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Happy New Year's Eve!!

Marley, the Babas, and I celebrated New Year's Eve having a tea party with Marley's American Girl Dolls. Marley's day care lady, Junie, had given Marley an M&M cookie bar recipe and ingredients in a jar for Christmas. Actually Marley decorated the jar and helped put the ingredients in it. Junie also gave her "Snowman Soup" in a mug. Marley and I made the M&M cookie bars and hot chocolate. We all enjoyed a fun party. Thanks, Junie, the bars were delicious!

Thanks, everyone, for sharing Project 365 2009 with me. It has been an interesting project that I'm sure I will enjoy looking back on. There are so many pictures of just every day life that I would never have thought to take normally.

This year I will be continuing Debbie's Blog, not exactly like Project 365, but still trying to record the special and ordinary bits of life!

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Marley got a new American Girl doll for Christmas. Her name is Josefina and she is Mexican-American. This is her 4th American Girl doll (actually Gracie, her first, was a pseudo-American Girl doll. Marley was only 5 and we weren't sure how careful she would be with her). She really does seem to like these dolls.

P.S. Only one more day of Project 365. I can't believe I have kept this up for the whole year. I won't be continuing it next year, but I will still do Debbie's Blog.

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Mark had a friend named Sam growing up. Sam and his family lived on our street, went to our church, and Sam a was grade behind Mark in school. His family has since moved to a different town, and Sam, his wife Tammy and son Evan live in Kansas. They came home for Christmas and he and Mark made plans to get together over Christmas week. Tonight they all met at my house. We had a fun visit together. The babies, Mason and Evan are only four months apart. This picture is of Mark with Mason, and Sam with Evan. I can't believe the boys have boys of their own!

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Kris, Toby and Marley got a Wii for Christmas. You can customize your character (hair, eyes, nose, glasses, etc.) From left to right are Paul, Deb, Kris, Marley and Toby. We still have to get Mark and Janelle done. I never thought I would be interested in playing anything on the Wii but I loved it. Tonight we went to Kris and Toby's and played Wii Fit Plus. Who knew exercising could be so much fun.

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Mason was sitting next to Paul in his chair and Paul was singing to him. I was in the kitchen and Kristen came out and said to me that Dad had sung himself and Mason to sleep. Too funny!

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Marley had a basketball game today. She has moved up an age group. She now plays on Girls Under 10. These girls are much more serious (Marley not so much...), scores are kept, and more calls are made for rule infractions. She informed her mother today that this is her last year for sports! She really has gotten a lot better and she likes it once she gets to the games. I hope she stays with it... We'll see.

She is the one (with the red arrow pointing to her) fixing her knee pads. The last game she took a couple of nasty falls and scraped up her knees pretty bad!

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It was hard to choose one picture out of many from Christmas day, but I decided to pick this one of Paul modeling his new hand-knit socks from Kristen. He has been complaining that he is the only one in the family who doesn't have hand-knit socks. He loved them, but Kris says they may be the only ones he gets. According to her they were too big, and the colors were very boring to knit!

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This is one of my favorite holiday casseroles. I don't know why I only make it on holidays, but it really goes good with ham. It's a crazy combination of chunk pineapple, grated (or shredded) sharp cheddar cheese, flour, and sugar with a crumbled Ritz cracker and butter topping. Yum!

Merry Christmas to everyone!

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Mason came to visit today and we put him in the Exersaucer for the first time. He was very serious in it. I think he liked it !?! I know he liked the toys on it.

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We had our Christmas party at work today. We had quite a feast (this table was just the main meal; we also had an appetizer table and a dessert table). That is my boss standing at the end of the table.

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Tonight Paul and I took Marley to Amelia Park. Santa was there and also they were celebrating the Winter Solstice. Today is the shortest day/longest night. Tomorrow the days start getting longer. Hurray!

For the winter solstice celebration they had Father Winter, North Wind, and Jack Frost and the winter fairies that lead a parade of sorts down to a big bonfire.



It was freezing, probably one of our coldest nights, but we came prepared. Marley had her snowsuit on and loved playing in the snow. It's amazing how fast kids make friends. Marley and this little girl played for the longest time in the snow.

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Today was Toby's birthday and everyone came for dinner and cake. Happy Birthday Toby!

Today was also the first time I had seen Mason eat food. Marley was feeding him applesauce and he was like a little bird. As soon as he saw the spoon coming toward him that mouth was wide open. It was so cute.



I just had to add this picture. Janelle was hoping that Mason would take a nap and put this little blanket over him. Out popped five toes! Too cute!

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Today we made reindeer cookies for Santa. This was Mason's first cookie making and he was very interested. Marley was so good to include him in all of the festivities. She really does seem to love him!

Yes those are snow pants on her. She wanted to get one more batch decorated before going outside to play in the snow. I hear we are getting a storm tonight, so she should be in her glory tomorrow!

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I think I'm finally done with my Christmas shopping!!

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This cute little Santa is Paul's. According to Paul, when he was a young child he went with his mother and grandmother to a Christmas shop. They told him he could pick out a decoration just for himself. He picked this little Santa and every year he would put it up in his room. This was one of the things that came with Paul when we got married, and every year he sits on the fireplace screen!

