-11 degrees

THAT was the temperature reading in my car yesterday morning when I left for work at 7:20am! Brrrrrrr!!
It DID snow again the other day....

How much snow do we have??? Yeah, good question. I'm not one to keep track of all of that all I know is it's COLD and there's a LOT of snow and I'm REALLY happy I have the auto start on my car. Brrrrrrr.

I'm getting ready to order a pair of snow pants from LL Bean OR Lands End though because if it's gonna be here (the snow), I might as well 'enjoy' it as warmly as I can right?!

We went to some friends of ours house the other day. They have a VERY nice log home that they're pretty much remodeling. Look at their Christmas trees....OVER THE TOP!!!

This one is GINORMOUS! I don't know just how tall it is but it's HUGE! You can barely, kind of see Joe there to the far right. He was standing up. Now, he's not tall by any means...average height 5'9" or so?? Bonnie still had to decorate this tree--can you imagine?!

I KNOW when Bonnie is done with this tree it's going to be AMAZING!!!! I can't WAIT to see!

This tree is located in the kitchen/dining area in front of one set of doors that goes out to the side porch. Oh, this tree is SO beautiful. She did SUCH a NICE job on it.

Joe made fun of Jim's 'Charlie Brown Christmas tree.' Joe is just used to our artificial tree for the past ohhhh, 10 years.

We NEVER had an artificial tree growing up but there are definately advantages to it!!

Bonnie made the most SCRUMPDILLICIOUS clam chowder. OH MY GOSH!! I could have eatten the ENTIRE POT!!!!

I like clam chowder but I LOVE this stuff!!!!!

SO.......

The girls made cookies:

Here's Nikki and Kelsey probably trying to figure out what they're going to do........

There was baking stuff EVERYWHERE. I don't know how many DOZENS of cookies or how many different varieties of cookies we all made.

Okay....so here's Nikki have WAY too much fun 'peeling' hershey kisses--for the peanut butter blossoms. You KNOW you've GOT to have peanut butter blossoms at Christmas time!! :) Though we never called them that as kids.

And here's 'Em'....getting ready to grind up some almonds, I think. We were learning how to use Bonnie's food processor together. :) We got it though didn't we 'Em'?!?! :)

And the boys...........

Well, the BIG boys did what they BIG boys know how to do best---->

Watch the game and drink a few. :)

I must admit 'Jim-Bo', as Joe calls him, was a HUGE help. Bringing cookies out to the freezer and back and forth and back and forth......and in 'Jo-Jo's (as Jim-Bo calls him), defense he'd just worked that night and only had like an hour and a halfs worth of rest before we went up. So I guess relaxing with a brew or two and veggin' in front of the tv is warranted. :) They're good guys!!!

Here's Kelsey checking on her Gingerbead people......

I thought this was SUCH a cute picture. :)

--It IS Kelsey. She's just wearing Em's sweatshirt! LOL

Nickles making MORE cookies and Em testing the dough! LOL

Kels realizing how much she likes smoked gouda and brie!! :)

Bonnie and 'Em' checking on the, one platter of MANY, peanut butter balls before chocolate dipping. :)

Look at Emmy's feet. She MUST have the SMALLEST feet of ANYONE I know. She is 14 and wears a size 2 kids. NO KIDDING. That doesn't even translate into an adult size folks! Nikki picked up those little chick slippers, in the kids section. FOR SURE I didn't think they were going to fit her but THEY DID!!! Perfectly!!! I teased her that night. She's a twin so I told her, her brother must have hogged up ALL the room in the womb! LOL He's taller but just as thin as Em BUT he wears like a size 11!!!! hello?!

I worked the past 2 days so not much fun was had by me, as far as Christmas goes but I'm OFF today and tomorrow so it's catch up time! LOL We're going out as a family today to battle the crowds one last time before Christmas. I'm pretty much done we just need to get a few last minute things and the kids are going to pick out their gifts to each other. I figure we'll split up, shop, eat lunch, swap, shop and go home! Thank goodness we don't have MUCH to do! The little bit we DO have to do will likely take us better part of the day I imagine.

It's snowing out AGAIN so I guess we'd better get moving.

Merry Christmas to each of you

and

A HAPPY and prosperous New Year!!!