing: his truculent criticism of her work.
3.
aggressively hostile; belligerent.


Thanks for playing! Maybe we could start the word of the day blog courtesy of A Beka Book ;-)

Catch-up!

~Here I sit trying to catch up on my blog and listen to one little boy read about spiders spinning webs. Oh how fun :-) Needless to say, I had to stop the typing to listen more carefully. Well, I am trying to think back over the last week and see what I missed passing on to you all...

~Last Monday, Ty had an appointment at the oral surgeons. He needs to have 4 teeth removed ( 1 is horizontal-2 are baby teeth-1 to provide symmetry). Today I scheduled that, and it will be January 5. What a way to start the new year!

~Tuesday, I had a dr. appointment and a chiro appointment. Then we headed out for some Christmas shopping. The children always pick what charity we will shop for, and this year it is for the Salvation Army. They all picked a name off the Christmas tree and off we went for shopping at JCP. They had a really good time. They all picked out their own outfits and accessories/toy.

~Wednesday was a quiet school day. Nothing too exciting, T & Ty had to work on the sound system at church for a cantata.

~Thursday & Friday were quiet school days. Then we went to visit my Grandma at the hospital. She is doing o.k., she has good days and bad, so please keep her in your prayers.

~Saturday we were off to a children's Christmas party that T's work has. The children have a good time eating, doing crafts and they can each tell "Santa" what it is they want for Christmas. Since we do not "believe" in Santa, they always tell him the most silly things they can think of. Luc told "Santa" he wanted a John Deere tractor (what a shock) with a bucket. Come to find out, when "Santa" is not using the reindeer, he has a couple of John Deere's himself :-) Lyss was going to tell him she wanted a horse, and Ty was going to ask for the barn, but they were to busy chatting about the John Deere's! Once they tell the jolly old elf what they would like, they are each given a $5. Barnes & Noble gift-card! Oh, we do love Santa!

Did you notice that Luc was the only one "brave" enough to see "Santa" by himself ?!

After the party, we headed to church to finish up sound preparations for Sunday and then we had lunch at Hofmann's! Oh boy, was it good. We hadn't eaten there in quite a while! Not that the girls appreciated it. Even the mac-n-cheese was fabulous!

~Sunday, Grace Baptist Church of Marion (near Rochester) presented their Christmas contata, "One Incredible Moment", and it was GREAT! Our little church enjoyed it immensely. Then we spent the afternoon with Mommy and Mom & Ed! It was a really nice day.

Well, I guess I have you all "caught up" now. Hope you enjoyed it.

Hershey Kiss Wreaths

Hi everybody!

For Christmas I made two Hershey kiss wreaths, one for us and one for grandma. I ended up using a total of 2 hard foam wreaths, 11 bags of Hershey kisses, 565 kisses - 218 green kisses, 220 red kisses, 104 silver kisses, 23 purple kisses, 287 toothpicks, 2 sticks of glue, some aluminum foil (I don't know how much), 9 feet of ribbon, and had 4 sore fingers. I told mom that I had done art class for the entire year. I even learned how to make bows for this project and it really isn't difficult at all. I told everyone that they are not allowed to eat the kisses until the day after Christmas, and so far they've obeyed.

Grandma's wreath is red instead of green, but still has the same colors except for green (I ran out).

So that's what I've up to. And by the way, no, I am not taking orders for any wreaths, two was enough. Love to all!

- Bethany

News of Grandma-Great

*Update*
My Grandmother broke her pelvis in 2 places and will be in the hospital for a couple weeks and then will head to rehab. Please keep her in your prayers. Thanks!



I would like to ask everyone to pray for Grandma Cadwell, she fell today and they think tht she broke her hip. I will update you when I know more. Mommy will also need lots of prayers as well.

Black Friday Shopping

Things have been really busy here since Thanksgiving. For the first time ever, I went shopping on Black Friday! WOW! Was I surprised! I always had this image of how busy and crowed and insane it would all be. Can I just say, that was NOT the case at all. I was up at 3:00 a.m. to be ready when Tom and Bethany were. And those who know me, know that is shocking! :-) Needless to say, I was the only one ready to leave at 3:30 a.m. when we were supposed to. We arrived at Kohl's at 4:05 a.m. and we did not even have to wait to enter the store. We were able to get all the items we wanted and were out of there at 4:20 a.m. and headed to JCP for their specials. We finished up there and headed for some breakfast as McD's and to wait until Sears opened at 5 a.m. We were in Sears shortly there after and found the things we wanted (and some besides) and head to Macy's. Whew, we were on a roll. We didn't have a specific place next, so we decided to take in the deals at Sam's Club. They had a 8" mini computer on sale for $350. and it was so cute. We asked how much the regular price was, and come to find out, it was not "deal". The regular price was $345. Glad we asked about that one. Maybe they will actually be on sale after Christmas. We then headed to Lowe's to grab some gifts for those handy helpers that we have. WOW, so much done in such a short time. From there were headed to TSC to wait until they opened, but alas, they had opened at 6 a.m. The item we went for was already gone, but we were told they had them at the Rome store. Well, off we went. Tom was ready to get some sleep, so we took him home and picked up Tyler for our next TSC stop. Thankfully, we drove all that way and we were able to get what we wanted. YEAH!! We also were able to see Grandma for a bit as well. After another "breakfast" we headed home. Let me tell you, I was tired. The ride home was extremely long (23 miles) and I could not wait to get some sleep. At 9:45 a.m. I kicked Tommy out of bed and jumped in. Boy, did I need a nap! The next 2 1/2 hours were simply heavenly!

We spent the rest of the week-end cleaning, rearranging, organizing and decorating for Christmas. Now, it is back to school and counting the days until Christmas vacation.