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Tonight was our Christmas party in Prims. The Daisies joined us for this MERRY CHRISTMAS picture. We invited the parents to our party while we did a Christmas craft, handed out badges, and had lots of good food. Wow, what a night!

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This is another one of my favorite nativity scenes, also given to me by Paul's mother. She loved nativities.

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My mother-in-law gave me this nativity scene years ago and it is one of my favorite Christmas decorations. The characters are children as in a children's Christmas pageant.

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Today was a really off Sunday. Paul and I were supposed to go visit my mother today. Arrangements had been made for Dot for a ride to church and everyone was going their separate ways. At the last minute we found out that my mother wasn't feeling well and we decided to take a down day. We hadn't put the tree up and no decorations were up. BUT, in the midst of all of this decorating, I got looking at some of my digital scrapbook pages and felt bad that I hadn't done any in over a year! Paul was in the mood to give me a refresher course and he also fixed some of my templates (he is, after all, my technical support team). We decided to try one of the new templates with some actual pictures, and this is what we came up with. Cute?

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Today we took a ride to Vermont. I know I should have been doing Christmas things, but I think we both needed a fun day. We went to what I call the high country which is a portion of Rt. 9 across Southern Vermont. We went as far as Woodford, then turned around and came back. This picture was taken at sunset in the high country. It is so beautiful up there. The elevation is so high that sometimes it has its own weather. It actually looked like it was going to snow, but it didn't while we were there. We stopped in Brattleboro on the way back. It was dark by then but Main St. was all lit up and the shops were still open. We stopped at Sam's for some popcorn and walked up and down Main St.. It was freezing out but so pretty. Tomorrow I definitely have to do some decorating!

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Tonight Marley brought over her gingerbread house that she made in school. She said it was a church (note Hershey's kiss on the top for the steeple). For years Toby's mother, Barb, has been making gingerbread houses with Marley and her cousins Tyler and Zachary. It wasn't going to work out this year and I was feeling a little bad because I know how much Marley loves doing it. I was so happy to see the gingerbread house from school.

This is her gingerbread house in 2004!

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Tonight we went to the Winter Festival at Marley's school. It is for grades 1-5 and their families. There are craft tables set up all around the first floor, a picture with Santa, along with food and raffles in the cafeteria. This is our third year going. We weren't there too long tonight as Marley had basketball practice first, but we had fun anyhow.

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Today was the first substantial snow storm of 2009. This was how it looked on my ride into work. We ended up with about 6-7 inches. Way too early for this.

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Merry Christmas from Mason. Can you believe he is 6 months old today? He really didn't like wearing this Santa hat, so I had to settle for no smiles, but with that face it doesn't really matter. He is just so cute!


Marley tried to get him to smile too but he wasn't having any of it. They look cute together with their Santa hats on anyhow.

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We had no heat in my office today at work. It was 65 when we got in and only got up to about 68 by the end of the day. When you sit and type all day that is pretty cold. They say they are "working on it." When my co-worker Liz works with her coat on, you know it is COLD!

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Today we had a photo shoot for Marley's Christmas card. I took quite a few pictures but these were the two that we settled on. Kris liked the pose in front of the tree, and I liked the one on the front steps. I can't believe how grown-up she looks!

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Today we went to the Olive Garden for lunch/supper. I haven't been there in years, but their Fettuccine Alfredo is the best ever!

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Tonight Paul and I went to the Singing Christmas Tree at our church with Marley. For the last few years it has been our tradition to go on opening night, and sit way down front (2nd row). It really is quite impressive from the 2nd row! Afterwards we go to Friendly's for ice cream. I hope she doesn't outgrow our "traditions" for a long time!




Note: In less than a month Project 365 will be done. I have really enjoyed doing it. Every now and then I look back to old posts and see things that I would never had recorded or taken pictures of - just every day life. But, I have basically decided not to continue it next year. Taking a picture every day is a little cumbersome even though I have really enjoyed it. I will still continue with Debbie's Blog though.

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Minnie has a cold. When we got her from the shelter they warned us that she might get an upper respiratory infection just from being in the shelter. About 2 weeks later she started sneezing and her "womanly" operation had to be cancelled. We took her to the vet and he gave her a shot of Amoxicillin and pills for 10 days. Right after that she started acting very weird - constant loud purring in short spurts with her mouth open, rubbing her paws on her face and something weird with her back end - kind of sticking it out. I thought for sure she was having a reaction to the antibiotic. She was just acting so strange. Then Paul said, "Maybe she's in heat." A quick Google look up and sure enough, Minnie was in heat. I guess with all the cats that we have had, we have never had one in heat. Izzy keeps looking at her like she is crazy. I hope this doesn't last too long!

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One of the girls in my Prims class gave me this Christmas Card tonight.

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Back up to the mall tonight to get one of my favorite movies that just came out today - Night at the Museum, Battle of the Smithsonian. The mall looked really pretty tonight all decorated for Christmas.