Merry (Belated?) Christmas

I hope everyone's holiday was cheerful, joyful, and bright! Steve and I were invited to a turkey dinner by his Gunnery Sergeant (aka his "boss") on Christmas Eve with one of the other Marines from the office as well as his wife and 2 little ones. Because we were invited to this event the day before (Dec 23rd), I whipped up some cookies and English toffee to bring along and rushed to Target at 5 pm 2 days before Christmas to pick up a couple last minute baking items and something to WEAR! After having a big garage sale right before we moved to Alabama, (I was in a "get rid of it, take it away mood") and hence don't really own much to wear that would make me presentable at a Christmas Eve party thrown by my hubby's boss whom I have met exactly once before. Sorry that was a long-winded. But I felt a little overwhelmed. In the end, we had a nice time and it was nice to get to know some of the people Steve works with every day.
Steve and I had a quiet Christmas at home. We opened/exchanged gifts and ate a spread of appetizers that I made. After the Thanksgiving dinner I made I didn't feel like doing a big hooplah-again. We both stayed in our jammies all day. :-)
All the squirrels have finally been caught! We got a total of 6 and the exterior opening on the side of the house has been patched so nothing else can enter. The hole in our wall has not yet been fixed, but it was Christmas 2 days ago, so I didn't figure they'd fix it this week.
We don't have any plans thus far for New Years, but the news tonight mentioned the possibility of snow for us on New Years day. (!!!)

That's all for now,
Hilabee

2 more!

Yessir! 2 more squirrels were caught today! We didn't just have a couple of squirrels in our wall, it appears we had a whole family! No WONDER it was so noisy. I'm supposed to listen for anymore squirrel noises so that if we got them all the land lord can get started on patching the wall.
Keeping my fingers crossed,
Hilabee

O Christmas Tree

Heyyyyy!
Steve and I found a Christmas tree! It's a Scotch Pine and smells lovely! I also picked up 5 strings of 100 lights, only to run out of lights a little more than half way up the tree. Steve and I went out the next day to Target, Home Depot, and Wal-Mart looking for more lights but everywhere was sold out of white lights! And I couldn't have a tree with half white lights and half colored! That would look ridiculous! But then, at Wal-Mart there in the back of the shelf, half hiding behind all the left-over colored lights, 3 lonely boxes of 100 white lights! The last 3! In the whole store! Maybe in the whole city of Birmingham! Hooray! So yes, there are 800 lights on our Christmas tree. And I forgot how poke-y pine trees are when you are trying to put lights on them! I had little red bumps all over my hands and wrists.
Worth it though, wouldn't you say?

I also bought some plain Christmas bulbs and painted them. This one was easiest but turned out to be my favorite. Ooh-Rah!

I put my camera timer to good use!

This was one of those DIY shots. :-)

Squirrel Update:

The Squirrel-catcher came again on Monday to check if the live traps had caught anything. Since it had been a week and nothing, he put a "kill trap" in front of their hole. If any squirrel went in or out, SNAP! It looked something like a mini bear trap. The squirrel man said I might see a squirrel "hangin' up there." I thought "oh great that sounds lovely."

So this morning I go down to the garage to put in a load of laundry and success! The kill trap snapped the little booger! It's really kind of morbid, but I was almost happy to see the dead squirrel hanging up there. I called the squirrel man and he came this afternoon to get the squirrel and also said that one of the live traps he left up there caught a little squirrel too. Since I could still hear movement in the wall this morning he reset the kill trap and went on his way. We are finally beginning to get rid of our little squirrel problem. Phew!

Ttyl,

Hilabee

SNOW!

It snowed last night here in Alabama! We got a pretty good dusting too, enough to last well into this morning. Steve and I went out in it last night since it was his first time seeing real snow fall from the sky. Being from CA about the only "snow" we see "fall" is the stuff from the snow machine at the ski resort. And even that is really more like ice chips... Anywho I took some pictures and braved the snowy yard to take a picture of our house this morning. I hadn't taken any pictures of the house yet so I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to take some while it's all dusty white! I also finally got around to uploading the photos of our couch, and the Christmas decorations that I made! That's what I've been up to this week instead of blogging. Sorry. :-(

Steve calls these the "balls of jolly." Lol. I used 6 inch styrofoam balls and silk pointsettias and cut the stems off and glued them on with hot glue. Then I glued the leaves from the pointsettias in the empty spaces between the flowers and strung them all together with pretty ribbon!

I bought this plain wreath and glued Christmas pretties all over it. It's hanging on the front door but on the inside of the house because if I hang it on the outside our storm door smashes it and won't close. :-(

Here is our new couch and coffee table! Love it!

Snow Pansies!

Oh mushyyyy eeeeew!
Really cold...
The trees behind our house all covered in snow!

The berry bush next to our house.

Our little house all covered in snow! It looks charming! ;-)

Steve and I are going to go find a Christmas tree today! Happy weekend everyone!

<3 Hilabee