Dwindling down the Christmas list

I can check off this one on my list. Finally I have all five of my Christmas trees up. We make a little tradition out of decorating the tree. I put Rudolph the red nosed raindeer on TV and we decorate the tree while drinking hot coco. The Cisco Kid enjoyed climbing on the ladder more than decorating this tree. My first tree is a very traditional style 9 ft. tree. I have ornaments that I have been collecting over the past thirty years. I love the Christmas cartoon Rudolph the red nosed reindeer, so I have a collection of all the characters. I also love collecting the Toy Maker Santa by Hallmark. Since our family is really into trains we have a large variety of them on the tree. Every year I make ornaments to keep and to give as gifts so I have a collection of them as well.

Hallmark's toy maker santa



One of the ornaments I painted, jeweled and added the ribbon.
My oldest dated ornament my mother gave me.






My second tree is in my formal living room. It's a 6-1/2 tree. I loved the idea of having a very fancy tree. I decided to decorate it in Crystals and pearl. I actually lucked out two years ago at an estate sale and came across about thirty of these ornaments for $15.00.







My third tree is in my dining room. I call it my skinny tree. This tree is 7 ft. I wanted it to be 9 ft tall when I decided to make a tree stand for it out of a planter. I leveled a PVC pipe in the planter that was just the right size for the bottom of the tree to fit into. I then filled the planter with quick drying cement so the tree would not tip over.

I had this tree in my family room last year and a section of the lights did not work anymore. I could not bring myself to get rid of the tree when I saw a program on HGTV. They had an old tree that they spray painted gold. It looked great. When I saw that program I had to try it on my tree. The 1st thing I did was cut all the lights off. Then I spray painted it with gold spray paint. I really didn’t know what theme I wanted for the dining room so I went deep into the storage room and pulled out some boxes of old Christmas stuff that I have not seen in many years. I came across some red lights, Gold ribbon and lots of huge plastic ornaments. Well this is what i ended up with.

x Large ornaments
Another x large ornament.
Our 4th tree is The Cisco Kids Tree. Last year he saw this blue tree and flipped. Well he was so excited about it I just could not say no. He loves having his very own Christmas tree in his bedroom. I bought him a few decorations from John Deer, Disney cars and of course fire trucks and trains. As we were decorating the tree it was not full enough with ornaments. I thought there has to be some toys we could hang on the tree. Then I thought, lets look in the Mc Donald’s drawer. Yes we have a Mc Donald’s drawer filled with Kid meal toys!!!!! He has really accumulated a lot of toys for a boy that only eats Mc Donald’s once a week the majority of the time. Anyway ……. There were some really cool toys that we filled up the tree with. At least those Mc Donald’s toys come in handy for something.






Mc Donalds Happy meal toys
He loved the Sponge Bob ribbon.


Saving the best for last. I have been collecting ornaments with the Cisco Kids name on them since he was born.

I was hoping to have these trees done by Friday so I could join Kelly in Show us your life. It was fun doing them with the Chief and the Cisco kid this weekend, now to work on the rest of my Christmas list.

Update on my sick little boy

We just got back from his pediatrician and we found out why he is running a fever. He defiantly doesn’t have the flu. That is a huge relief. The Cisco Kid has a loose tooth (nope that is not it either) on the left side of his mouth and he is constantly touching it and wiggling it. I’m sure every time he touches his tooth his hands are not sanitized or even clean. This cussed him to get a cold sour a couple of days ago. At least that is what I thought!!!! Cold sours are also known as a fever blister hence the fever. I never knew they were the same thing. I have always heard of fever blisters but never really knew that it gave you a fever. You get them from a virus. I thought you got the fever blister from a very high fever. Silly me!!!! Well, now I know better. The Cisco Kid is doing fine and is sleeping it off.

Sick little boy

My little one is sick. He came home from Church last night with a fever. He is prone to high fevers so every three hours we are up alternating Motrin and Tylenol. His last dose of medicine was at 5:00 a.m. this morning. He should have gotten his next dose at 8:00 a.m. I decided to wait and see how he reacted without the next dose. So far he has no fever as of 9:00 a.m. I am still going to take him to see his pediatrician. We’ll see what they say.


