Cricut Christmas Crafting

I made these cute "crackers" (they didn't really crack like the traditional British ones) while I still had Cricut All Access.  (free service your first month with the Cricut)

Anyway, I wanted to make more, but Cricut said they would only sell the pattern to me for $17 or something ridiculous.  I found the pattern for the crackers below for free online and like them even more!  I hid little treats inside!  

I bought a box of plain notes at the scrapbook store for 1/2 off.  Then I added the "thank yous" that I made with my Cricut.  Not sure why I find these so satisfying!!!!

 

Chinese Christmas Eve.....

Ooops.... nope this is Christmas dinner.

 Here we go.....we had our traditional Chinese Christmas take-out after Joel waited 2 hours in the car for our pick-up.  I was pretty sure he wouldn't complain and I was right!  His comment was, "I just looked at my phone." (not shocking! plus he really likes the food!!)  We then went to Mass at 10pm to avoid the crowds!  It was lovely!

Game night

Carolyn special ordered a cool game for me named - Hues and Cues.  You try to get other people to guess your color based on one and tow word clues!  Good family fun!

 

Christmas Day

I am not much a gift giver, but somehow my kids developed a huge love for giving neat gifts. (I gave the pans above proving the point about myself!)

Joel gave Anna lights for her room...very cool - they can change colors.

I also just love the clean room to be honest!

Matthew gifted Anna a trip to see Spiderman

The new puzzle for the annual puzzle adventure

Initially I lost all the Christmas photos when the photo card indicated it was corrupted.  Matthew was able to use a special program to retrieve them!  (also some other photos on OLD corrupted photo cards that I saved just in case Matthew ever figured out how to do just such a task....drat to those cards!)
 

We got to see Grandpa....just one week late

You can tell that Carolyn knows that you can tell if you are smiling under a mask!

We decided to wear masks because who knows who we ran into on Tuesday!  (We were in Burlington on Wednesday.)  Better safe than sorry.

I should have closed the blinds :0)

It was nice to see Grandpa who gets to celebrate Christmas for 3 weeks.  My brother and sister are coming next week!

 

Christmas Eve Crafting

 

I made this cute little box to hold Anna's unique gift.

Anna was hard to buy for since she doesn't need anything and isn't going off to a dorm room next year or need kitchen supplies for an apartment etc.

Carolyn came up with an idea of getting her gift cards to use when she is at music camps for the school.  They often have short breaks and walk to the closest food establishments.

I labeled  the 2 activities on the sides!

I love how it turned out!!

Joel is out of Covid jail!

 Joel officially finish his quarantine this morning.  I think he is very happy to be free.  I laugh because he wanted to sleep in today, because "it was the first day of his break".  I said, "you just had a 10 day break"!!!

Anyway, his show choir (with a bunch of the boys shown here from Festival of choirs singing from the side of the auditorium in this very cool way back and forth....NOEL and then some foreign language) did not practice this week because so many people were gone that "there weren't enough people to make the practice worth while".  Hmmmm I wonder why when they were being so safe...NOT!

I told Joel that the good news is that he won't get Covid and not be able to perform during show choir season.....if there is a season :0(

The boy in the front of this picture works with Carolyn at Starbucks, so I contend that if she gets Covid, it is as likely from him as it is from Joel.  That said, he is vaccinated and he did test before work and wore a mask....so that was good.

The night before the night before Christmas

Today we were supposed to be in Burlington. No one had work, because we all had plans! Joel is out of Covid prison and he is the only one we know is TOTALLY safe from Covid today. 

 Matthew esp. should be safe as he didn't come home until 1 week after Joel showed symptoms. Now he is boosted. Carolyn is mostly safe as she never has been in a room with Joel. (Boosted right before she came home.) Ken and I are boosted and Anna is barely 6 months past her 2nd vaccine. So maybe she is at the most risk. Really there is no question with her being in school....I think the risk from Joel is past since she hasn't been in a room with him for 8-9 days. She is doing well, trying to wear a mask at school and other places. That said, I am letting her go to the flute party tonight. She will wear a mask (because of my request), but likely won't have many similarly masked.....sigh! 

 I talked to my Dad today and he said that Allie, my niece, has Covid. So no one in my brother Mike's family will travel to Burlington. (She works in healthcare sales and her fiancé is a Dr., so she was early vaccinated and early boosted....sigh!) Sad to hear that boosted people too are getting Covid. 

 Anyway on a happy note, Carolyn made the most beautiful charcuterie board for us today. We joked that it was very different from your standard "meat and cheese tray" that you make when you are serving many many people. Fancy fancy. 

Well - are we really suprised.

A week or so ago our new school board removed the mask mandate.  (One of the new school board member's wife DIED from Covid the week before the election and he still voted to remove the mandate before the littlest people are fully vaccinated.)

Well Monday I received this letter from Joel's school: 

----------------------------------------

Parents/Guardians,

A confirmed case of COVID-19 has been reported in your student's classroom at Ankeny Centennial High School. You are receiving this notice because of this exposure.  

According to the latest guidance from the Iowa Department of Public Health, your child does NOT need to quarantine and may return to school as scheduled.

Due to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), neither the district, school building secretary, or your school nurse is able to provide exact exposure information.

We are providing the following information to ensure your safety and help reduce the spread of COVID-19. 

• We advise you to monitor for symptoms that may appear after exposure.

• Symptoms may include: fever, chills, cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, fatigue, muscle or body aches, headache, new loss of taste or smell, sore throat, congestion, runny nose, nausea or vomiting and diarrhea. Not all cases will have symptoms.

