Happy New Year

Have a wonderful New Year from my family to yours!!!

I've been busy- at least that's my excuse

I hadn't blogged in a while because I'd been busy.

Busy with last minute Christmas stuff.

Busy with parties. (kids)

Busy with dentist appointments and other appointments.

And just busy baking.

We made these blueberry thumbprint cookies.
Then we made these Oreo truffles. Or Oreo balls as I call them.

And we even made these little Mexican shortbread cookies in 6 different shapes.

I was even able to make some tamales this year. It had been a couple of years since I'd made any. They are a lot of work for just one person. But boy are they sure yummy.

So now that I have eaten all that I made, I think it's time to get some exercising done so that my hips don't become wider loads.

Any ideas on how to get my workout started?

The polyester navy blue 'marry me suit'

When AB was 4 and my neighbor's little girl E was 5, AB decided he was going to get a 'marry me' suit. He bugged and bugged me until I took him to the store to find a 'marry me' suit.

Him and E were going to get married. Since I didn't want to spend lots of money on a suit I knew AB would never wear, I took him to Goodwill.

We looked and looked and no suit was good enough. Until he found this navy blue polyester suit that was 4 sizes too big and looked like it was from the 70's.

It had the matching jacket and pants. The pants were bell-bottomed on the bottom and narrow on top. Can you say Welcome Back Kotter?

So I splurged and paid $5 for this 'marry me' suit. AB was so proud of his purchase. We got home and he put it on. Of course it was way too big, but it didn't matter to him.

Across the street he went to E's house. She would always play dress up with her Cinderella dress or whatever she had. AB went to show her his new 'marry me' suit. I'm not sure if he asked her to marry him, but he came home with her trailing him.

As the years went by, this suit was used for dress up. Never left the house. Until one time that AB decided he wanted to wear it to church. He had grown up some so it wasn't as big as it used to be.

Here he is with his suit on last year. On the way to church.
Since the pants had to be rolled up, it didn't really matter that they were bell bottomed.

Fast forward one year. AB has found this suit again and tried it on last week. He was quite happy that this 'marry me' suit fit him perfect now. The bell bottom of the pants are quite wide. The tightness of the upper part of the pant fits perfectly. The jacket is a little tight, but to AB it fits perfect.

So perfect that he wanted to wear this polyester hideous suit to church last week.

I distracted him and he forgot all about it.

I'm going to have to get rid of this suit before he decides to wear it out of the house again.

A tradition

During the Christmas season, I always try to do things with the boys. You know, traditions.

When I was growing up, our tradition was finding that perfect 'live' tree, then bringing it home, decorating it and then watching that 'live' tree die because we always forgot to water it.

Of course, we also had other traditions. Like baking cookies, making candy, making tamales and eating.

I still do all those with the boys. I sometimes get so behind on what I'm doing that I end up making it all myself.

But one thing that we have done for the last three years is put their hand print on a tree skirt.

I bought some red muslim and cut it out. You Martha's out there would hem and haw and whatever you do to sew and make it look pretty.

I don't. I just cut it. And left it that way. Without being hemmed up. So there.

Anyway, the boys then play with the silver or gold paint before the decide that they have enough paint on their hands and place it on the fabric. AKA the tree skirt.

They have fun doing this and since I'm a sucker for hand prints, I have fun watching it.