Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Christmas Eve..........


Our grandson is fun to shop for and we found just the thing.  When you press the note on the yellow circle you get ten minutes of music and low light.  My wife found another stuffed animal and an outfit for him to wear.  He is just ten months old now and we buy larger sizes by many months bigger as he is growing fast. We are told that he has seven teeth now.   We will see him in real life in a few days.


We did complete the bench on Monday.  The guy came to pick it up while the paint was still drying.  I did get a call about an hour later and he said the name Alex was Alexa.   We had Christmas shopping to complete so I stopped by his house on the way to Des Moines and put an A at the end of Alex.   The shout of joy I was going to give didn't happen as I didn't get time to finish the walnut frame.  I will do it on Thursday and can deliver it over the weekend.  Then by that time I won't want to shout for joy anymore.


Looking out the large picture window I can get a shot of the snow fall we had a few days ago.  It shows that I don't have the sidewalk cleared.  It was -11 degrees F. last night and our high today was to be 15 degrees F. I have a downstairs bathroom that I replumbed a few years back through two closets so that the pipes wouldn't freeze.  The wall between the one closet and the bathroom next to the north wall of the house gets cold and it did freeze the cold water shut.  It was not a very hard freeze and two hours after placing the heater near the closet door it thawed back out.  It was crystalized cold but not pipe breaking freeze.  I was glad the cold water was back open as it shuts that bathroom down for good.  I will leave the cold water dripping tonight and by tomorrow night we will have warmed up outside.



My bird picture for the day features this junco.  I took these feeder down from outside the dining room window and it was too ice covered out there to put it back.  So we watch the birds feed here outside out kitchen window. On my Larry's Photo a Day I have a shot of a red-bellied woodpecker enjoying the suet at the free standing feeder.


We have Christmas eve services to attend this evening.  We will be alone so we will come back to chips and dip, crackers and cheeses, and some crab salad on crackers.  We have a large supply of fudge and cake around and my wife fixed her traditional mince meat pie.  It smelled so good when it was baking.  We have wrapping of presents left to do for each other and for the Chicago crew that we are going to visit at the end of the week. Christmas eve is the end of the rush and time to enjoy the next few days.  It will be fun to just unwind now and rest.   I hope all are well out there.  Thanks for stopping by today.


4 comments:

Far Side of Fifty said...

Very cool bench! Looks like you are almost ready for Christmas. We are set...still have some cooking to do but I will have plenty of help with that! It was -36 last night, but it has warmed up and it is snowing now. Looks like we will have a fresh white Christmas for sure:)

Anonymous said...

The bench is so sweet.
How fun to enjoy your grandson for Christmas. I know you all will enjoy your time together at the end of the week.
I don't envy your cold temps. The bird sure is pretty.
We will be alone for Christmas and we have plans to snack on cheese/crackers, nuts etc.
Christmas blessings to you both.
(I have lost my blog photos for good and am having fits with blogger - probably will only use facebook for an occasional post)

Gardener on Sherlock Street said...

Merry Christmas!

Beatrice P. Boyd said...

How wonderful for you both, Larry, that you will see (and spoil) your grandson . . . it's allowed! We did not shop for ourselves, but did so for the grandkids with no electronics this year and not too excessive as well and it felt good. It's not about the number of gifts anyway, but time spent together.