Christmas traditions

Merry almost Christmas to all! I was in the store today buying all of my ingredients for my annual Christmas baking day with Mom, and I got to wondering what everyone's favorite Christmas traditions are.
I must say the the baking day with Mom and my friend Sandy and Christmas Eve at Mom and Dad's are my two favorites. Every year, about 4 days before Christmas Mom, Sandy, and I get together to make a bunch of goodies for trays to give to our friends and co-workers and to put out for Christmas Eve. We make fudges, breads, chocolates, cookies, just anything that strikes our particular fancy for the year. I always do hand dipped chocolates and they are the thing that I dread the most (making the home made toffee is not a cake walk either!), because it is so time consuming and SO messy! The time spent in the kitchen with Mom is something that I would never give up though! I hope that it will be a tradition that I will be able to have with my daughter.
Christmas Eve has stood out in my mind as such a special time as well. We started the tradition after my Grandpa Witherell died and we had my Grandma Witherell and my Uncle Steve over for steaks on Christmas Eve so that they would not be alone that first Christmas without Grandpa. It has grown to include family and friends each year. The fun and love that we share on this most special night can not be compared. Dad always leads us off before we go carolling on that night with all of us singing "Silent Night." I look more forward to Christmas Eve than any other day of the year!
Merry Christmas to everyone! Love to all! Cyn

Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful. ~Norman Vincent Peale

The explained adventures of Seth!!!!

Here is a link to the girl's blog (she is story_teller123 at live journal) that hates Seth so much: http://www.livejournal.com/users/story_teller123/8171.html
Check out some of her entries preceding the page that you go to and you will find her song stylings as fabulous as I did, I am sure. Here is one jewel:
Capturing
Capturing
Crimison shot
Penetrate
Layers of sorrow
Shallow awakening
Off the deep end
Forever drowned within
The darkening shades of gray

Enjoy this purple prose!!!

I thought that I would send along a photo of Samantha that we took this summer. I happen to think that she is one of the prettiest girls in the world (she has to share that distinction with all of her cousins), but she is truly one of the most stubborn!! Love to all! Cyn

I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks. ~Scout, To Kill a Mockingbird

Greetings from Hoosierland!

Good evening to all! Hey, I emailed Brad to let him know that there was an invite for him to join 'Holther Outreaching' but I am not sure if he has already deleted the invitation. Could you please send him another out, Kip? Much appreciated! I also sent him a link to the blog about Seth. What a hoot! You know, I read through some of that girl's blog and she is really suffering from some major teenage angst as well as being a suffering poet! Does anyone remember our own lives being that Earth shattering at that age? She really took herself seriously and I guess that I am getting old, because I thought it was hilarious! If anyone wants to check it out just go to www.livejournal.com and do a search on Seth Holther.
I am really suffering from the cold snap that we are all having. I am sure that it is probably a little colder up further North where most of you are, but when the wind chills are like this, cold is just cold! Brrrr. I do have all of my Christmas decorating done. I started 2 days BEFORE Thanksgiving! I am a total sap for Christmas! I have 2 full sized trees and another small one decorated. It took me almost 5 hours to do the tree in my front room. Ridiculous! Pine garland is everywhere, along with my wreaths, and sparkling lights; even my bathroom and bedroom got involved in the fun this year. Bob is going crazy, but deep down I know he likes it -- at least I keep telling myself that! I really can't complain about the snow because it sets the mood for everyone else, and to look at the snow sparkling like diamonds on these cold nights and hearing it crunch under your feet as you walk through it, it is like nothing else. Can you imagine any other kind of Christmas or winter season? It really brings to mind the Christmases at Grandma and Grandpa Holther's house when we were kids. I loved to go to the tree and look at all of the shiny, the old, and the home made ornaments. I can really picture the light the most though, especially the big round ones that looked like they were made of broken glass. I hope that my kids have fond memories of their Chistmases at my parents' home! Hey Wendy!! Do you wnat to play Human Beans???
Have a great week everyone! And... My book of the week is: Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt by Anne Rice. I know! I know! She has always done that vampire and witch thing but it seems that she has given it all up because she has come back to the Christian faith after many years of atheism and is going to devote her writing to the life of Jesus. This one starts out with Jesus at age 7 leaving Egypt with his family after the death of Herod. I am about 1/2 way through and so far it is a pretty interesting read. It does have a somewhat Catholic slant to it, but she does fairly well at putting a fictionalized account together that has not been offensive (Mary Called Magdaline by Margaret George managed to offend me in a few parts just by how far fetched it was).
Hugs and kisses to all-- Love, Cyn
"It is with the approach of winter that cats...wear their richest fur and assume an air of sumptuous and delightful opulence." -Pierre Loti

Hi! "Waving Madly!"

