Walk to Big screen to Neighbors to Frog eyes to Fundraising

From Georgann


We have had such a fun and busy week.  It started last Saturday...

Saturday - went to our friends Dave and Marlene Ellrich's famous annual ebelskiver breakfast. Anthony, Elsy, Kathryn and Brad went too.  Ellriches plan to move to Iowa next March so it was bittersweet.  We also addressed Christmas cards that evening. Yay for a task completed.

Sunday was "Walk to the Manger", our Christmas musical at church.  All the planning and preparation our office has done since August paid off.  It was wonderful.  The morning was also an opportunity to give toys, clothing and monetary gifts to local and international missions.  The generosity was amazing.

Su

Monday - Dave, Mary, Janet and I went to see the movie "White Christmas" on the big screen - a first for us.  It was great!  It was fun hearing the crowd's reaction to different parts of the movie and there was a round of applause at the end, just like in the good old days of the movies.

Tuesday - Our neighbors Matt and Penny Knight and their son Reece give us a plate of homemade treats each Christmas.  Delicious!  Each year we have nothing to give in return.  This year I decided to reciprocate by inviting them to dinner.  Knights had never met Kathryn, in fact they doubted she even existed.  So to squelch those rumors, we also invited Brad and Kathryn to dinner.  Penny accused Brad of hiring Kathryn as a "Bride by the Hour".  However by the end of the evening, Kathryn had charmed them as only she can.  They think she's a keeper!  It was a really fun evening.

Wednesday - tonight we got to have dinner with Ladell and Norma to celebrate the birthdays of Ladell and Dave.  We ate at Q39.  I had never been there and enjoyed it a lot - the food AND the company.  On the way home, I asked Dave if he'd take me to see the Christmas light display over by the Olathe Community Center.  You know, one of those where you tune into a special radio station and the lights move to the music.  It was really festive and cool! The evening ended with me making some Frog Eyes for Dave to take to work tomorrow and SNOW!  Our first of the season.

Thursday - if the weather doesn't prevent us, we are taking Lois to dinner at Ruby Tuesday's.  One of Dave's colleagues is on the heart transplant list.  Friends are planning all sorts of fundraisers to collect the $74,000 the transplant will cost.  They've planned a restaurant fundraiser every two weeks.  Last one was at Chipotle's.  We'll enjoy a meal out while raising funds for Melissa.  Can't beat that.

Uggs

By Cindy 

I am sitting here doing my cards and I was looking at my Uggs, they really are ugly! 

Don't want to sound ungrateful for the gift from my Chinese friend, because I love them. Most of you know my feet get cold but not with wool socks and ugly Uggs.  Every time I think of Dana's cold cure I still shiver, maybe I should use my Uggs!

Candy Making

From Dana:

I have been in the mood to do some Christmas baking. So, I pulled out my trusty Betty Crocker cookbook (a wedding gift from Kay, I believe) and found a tried and true recipe for toffee...

And super easy fudge...

(Have you seen the recipe for non-easy fudge?!!! It's really not easy.)

I whipped up the fudge this morning while Cole finished his breakfast. He got to lick the spoon (or spatula...or rubber scraper, as Charlotte would say).

I think he liked it. 

Merry Christmas!

No Thumbs

Cole got some new big mittens to try to keep his hands a bit warmer. But being so big, makes it a challenge to get his thumbs in the holes. We aborted the mission and just played at the park on this 30 degree, no wind morning with no thumbs!!

He made the best of it!

Buffet table

from Kathryn:

   So at the beginning of this semester, our KLIFE board president offered me a buffet table that her friend didn't want or need anymore. Since I can rarely say no to free things, I accepted the table. I decided to try my hand at re-painting and distressing furniture. That's all the rage these days and there are so many DIY tutorials on Pinterest that I had seen before I figured it couldn't be that hard.

  After deciding what color to paint it and buying all of the supplies, I went to work. After doing lots of sanding, stripping the finish, priming, staining, sanding again, and finally sealing the whole thing, it's finished! It only took me a couple of months to complete.....I get distracted easily and bogged down by big projects.
  
  There were a couple of set backs along the way too. I think one problem I had was I used old sealer. When I did that, it left a yellow-y tint to the piece that I didn't see until it had completely dried. I was upset about it at first and I still don't love it, but I guess it adds a little bit to the antique look and I'm too lazy apparently to fix it. Another issue I had is according to the blog that I was following I was supposed to sand the top in between the two coats of sealer. Well, something went wrong along the way and I still don't really know how it messed up. It basically ruined the top! So I had to re-sand the entire top again (which took a while) and then sealed it one more time to finish it.

  My conclusion- it's fun to say I've done it once but I don't think re-purposing furniture is going to become a new hobby of mine. You can be the judge, here is a before and after pic. What do you think?

The original

The finished product! (please ignore that I haven't added the handle to the right door yet)

The little Ellis's decorate

From Kathryn:
Hello all! Merry Christmas! Brad and I had a lot of fun getting to decorate our house for our first Christmas together. Here are some pictures of the final outcomes...

I was so impressed with how many ornaments Brad owns! The majority of those ornaments on the trees are his. We also bought a special one this year to celebrate our first Christmas together. We also picked out or tree skirt together. Well actually, Brad picked it out! Didn't he do such a great job??

Special thanks to Abby for those cute gold letters :) Thanks for being crafty and for leaving some of your cute crafts behind :) Let me know if you'd like them back sometime! Brad also had the great idea of moving the "Plaza at Christmastime" painting from the dining room to above the mantel to add to the decorations. Isn't he smart? I think it looks perfect! And the letter "E" always looks good :)

Here's a quick glance at the outside of our house. First off, our house got painted recently! We are really happy with the color and how it turned out. It used to be a cream/peachy color with dark navy/black shutters. I think the new color really helps the bricks pop! We added wreaths to the windows and a lit garland around the front door. We also have lights on the house but you can't see them in this picture.

  Thanks for letting me talk about our house and for taking the time to read this post :)

"Dad, What is Your Face Saying?"

From Dana:

A few weeks ago this text conversation happened, started by my dad to a bunch of us kids. Let's see if you can figure out what's going on, before I did. It had us in stitches by the end...

Reading back over it still makes me laugh. I wanted to share it here for posterity's sake. Gonna go down in history.