A Christmas Start

Christmas is slowly showing up at the Cox Household. One tree is up and decorated and another one is up fluffed and half the lights are one it. This one I wanted white lights and thought I had brought all the LED lights over to the new house. Got 3/4 up the tree and guess what? Either the rest of the LEDs are at the old house or I may have them out in the shed here at the new house. We do not have electric run to our shed as of yet and when I discovered no more lights it was dark out.

The first of my trees was a new tree this year. I have actually bought three tree. Poor George keeps saying do you not think you have enough but out we go with another one.

 While cleaning out my dads place this summer I had brought a lot of Moms things home that neither of my sisters wanted. One was a sizable amount of Angel ornaments mom had collected for a small angel tree. This tree is a slim 7 foot tree so I needed lots of angels for it. I had not been able to find my angels till today so just added them tonight. Here is the tree before I added all mine to the tree.

I will have to get the tweaked tree later.
My angel tree I have done over the last few years was just a 3 foot tree. I did the first one the December after my mom passed away. Mom collected angels and I knew back then an angel tree was in order for our home in memory of her.

I lost my Dad in March of this year so now my tree is in memory of them both and so glad to have acquired many of their angels for my tree. 

We finely found the white lights I needed to match the strung ones on my large tree ( another new one)
 It is a larger 7 1/2 foot tree and larger around than the angel tree. This tree I decided to do in the red, green and gold I had done last year.

I used shatter proof ornaments and it really turned out well. We have a new fur baby and I was not sure how she would handle a tree of ornaments.

Here is Precious our new kitty.

She was really good about the first tree for 4-5 days then she turned into the She-Devil.
Seems she likes the bead garland. I do think she is doing better. I did not find it half down when I came home from work today.

She does like sleeping under the tree on the quilted tree skirt. Made me think of Tinker our kitty we had to have put down a year last May. He was at least 21 years old and was my granddaughters kitty we took in when she moved in with us about 11 years ago. He always could be found on the quilted tree skirt sleeping.

Well as for the second tree it is still standing and no beaded garland has been taken down but have to add that Precious has trid to climb this one. Swatted her with newspaper and she has not tried to do that again.

This tree I did by the sliding door  which goes to the deck.

The next tree I wanted up was my kitchen tree. George kept saying you have no place for your kitchen tree. But guess who won out. I have always used just a three of 4 foot tree in my kitchen which I had on the only cabinet that did not have an upper cabinet. I did not have this in our new home. They all have an upper cabinet. My idea was move the table away from the window and then there would be room to tuck it in the corner of in front of the window. I decided at the entrance to the hall going to my sewing/ craft room would work too but one problem there was that there was no electric plug there. Tomorrow I am moving the table out but for now the tree is safely tucked into the corner. George is eating on the other side of the table rather than where he normally set.

Tree number 3.

This tree is all done in gingerbread and candies.  .

We had our first snowstorm of the year so it really made the Holiday Season a bit more real.  Can you see the snow outside? So glad that we had done our outdoor lights last week before the weather decided to turn cold and dump 12 inches of snow on us. Yes 12 inches of the white stuff. Considering this was our first snow of the season that was a lot. Wish I could have gotten out early to get pictures of the house to send in my cards this year. It would have been the perfect picture all covered with white, with the wreaths hanging on the doors wand snow covered garland on the hand rails. The sun came out early and it looked like a million diamonds glistening throughout the neighborhood.

This is what our deck and front looked like from inside. This is about 5 in the afternoon and was still coming down hard.

My bird bath off the front steps of the house.

Looking across the front yard to the neighbors. Snow was coming down so fast at times you could hardly see the house . 

I do have to say it was very pretty out and sure do wish I had gotten out early the next morning for pictures of the house.

Now on to my 4th tree. Just got this one up last night. It is just a 4 foot but is a black tree. I put it in our master bedroom. Ornaments are silver, white and black. Was so excited to at last have a black tree. This is the third year I have done this tree.

I just brought another whole car load of Christmas from the old house so will be working hard to get it up I even sorted out a few things for grand kids to take.

In the morning I will be doing the main entrance way tree at the Adrian Senior Center so have several totes of things to take in there. This year I am doing a hand made Christmas tree theme and each ornament on the tree is a hand made ornament many of which I have received over the years in exchanges. I am excited to share my friends talents with our county seniors.

Then home to work more on our main floor level.

Going to be really busy after next week end as the basement walls will be a mudded and ready for the primer coat of paint. Then I have to paint them all before I can decorate the basement for our family Christmas. I am certainly looking forward to us all being able to eat all in one room and all having a spot at  table rather than some having to sit on the floor and use the coffee table as a dining table.

Everyone of our family will be here for Christmas other than the oldest granddaughter and her family. Military life keeps families apart for many holidays and this is the case with them. They will be missed for our first Christmas in the new house.

A Whole New Christmas for 2015

This year has flown by so fast that my head seems to be spinning.

Since Christmas of 2014 there have been so many changes in my life. Things from the death of my father to the arrival of 5 new babies in the family all within a 6 week period, a new home, a wedding and so much more. 

