Life Lately

Hello again after a bit of a hiatus.  How was everyone's Christmas?  Ours was good...sad but good.  We ended up hosting Christmas Eve dinner at our house for my husband's family.  Thank goodness he has a small family so we're able to have all of them over and not be bursting out the seams of the house.  Okay, who am I kidding...we're bursting out the seams of our house with just our family of 6. Really though, for the one night, it was actually okay.  I learned a lot about myself that day, mainly that I'm not a hostess with the mostest and cooking dinner for more people than you're used to is a lot of work.

An old family favorite that my mom used to make - whipped jello!

My older girls were a huge help to us on Christmas Eve and in the days leading up to it.  I found them   cleaning/organizing/hiding the clutter.  They also helped prep the foods that we could prep a day or two in advance.  Probably their favorite part was the cookie baking.  We had so many yummy treats for our guests (and tons leftover).  I only forgot two things for our dinner that night - either corn or peas for my father-in-law and also to thaw the Cool Whip.  Whomp, whomp.  Pumpkin pie just isn't the same when using Reddi Whip instead.  For future reference, I should probably make a list and check it twice. 😉

I stayed up way too late wrapping presents on Christmas Eve after the kids went to bed.  2 o'clock in the morning was actually an early Christmas Eve as I've been known to stay up until 4 wrapping gifts in the past.  We woke up Christmas morning around 10 and discovered that our almost 14 year old Maltese, Gracie, had passed away.  In our gut, we were sure it was because she had been given too much prime rib fat the night before from our guests.  When I asked them to stop feeding her and the reply was to continue, I was annoyed.  So facetiously I said to them, "at least if she dies tomorrow, we'll know she had a good last meal." All I was doing was trying to make them feel bad for continuing to feed her.  Instead we ended up with a dead dog.  We had our vet do a necropsy (an autopsy for animals) and she told us that Gracie's heart was slightly enlarged.  We're still just so confused as to why she suddenly died from this heart issue when we've never had any heart issues diagnosed.  We knew she was old, in less than one month she would have turned 14.  But in our hearts and my gut, we feel like all the extra food from the night before is what contributed to her passing suddenly.

Gracie and I in the middle of November 2018.

Was Santa good to you this Christmas? Who's ready for a fresh start in the New Year?