After Christmas Fun

By the time we got home from Christmas in Virginia,

our Christmas tree had lost most of its needles.

So we undecorated the tree and took it outside.

Some of the hundreds of needles from our tree.

You can certainly tell where the Christmas tree was.

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Two days after we got home from the Shades,

I had an assignment to do the food for a youth dance

at church. We planned for most of it before we went

to Virginia, so we just needed to pick up some ordered food trays

and shop for the balance of the food. Heidi did all the ordering and

together we shopped for the rest of the food.

Here are a few pictures of what we served.

Heidi had other commitments while the food

needed to be set up, so I had it mostly done

before she came to the dance.

It wasn't really a big deal to order, shop or set up for this,

because we have done it so many times before.

The trick is to get food the kids eat, and at the same time,

get food that is easy to prepare and set up.

Our local Walmart deli made the meat trays

vegetable trays and sandwich trays.

We also had chocolate chip cookies, fruit trays,

apples with carmel sauce, peanuts, M & M's,

and eclairs/creme puffs.

There was a Christmas tree decorating contest at the dance.

No lights are allowed and the decorations had

to be homemade.

Heidi and the girls she teaches decorated this tree

with various colored round glass ornaments glued to

ice cream cones, candy canes and ribbon.

Here is a close-up of the decorations on the tree.

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A few days after we got home from Virginia,

Drew and Shelly and the girls came to visit for a week.

Here are a few pictures of things during the week.

Aubree can sit up now.

She also likes bling, like her older sister.

One day, it snowed about 1.5 or 2 inches.

A picture of Shelly and Drew's car with the snow.

Cortez spent most of the week hiding from Isabelle.

Isabelle likes to scare him now.

Where did she learn that?

Isabelle just being herself.

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Katie and some of her friends went ice skating

up at the University of Delaware.

Looks cold, and hard.

Katie and friends after skating.

Another shot of the group after skating.

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So a piece of the hardware to a kitchen hand-towel hanger

fell off and the cat batted it around until it went missing.

I took the drawer off the bottom of the stove to look for it

and found the cat's stash.

And of course Isabelle had to help.

As you can tell, Cortez the cat likes the 'cheap thrills' of life.

His favorite toys are the plastic rings around milk jugs

and foil balls. He doesn't play much with real cat toys.