I lost my dad on March 22 very unexpectedly. It hit us all very hard. Never did I realize in January when dad went back to Florida that it was the last time I would see him. 

I never realized just what a kind and gracious father I had. Was always doing for others and never wanting in the limelight so to say. The stories told about dad at his funeral just blew me away with how private dad had been but also just how much he meant to other family, friends and yes even strangers. We learned  what a giving person he was throughout his life. We knew he was always there for us to lend a hand be it helping built our garage after ours burned down, to loaning us much needed cash during the hard times. We never realized just all the things he also did for friends and strangers who may have been down on their luck.

The last several days have really been hard for me. Dad would have turned 86 in just over a week from now. So many thoughts going through my mind. I so miss him and still find I have a hard time when I reach for the phone to call him and then think there is no phone to heaven. There have been a few times when I shed a few tears that a few minutes later I would look down and there would lay a penny and I then realize he is still with me just not in body. Yesterday I picked up 2 pennies from a parking lot laying side by side and thought wow mom is giving me signs too.

George and I had decided to remodel our home in May until George got to looking at a real estate magazine. He suggested we maybe rent our home to my youngest daughter and we buy a home. Talk about shocked. George had lived on the same corner for 67 years. I never ever thought in my wildest dreams he would want to move. 

This is the results of our home search. 

We are just two doors from the lake with access and docking rights. Love our new home and can hardly contain my excitment for Christmas decorating this year. 

A few more pictures of our home.

 Kitchen looking towards the laundry are and my craft/sewing/computer room. This is a bonus room over our two and a half car garage. 

Living room/ Dining room combination looking twoards the front door.

Eat in kitchen from the basement door looking towards, living /dining area.

Garage with bonus room above it. 

Start of our finished basement. The basement was plumed for bathroom and outside walls were dry walled. We are adding family room, another large bedroom/ office to the end. Large window overlooks the backyard and slider walks out to a brick patio under the deck. There will be a bar and kitchen to the right of this picture. Just picked up white cabinets today for the kitchen. There is also one large storage room and storage under the stairs. We hope to have everything but the ceiling done before Christmas. Ceiling we will wait on til spring . 

View from the deck. The other side of the trees is the lake. 

We have laughed as most of our friends who have visited us have made the statement most people our age down size. Not us we could fit 3 of the old houses into this home. We love all the room we have and are enjoying our home tremendously. 

I can hardly wait to start decorating for the Christmas season. We just went and bought 2 large trees today to add to my other trees. I plan on 5 large trees this year along with the several 4 foot ones I usually do.   George never batted an eyelash at me buying the trees. He even pointed out several he thought would be nice. 

My gingerbread tree has always been a 4 foot tree. We have a kitchen window where our kitchen table sits so we will center the table in the center of the room and I will use a 6 1/2 foot pencil tree for the gingerbread tree this year. 

We also needed a tall one for in front of the slider going to the deck so found a nice 7 1/2 foot for there. The old 7 1/2 foot tree will go in the family room in the basement.  My bonus room will have the white 7 foot tree and the 4 foot teal colored, The master bedroom I can use my black tree in. 

I brought 2 boxes from dad and moms place that were marked village. They were stored in the Christmas things. I did not open them but I am looking forward to seeing what mom had acquired. Funny I do not remember mom having a village.  

I have already bought several Christmas presents and hope to finish by the end of November. 

I am looking forward to getting the baking started. Lots of room for it in the new house. Sure can roll out lots of my lebkuchen cookies  on the island of the kitchen. We have already bought many baking ingredients. 

In June our two new Great Grandbabies arrived just 5 days apart. From late May to early July our family grew by 5 newborns. What a growth rate. Just sorry dad was not her as he was so excited over so many new babies in the family.  

The end of June our new 5th wheel arrived and we got it all set up. Seems like I spent the whole summer packing boxes moving them and unpacking them. 

By September we were waiting for George's new wood shop to arrive and be added to our property. He had to have a place for all his equipment. Let me say I have always wanted to see and Amish barn raising. We hirred Amish to build us a 16 by 20 shed which we could use for his wood shop. Three very young Amish men arrived at 2:30 with  walls built and laying on a truck bed with all framing and flooring laid in order of what they would build the shed.  By 7:30 that evening they were driving off and this is the shed fully built and painted.. 

After seeing them work I really want to see a barn raising by the Amish. 

October arrived and we had another surprise. Our oldest daughter and her boyfriend came over. Visited a while then Doug said. What I wanted to know is if you would give us your Blessing to Marry. Tears flowing I said I have just been wondering how long it would be  for you decide to marry. Problem we had three weeks to plan a wedding. Out door one at that. Now living in Michigan and by the 24th of October you may have snow but God was good and gave us beautiful weather. They we marred in a beautiful park in front of the covered bridge. Great day was had by all. 

Meet Mr. and Mrs. Miller. 

Now that my life is showing I am going to have time for blogging and hope that we may share some special holiday ideas here once again