The Orchard Team Huddle

For pretty much the entire month of January and the first half of February my life was consumed by auction baskets.  The high school baseball team has an annual fundraising dinner where guests can silent bid on themed baskets and live bid on bigger items.  Each family is asked to come up with enough items to fill 3 baskets.  It doesn't necessarily have to all go together as I was in charge of taking all the "stuff" and putting them together in ways that made sense.  I was really pleased with the donations I personally was able to secure and I had a lot of fun stuff from others to work with.  My house was a mess for a very long time! The day of the auction we hauled all 130+ baskets from my house to the school!  I got lots of compliments and we made some good money as well.  I really enjoyed this little project.  It gave me a creative outlet but got REALLY stressful that last week as it felt like I would never find a home for all of the items I ...

Over the Christmas break we were able to purchase a car for Douglas.  It probably doesn't meet all of his criteria but it certainly is what Russell and I had in mind! This is our new 2003 Hyundai Accent, 140,000 miles, slight stale smoke smell, broken glove box door, getting 30ish miles to the gallon.  We haven't officially figured it out but it costs about $25 to fill the tank!  It is a light grayish/blue and has a nice girly horn.  I'm hearing the baseball team is calling it the smurf-mobile.  That is just fine with me!    I am LOVING the fact that Douglas can take himself (and his brother) where he needs to be.  It has made my life so much easier:).

We always have a children-friendly party on New Year's Eve.  It really is one of my favorite nights of the year!  Here's to 2012!

I really enjoyed Christmas being on a Sunday this year.  Instead of our annual Christmas morning breakfast, we held the Orchard breakfast Christmas Eve morning.  Alas, no pictures.  Let me just say it is the best breakfast EVER...Christmas Casserole, cheesy potatoes, cinnamon rolls, fruit, juice, milk and eggnog.  It is such a fun tradition.  We held it at a church this year so the boys could play basketball. The afternoon was filled with Sproul Christmas Eve bowling.  I know I had pictures of this on my phone but I think a little picture deleting munchkin got rid of those for me!! The evening held a Cowboys game, potato cheese soup with bread bowls and cheesy rolls, a Christmas jigsaw puzzle and the traditional Christmas Eve pajamas and game (again, no pics). Christmas morning Mason came into my room and asked if he could check the prize box!  He had forgotten that Santa had come.  We headed down the stairs. Mason was pleased t...

One of the best things about Christmas is coming up with that perfect gift you know the recipient is going to love.  I had an idea in October that I really wanted to do for my parents but I needed a few weeks to let it roll around in my brain for awhile.  My brother, Dave, was the first one I told. The last picture my parents had of the grand kids was 4 years old. There have been 3 more added to the family since that time.  You can see where I am going with this...the idea was great.  The execution was the challenge. Dave and Heather live in Las Vegas.  They were coming for Thanksgiving but that left us a 3 day window to coordinate every one's schedules.  Oh, yeah, not 3 normal days either.  It was 3 busy and crazy holiday days.  Dave volunteered to take the pictures.  I volunteered to do all of the arranging.  There are 4 of us that have kids and amazingly enough we came up with a time pretty easily...10:00 am the Saturday af...

I am VERY comfortable and on board with the " holidays" .  There are those that complain about Thanksgiving being completely overlooked by all of the Christmas fanfare but I would disagree.  Bring on the music, bring on the decorations.  HOLIDAYS is an all encompassing word that to me means the time from early November when that amazing feeling of gratitude and love and peace on earth begins right through the New Year.  There is no need to keep them separate as I believe they all compliment each other nicely!  With that being said, here is a compilation of pictures and memories from our 2011 holiday season! Thanksgiving:  The big tree goes up before Thanksgiving.  Everything else waits until the day after. I had a LOT of help this year but I loved Mason's excitement and enthusiasm.  It all worked out in the end. I took 2 pictures of Thanksgiving. We really did have a lovely day but I apparently only felt the need to take pictures of the...