He was very upset this morning when I told him he is not going to school today. Today was their first school field trip this year. They were going to see Polar Express at the IMAX Theater. Now he has seen Polar Express about ten gazillion times, but what he was most upset about was not being able to ride on the school bus. We were also planning on going to Disney this weekend. That will be on hold for now.

I have Turkey comming out of my ears

I am done with the Turkey. Thursday the turkey was wonderful. Friday the turkey sandwiches were great. Saturday the Turkey salad was perfect. Sunday the turkey pot pie was so comforting. Then I had to think of something else to make with that last bit of leftover turkey. I was dreading turkey again. I love turkey but come on. Enough is enough. I have to say this is about all I can handle. Even though I still have turkey left over I was ready to ditch it. Then I remembered something my mother made when I was a kid. Turkey croquettes!! These croquettes are so good and let me tell you it doesn’t taste like turkey.

Croquettes

4 cups of chopped turkey
2 cups of leftover stuffing
2 cups of leftover mashed potatoes
2 cups of seasoned bread crumbs
Oil for frying
3 eggs beaten

Mix turkey stuffing and mashed potatoes together and roll in a cone shape. Dip them in the egg and then coat them in seasoned bread crumbs. Fry to a golden brown.

Sauce

1/2 cup of sour cream
1 cup of leftover turkey gravy
2 cups of milk.
1/3 cup of chopped parsley
salt and pepper to taste
2 tablespoons of corn starch and 1/4 cup of milk. Mix together and set aside.

Heat all remaining ingredients together. As soon as the sauce starts to boil turn down heat and add the corn starch mixture. Continuously sure until thicken.
Pour over your Croquettes and you can sprinkle with the following optional cheeses.
Parmesan cheese, feta cheese or gorgonzola cheese.
Makes 12 Croquettes










Sauce

ITS CRUNCH TIME!!!!!

It’s December 1st. Only 24 day until Christmas. This is the busiest month for me. I have a very long list of things I must complete before the twenty first of the month. I have to put up all my Christmas decoration in the house. The Chief has to put up the outside decorations. I have to bake all my Christmas cookies and mail them out before the 15th. I have to finish making twelve ornaments and get them in the mail also by the 15th. We get our picture taken for our Christmas cards and get them mailed out. First I need to shop for some coordinating Christmas clothes for the picture. I have to finish Christmas shopping for the Cisco Kid, Chief, Grandma, Grandpa, nieces and nephews. To top it all off we are going to spend a couple of days in Disney this month. Right now I’m thinking its crunch time and it’s only the 1st of the month. Wish me luck!!!! I think I’m going to need it.

My end of the month Tidbit stories.

Here are my end of the month post. A collection of activities I didn't have time to post about.

For Thanksgiving, all the first graders were sent home with tom the turkey and as a family we all had to decorate him.

My sweeties Turkey

SSSSSSnake's I don’t like these cold blooded creatures. Living in Florida and close to the water, we have plenty of them. Some are poisonous some are not. There are so many different kinds that it is hard to learn about them all. The Chief takes his stand by saying, if the snake is in our yard or in our screened in area it is a dead snake. As much as I hate snakes I don't like to kill the non poisonous ones. I remember the first time The Chief killed one, I asked if it was poisonous and his response was. I didn't take the time out to interview it!!!!

I was on my porch when I noticed this snake taking a drink of water. I got this large mallet and placed it on top of the snake so it could stay in one place. The last thing I wanted was this thing to slither around in my screened in area. I would never walk out there again in peace.


Once it was secured in place I memorized its markings and looked it up on the computer. It is a common Garden Snake. Non poisonous. Yah!!! I don’t have to kill it!! Since the Cisco Kid has seen the slaughtering of several snakes I decided there would be a good lesson for him to finally see us set one free. That evening, the three of us went outside to see the snake. We stood there for a few minutes watching the snake and trying to decide witch one of us is going to lift the mallet of the snake. As we were standing there watching, we noticed it never opened its mouth. It was totally harmless and helpless at that point. The Cisco Kid was very excited about setting the snake free. Just the reaction I wanted. I decided it was time to remove the mallet. Once I did it slithered into my pool. I thought, OH NO!!! I wanted it out of my screened in area. The Chief took the pool broom with the 12 foot handle and scooped the snake up and flung it on the porch. I then grabbed the broom and pushed it out the door. It was now free as we watched it slither away in the tall green grass.