The Night Before....

The night before Christmas, 

who can believe it is already here! 

Wishing all of you a joyful holiday, we'll see you in the New Year!

Love Barbie Jo and Daisy

Be Merry!

Another week closer! This past week in my house was baking time. The flour was flying, bowls of colored icing, sprinkles and glitter littered every inch of counter space.

The old nut grinder was put in to use as I tackled some of our favorite Christmas cookies.

Peanut brittle and those Rollo/pretzel/pecan candies were made.

Dishes and counters were piled sky high with no helpful elves in sight. Everything was packaged and mailed or put in containers... and then the kitchen cleanup began. Phew.. thats a lot of work!

And so yesterday I was very ready to get out amongst humans, and do what people do this time of year, eat and be merry! And so Hubby and I enjoyed a wonderful lunch on the Missouri side, at Cafe Europa in the Brookside area of Kansas City, we had the best Reuben sandwiches.. yum yum!

One of the fun things about living here is we are only 10 minutes from the Kansas/Missouri state line.

We enjoy the best of both worlds!  

Lunch was followed by a little shopping. Here we are in the New Dime Store, similar to an old fashioned variety store, aisles and aisles of nostalgic fun!

To complete my fun day the postman brought me a package... a Christmas Elf soft doll designed by Valerie Weberpal. He's so cute, everyone needs a helper this time of year! 

Be Merry!

Let the fun begin....

Wow, phew, Christmas is in full swing here! Started my decorating the day after Thanksgiving and have made pretty good progress with that. Don't you just love saying hello to all your favorite Christmas goodies after they have been tucked away for a year! We were a little leery about setting our tree up with Daisy experiencing her 1st Christmas. She however has been pretty good so far and has not tried to climb it. She does however love the tree skirt with its jingle bells, and kind of likes to bat those ornaments and get them all swaying a bit. Needless to say the bottom branches have been left fairly sparse.

 I thought I would beat the rush and finish my shopping this week. With most of our family out of town I like to get after it right away. Much to my surprise it seems like everyone had the same idea, every store was packed and lines were long, not everyone had a fa la la attitude lol! Bone weary, eyes glazing over and running out of steam I stopped and treated myself to my fave sandwich at Dean & Delucca before trudging home. Turkey, brie, apricot glaze on sourdough, and who could resist a  few cute petit fours to go!

When I got home Daisy had hung her stocking on the mantle.

She has been a very good girl. I decked her corner out with a garland strung with toys and bells, hoping it would distract her from the tree and other such goodies. Knock on wood so far I think it has helped!

This weekend... let the cookie baking begin! Hoping your holidays are more joyful than stressful,
Barbie and Daisy