Well, here I am. The mysterious W. *snort* Not so mysterious unless there are a whole lot of W people out there that I'm not aware of.
Here at the ranch, things just plod along. It doesn't seem as if we do much, but the days fly by anyway. Ron started a "new" job back in April. He is a job estimator for an excavating company. That is his official title, anyway. He works a lot of hours, but he is in the office 90% of the time and he likes this new type of work better than he thought he would. He also works out on the job sites sometimes, but more as a site manager type person instead of a site shoveling type person. LOL. Ryan is in 2nd grade. He is doing really well in school. I think he likes it, although he is not one to volunteer a lot of information on the subject. Zane was going to pre-school three days each week, but last week he started in a developmental five program which is a half day every day. He didn't seem to mind the switch and had a really good first week. As for me, I am the chauffer, (both boys, each way) maid, cook, laundress and disciplinarian. It keeps me busy, anyway.
Well, that's about it from here. Thing One just came in to announce that I need to gear up for job #3 (cook) because he is hungry. Thing One and Thing Two are always hungry. My mother watched them the other day and asked if I EVER fed them.
A question that has been floating around in this pea sized brain is this: Are you all converging here again this year for a get together? I am hoping so.
A nice idea, a family blog. Cracking up to think of some girl complaining about Seth Holther. See ya.

helloooooo!

Well, I just opened my mailbox and what should appear to my wondering eyes, but an invitation to join the Holther blog! I have gone through and read everyone's posts and caught up with a few of us. How nice! To catch up with me: Well, Bob, the kids and I bought a home in LaGrange Indiana this last March. LaGrange is a TINY town about 10 minutes south of the Michigan border, so we are closer to Mom and Dad than what we were while we were in Middlebury, IN. We decided to buy in this direction instead of going further west in Indiana because Bob's mom was suffering with terminal cancer and we wanted to be closer to her and my folks as well as his sister and her family. It has been a really good move for us, as we really like this little town and the kids love it in the schools here. Michael is now in 2nd grade and Samantha just started full day kindergarten this year. I am really happy with the schools except for the fact that they make us pay $40 a week for tuition for kindergarten here and we have to "rent" their ratty used books each year to the tune of between $80 and $90 per year for now (will be more as the grades progress). I am buying their books through Amazon or Barnes and Nobles.com for next year. Bob is working 3rd shift for a company called Utilimaster; they build Fed Ex trucks and the like. I left my career at Waldenbooks to become a bar wench this year. Let me tell you, I feel like I am on vacation! Most important, I am so close to the kids all day now and I am able to do PTO now as well as class volunteering. I am also volunteering at the local library so I get my book fix. Life is really quiet for us. We don't get out and about as much as we would like to but with Bob's work and the kids' school, we are pretty much home bodies. I did manage to make it out to see the Johnny Cash movie with Mom though. Has anyone else seen it? I really enjoyed it -- much more than I thought that I would! Well, enough about me. I need to leave some mystery about my fabulous life now don't I? Oh! Good book of the week: Queen of the Big Time by Adrienne Trigianni. Enjoy!! Cyndi

"Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow." -Jeff Valdez

(PICTURE TESTING)-

This past summer a bunch of the JEAN GANG met together in Assateague, MD. It was quite an adventure along the shores of the Atlantic Ocean with hot, hot temperatures, too much sand to move all of our equipment, wild horses in the campsite and of course one good thunderstorm that caused havoc upon our campsite (as noted in the picture).

Trying to Understand the World of Blogging...

From what I understand you have 2 ways to contribute, you can comment on someone else's POST or you can create an original POST. To create an original POST, click on your name on the blog screen, then in the new window click on HOME and then in the new window click on the GREEN + Try it out!

To add a picture to your POST, you need to click on the button to the right of the spell check button on the post menu. It will then give you options on how to choose the proper picture.

From The Beginning...

WOW, this is a start of a new thing. How impressive that we can all easily share with each other within the online world and all over the world where ever we call home. I hope that all of us take some time to visit the web site from here or there and post messages to keep us all up to date. Take some time, play around with the system and try it out.