Movie Date

Stevie has known Charlie for many years, and ever since she was his high school prom date I have chaperoned them on a couple of dates each year. It's usually a movie and dinner.

This time they went to see the movie Tangled, a funny version of Rapunzel. I laughed as much as they did.

Then off to The Chocolate Cafe. After all that popcorn, we only got a cup of hot soup and dessert. The "Fondue For 2" was just enough for the 3 of us.Yummmm!

Christmas Eve

Our family had Christmas dinner and gift exchange on Christmas Eve this year because Deliverance had to work on Christmas day.


Well, she had to work on Christmas Eve too, but not in the evening.

Deliverance and Josh hosted downstairs with a cozy fire in their fireplace and mellow Christmas music.

As usual there was lots of good food and sweets. I think the star of the show was this chocolate cake Deliverance made with peppermint mousse filling and ganache coating.

Stephen received some karaoke games and microphones. He loves to sing, mostly alone in his room.

(Oh, btw, Steve requested I cut him out of the photo on the internet)

Poor Scooby, why do we torture him so?

Stained Glass Sugar Cookies

While we were art my parents house I found myself with nothing planned one day so I made my grandma's sugar cookie recipe,
only I altered it slightly by adding a pane of stained glass in the centers.

This takes a lot of extra time but is pretty easy.
Just crush a hard candy (Jolly Ranchers are best) to fill into each center cut-out just before they are done cooking.

It is easiest to get them off the cookie pan if you bake them on baking parchment so you can slip it off the pan to cool before you peel the cookies off.


I also made my mom's cream cheese cookie recipe. One of my all time favorites.

Michigan Family Pre-Christmas Visit

We took a few days to run up to Michigan to visit my family a few days before Christmas since Steve managed to actually get this time for one of his vacation weeks..

Besides my parents, this also included seeing my brother, sister, niece and her husband.

We don't often get to see them around the holidays so it was a special treat.

Mom's Nursing Home Christmas Party

The Alzheimer's unit sponsored a Christmas dinner for clients and their family.


There was plenty of food and gifts, songs, and cute children to give the clients lots of joy.


Barb, Stevie and I had a memorable time with mom. As for mom, she forgot about it the next day,


It was worth seeing the joy on her face, because she thought it was all for her birthday, which is 2 weeks later.

Being the good hostess, she had to play the social butterfly and visit each client and visitor to ask them if they were having a good time.