Christmas Eve Eve

GZMoohoo posted elsewhere today that I was over at his house, doing some Christmas baking and helping with the decorating. First, the baking. I am in charge of both the traditional cheese ball and, for the first time this year, dessert for the massive Elvecrog family get-together.

Here they are, in the order mentioned above:

Cheese Ball - cream cheese, herb/garlic goat cheese, cheddar, tabasco, and pecans.

Peppermint Shortbread Bars, from The Kitchn

Foolproof Fudge

And of course, Cranberry Bread as always.

We were really very productive and efficient - all of the above plus grocery shopping was finished by 3:30pm or so. That left plenty of time for some decorating. First, the extraordinarily all-inclusive Nativity Scene.

And then some of the old stand-bys for the Christmas Tree (or Christmas Bush, all grown up):

Sheep!

Our favorite bicycling related ornament. There are many.

Hand crafted in the Old World European style. In Romania.

Merry Christmas to All!

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

The Twin Cities metro area is getting its' first snowfall of the winter and boy is it a doozy. The originally predicted 2-4" have been surpassed with 7 inches already on the ground and it is still coming down out there at quite a clip. Calvin was entirely fascinated by it this morning:

We decided to leave the car where it is, safely parked in the garage, and take the train downtown to get some exercise at our local gym. We ran into one of our neighbors already out there shoveling. An omen of things to come. The train was (and still is) running exactly on time. Unlike the buses, it pretty much always does. I love the train.

We came home and decided it was time to get out there and shovel some of this stuff. I felt very accomplished when I finished all the sidewalks out front:

That blue shovel is pretty awesome. Good hardware store purchase.

We are now in the warm house reading our books and listening to some Christmas music on the radio. I love December, even if it does come with lots of shoveling.

P.S. To my regular readers: I sold my grandfather's car yesterday. The guy paid cash and took it home with him, after we gave him a discount for the sorry state of the front brakes. It could not have happened at a more opportune time (imagine moving it in all this snow!), and my grandparent's are almost $2000 richer just before the holidays, not to mention the car insurance and garage space savings. It worked out wonderfully.

NaBloPoMo: Looking Back

As I usually do (although I didn't get to it last year), I thought I'd round up this blog-everyday-for-a-month month with a retrospective of my 4 favorite posts from each year. First, to find the last retrospective and copy and paste... and realize that we've been doing this for a long time now, wow. Way to persevere!

NaBloPoMo 2012
Pannekoekun Huis
70 Years!
1996 Ford Taurus
New House: Part 6A

NaBloPoMo 2011
Day 1: Leaves!
Calvin the Video Star
Cat Ownership 2.0
Dance Your Cares Away

NaBloPoMo 2010:
Turkey Day
Stuffed Squash
Happy Birthday, Grandpa!
Beauty of Fall

NaBloPoMo 2009:
Turkey Day, Part 2
Old Friends
Day 5 - A YouTube Clip
Moon in the Morning

NaBloPoMo 2008:
Pasta Carbonara
A Day in the Life
Yes We Did
88 Years Young

NaBloPoMo 2007:
Les Aventures de Domo-Kun
Sunday in France
A 10 Hour Day
A Month of Posts - Day 1

It's been fun once again and, as I said last year, I hope I can keep up with the blogging more frequently. Goodness knows I have MORE than enough photos of the cat to blog pretty much indefinitely. I mean, come on, look at how cute he is!

New House: Part 6B

Subtitle: The Finished Product, Part 2.

Continuing on, as promised. Not pictured: The basement utility/storage room and the attic that has been converted into a large bedroom + storage. It's still a disaster up there... We'll get to it eventually.

The Kitchen

Basement TV Room

Laundry Room, Basement (I LOVE having my own washer/dryer. Laundry is no longer annoying!)

Basement Bedroom aka Calvin's Room

Backyard, in sunnier, warmer times.

Calvin approves of this whole new house deal - there are stairs and all sorts of exciting windows! He's also allowed in our bedroom in the new house, which means he can keep warm under the covers while I am getting ready in the mornings. Little stinker:

Out of focus, I know... still, cute!

New House: Part 6A

Subtitle: The Finished Product, Part 1

Here are some photos I took very recently of the state of the house right now. It's not entirely finished, and I don't think it ever will be, but it's decorated and we have pretty much all of our furniture etc. So now, part 1 of the photo tour.

The Living Room

The Dining Room

The Office

The Bathroom

Our Bedroom, plus Calvin looking into the backyard.

To be continued...