Moments... Milestones...Traditions!

"Life isn't a matter of milestones but of moments."
-Rose F. Kennedy

November 27th, 1976
I was married to Brian so will be celebrating our
 35th MILESTONE ANNIVERSARY

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take,
but the moments that take our breath away."
-Author Unknown

 Beau and Mariah at their
"SANTA"
visit this year!!!!
Such a cute expression...
BEAU-HO HO!!!

Here is Jana on SANTA'S knee at
the annual Kiwanis Christmas party
in December of 1981.
Jana is nearly one in this photo,
and she had the same impression of
SANTA as Beau did this year!

"All great achievements require time."
- Maya Angelou

Mariah's Kindergarten picture this year...
She is growing up so fast!

"Don't go through life, grow through life."-Erin Butterworth 

A picture from Thursday at Jana's
Beau was much happier when returning home
from his Santa visit...
  getting such loving from his big sister, Mariah! 

BEAU the little superman
when we babysat him Thursday 

Poppa Brian carrying on the family traditional
 little German verse
 "HUP HUP FAIR CHIN!"
BEAU loved it and kept coming back for more!!!

A couple more TRADITIONS at this time of year...
NUTS & BOLTS
and STARBUCKS in the SEASONAL CUP! 

The tree is up again... with all the TRADITIONAL
decorations past and present.
So many remind me of mom and her 28 years of
selling AVON! 

Some fun TRADITIONAL favorites by the fireplace!  

A yummy little snack to help me with my decorating yesterday,
...a little chocolate fondue and apple slices!


AS I sit down to write today's blog,
I am sipping  my new
"HOLIDAY TRADITION"
coffee called "Winter Carnival"
out of the white mug with black dots
that says this inside...
"LIVE, LAUGH, LOVE"


I received an email from my son,
Colin this week. It is always nice to
hear from him. He doesn't connect often,
but when ever he does, it makes my day!
He is sounding very happy in life at the moment... working hard,
and enjoying his life in Montreal.

Thursday ...
Jana took the kids to Midtown Plaza
to see SANTA. It was a successful trip
as far as Mariah was concerned,
however, Beau on the other hand,
 wasn't too thrilled to sit on the knee
of this random chubby dude
in the red suit with a big beard...
the photo is adorable none the less!

Jana was not really into SANTA,
 either when she was little like Beau,
as you can see by the photo above!

Brian and I babysat Beau on Thursday when Jana, Nels and Mariah went to do her Kindergarten parent watch day.
Beau was loving his time with us that day
in his own comfort zone!

Yesterday I started to get out the
Christmas
decorations once again.
It is always fun to rediscover the
little traditional ornaments that have been tucked away for the past year.
I have so many memories of my mom
when putting out the decorations,
as many of them came from her days
of selling Avon.
She sold it for 28 years... giving me many ornaments from the traditional avon
books of those years.

I have lots of memories of my dad when doing the decorating, too.
One of those is the "SQUINT TEST"!
Dad used to stand back and squint looking
 at the tree lights and if they looked evenly balanced during the "SQUINT TEST"...
we were good to go on the decorations!
That was back in the day when we
added the lights to the REAL TREES!
Nowadays they come with lights already installed on the artificial trees.

Yesterday when I put our tree up and
plugged it in, the mid section of our lights
were not working, much to my dismay!
So I ended up having to get more lights
so it wasn't just twinkling top and bottom.
I then gave it the
TRADITIONAL "SQUINT TEST"
before proceeding with the rest of the trims!

We have so many things in our cupboard
where the Christmas stuff lives between seasons, so it is still a work in progress.
Infact, often I am bringing stuff up from that cupboard leading up to the
25th of December!

It is always an ongoing event and soon
after the BIG DAY has come and gone,
it is time to put it all away again...
(That is the tradition I find harder to do!)

Tomorrow I will
CELEBRATE 35 YEARS
OF WEDDED BLISS!
It is hard to believe that many years have gone by already, but I still remember my
wedding day like it was only yesterday...
I have so many fond memories of that day
and every thing in between which
leads us up to this milestone.
I feel very fortunate to have such
a wonderful and loving husband, too.

My Seize the Day calendar says this 

for today and tomorrow...

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. "
-Albert Einstein

So on that quote...
here is my rhyme of the day!

So many memories...
in so many years,
So many smiles, laughs and some tears.
So many trees, with many a trim...
Many cups filled right up to the brim.
Pictures with Santa...
some happy... some sad...
All are still memories of times that I've had.
Traditions come out every year at this time,
They stir up the memories
and all are sublime.
All these remind me of my 
journey through life,
Way back to the day that I became a wife.
And even before then... 
so much to remember,
Tis the season of joys...
leading up to December!