• It is important to keep your child(ren) home if they are ill or symptomatic. If they receive a positive test, they must stay home for 10 days and let the school know of their test results. 
  

We understand this can be confusing and frustrating, but we are required to implement these practices in line with the guidance we have received. Each family needs to make the best health decision for their child(ren). If you have questions about COVID-19, we encourage you to contact your school nurse, your own health care provider, and/or the Iowa Department of Public Health at (515) 281-7689. 

The Ankeny Community School District is also keeping updated information on our COVID-19 dashboard: https://www.ankenyschools.org/district/covid-19-dashboard/.

Thank you,

Ankeny Centennial High School

--------------------------------------------------------

The letter caused me to say to Joel.  Do you have a sniffle?  Yes he did,  so I bought a rapid Antigen COVID test.

POSITIVE result

BUMMER

Especially if you remember this photo:

Where Joel is basically singing in the front row of a choir concert for 3 concerts in 2 days.  Yes.  Maybe I could have made him wear a mask, but he was vaccinated and I didn't know he had a Covid exposure until the next day.  Less than 10% of the kids and audience had on a mask, and he is 17 and would have hated it since there was no mandate.  (Ken and I did wear masks though because I am definitely a "better safe than sorry" person.)

So hopefully he had such a low viral load that he didn't spread the disease!  

HERE IS THE FUNNY PART:  Everyone at Centennial got a notice that they were exposed on Monday.....I think it was an accident based on what the nurses said  So I tested Joel by accident and found he had Covid.  On Tuesday he said he felt "perfect" and I would never have given it another thought!  OH MY!  I guess it was meant to be.

A day before Joel's assumed exposure, the CDC said Joel's age range could get a booster....he was getting his this Saturday. "Day late and a dollar short" as they say!

Festival of Choirs

It begins with all the choirs singing!

Anna is the girl behind the girl in the mask.....for the record the girl in front of the girl in the mask lives in our neighborhood and I often would think she was Anna in 4th grade when they were walking home from school.  (I could see the purple coat coming from far away....but ooops wrong brown haired purple coat wearing girl!)

Anna's group's main song.  Anna is the girl in the back row to the left of the director's elbow.  This was not Anna's original director.  He has disappeared and no one knows why....well no one I know.  He had been Joel and Carolyn's middle school and 9th grade show choir director too, so he was around a long time.  Now he has been gone for about a month.

Can't see Joel, because he is right behind the director in this photo, but it give you an idea of the grandeur of the whole thing.  It really was lovely. (ending with candle-light....except the 9th graders received no candles....they were off to the side by this time)

 

Joel's arm rest

Joel has a cute new car,,,,it looks a lot like this (but right now is in the garage, so no real photo)

it is an oldie but a goodie

Here is the passenger arm rest.  It shows how well maintained the entire car appears.

EXCEPT....the driver's side arm rest  (please note that this photo was taken on my phone, it is actually the same color as everything else, but no flash)

Here is my mid-level upgrade with vinyl I bought for my Cricut machine (with no car repair in mind).  (the difference in color is a bit more screaming than reality, because of the flash reflection)

If Joel likes it, but wants the high end upgrade, I will purchase a slightly darker shade of gray and extend the vinyl if he would like.  Not sure that he will care.  He didn't really seem to mind the original bad arm rest.

UPDATE: I could not get a darker vinyl, but Joel said he liked the new arm rest just fine!! Also I drove Joel's car while mine was getting an oil changed. I loved looking in his trunk! His car is clean as a whistle and his trunk screams...."I LOVE SPORTS"

Winter Warm up (Nov 13-14)

A little taste of show choir!

blast from the past  .... 5 years ago (before the gold dresses were purchased)

back to 2021

Here are the girls after first getting fitted with their spinny dresses! (I love how much they liked their dresses.....remember last year they wore tee-shirts and made one poor quality video to represent their entire show choir year)

I will get pictures of the shows at the dress rehearsals in January.  (The girls in Joel's group didn't even costumes yet.)

 

Ugly Sweater night at Festival of Choirs Practice

Who knew that a Christmas gift from 1990 would still be getting wear time 31 years later?

Ok- it is being worn in a somewhat ironic way....but I don't care.  It wasn't ugly in the 90s!  I tried to find a picture of Ken in the sweater (Matthew has worn it too), but I couldn't put my fingers on a photo  quickly.

 

Thanksgiving

 

Uncle Joe has a sweet new puppy named Dolly.  We met her briefly at Grandpa's birthday celebration

We were able to celebrate Thanksgiving with GPASCHILL! on Wednesday.  

We then dropped GPA at Paul and Colleen's house on our way to see Ken's folks

This is the photo we took right before the college kids left for Iowa City.  Little did we know that one of their tires would fail as would their spare-donut.  I am proud that Matthew was able to get a new replacement donut for his car on a Sunday in the middle of no-where Iowa!  (By that time Ken was in route to make sure all was well, but at the end of the day, Matthew didn't really need help!)

Halloween

Doing some catching up.

#1 Annual pumpkin carving.  Anna also went to a pumpkin carving for all the flutes in her marching band.  I love the fun things this group has done.  I also love that Ken likes to carve pumpkins....not in my skill set!

#2  Anna went trick or treating for canned goods again this year.  (not last year, but she also did this in 6th and 7th grade).  She picked out this costume because it doubles as PJs.

 

Mary and Gary come for a visit!

I fit Gary with his new hearing aids and then Mary and I spent a little time crafting. These are stockings that Leslie cross stitched.  We just sewed on the back and the hanging loop!  Aren't they lovely!