Ducks in a Row

The Holiday Spirit has finally settled in. I cannot believe how much I was dreading Christmas this year. Hunting season to Birthday to Thanksgiving to Holiday Craziness --- it was all proving too much for me. Add on top of that some tight budgets, and it's enough to make anyone grumpy. My mother-in-law gave me the book, Skipping Christmas (I think it's the same as the movie Christmas with the Krumps?), and it helped to read that. The whole Holiday Scramble gets a little too much for me. I'm going with mostly handmade gifts this year... We'll see how that goes! Of course, it would help if I actually carved out the time to make these said gifts. Oh well, there's always lovely Etsy to escape to!

I do have to say, my first weekend with Tim after Montana Hunting Season (deer, elk, but I hear that mountain lion just started - yikes!) was darn near blissful. I forgot how nice it was to make plans with your significant other. Although, I will confess, there was some getting used to each other and some 'discussions', but after awhile, it was great. Saturday included the Christmas Tree Hunt, my favorite hunting season of them all. The weather did not cooperate, so most of the hunting was done from the pickup. We put a couple of half-dead trees out of their misery. Little did we know, the trees were dripping of sap -- we've never dealt with trees this sappy before. Tim looked like Clark Griswold after getting that tree in our house...

Here's Sheri and the girls looking for trees ~


And here's the mighty "hunters" ~


Josie and I treated ourselves with a trip to Arts on Fire last Friday. We met our good friends, Elizabeth and Eliana there. Josie picked out a unicorn, and I ended up painting a little hexagon bowl. Pics of the end results will be posted next week ;)...

Here are the girls painting away ~


And here's a shot of Ms. Josie and multi-purple colored unicorn ~


Why I never thought about going here during Hunting Season, I don't know, but it's a wonderful place to take the kiddos. Honestly, I want to go back sans kiddos and get some real painting done ;)!