This time last year, and ending the year close to home!

This time of the year always brings reflections about the past year. We have been so blessed this year with good health and happiness. New Year's Eve always makes me think about what we were doing at this time last year!


This picture is of us last year in Rome on New Year's Eve in front of the Spanish steps. We had a wonderful time there! We traveled with a group from New Orleans, LA.

And for this year we are much closer to home!

Yesterday, on the eve of New Year's eve, Connor and I rode the Amtrak from Laurel MS to Meridian. My sweet sister was generous enough to take us to Laurel to catch the 10:10 train to Meridian. It was Connor's first time to ride the train. I have been on a train before....but was too young to remember it!

Austin, Connor and myself waiting on the train in Laurel, MS.

Connor and Austin in the dining car of the Amtrak.

We don't have big plans for tonight or tomorrow. It will be kinda nice to be at home or close to home.

Last year at this time, I didn't even know what a blog was. I discovered the world of blogging in May while playing around with family pictures. I have enjoyed blogging so much! It's amazing how many wonderful friends I've met through blogging.

I want to wish each of you a Happy New Year! You all have enriched my life through your blogs and your comments.

Thanks for stopping by,

Trash to Treasure: A New Urn

Welcome to Trash to Treasure! If you have something that is special to you that someone else didn't want, please consider creating a post and adding the link to your post to Mr. Linky below so we can all see it!

This week I would like to show you a jar or urn I bought at the Hope Village Thrift store here in town. This was only $3.00! The color looks great in my kitchen and compliments my other pottery. For now I'm using it for candy.....but may remove the lid and put utensils in it. Do any of you happen to know if it is part of a set? There are no special markings on it-just dishwasher safe on the bottom.

Be sure to link your treasures below. I look forward to visiting each of you! Thanks for stopping by!

Blue Monday????

Sally at Smiling Sally is hosting blue Monday! Visit her for lots of blue inspiration!

I'm really having a hard time getting started taking down the Christmas decor! This picture of Cooper wearing his blue pj's was made while things were a mess while putting the tree up, Just thinking about it has me wanting to leave it up! Guess I'm really feeling 'BLUE' today! (or lazy-LOL)

Do you sometimes feel a little 'let down' when it's all over? I do, but I'm also ready to be a little 'less' busy!

Today Connor and I are going to the movie with family and friends...so guess I won't get started today!

How about you-how long do you leave it all up???
Thanks for stopping by!

Hot Roast Beef Party Sandwiches

Here's a recipe that I made over the holidays for one of our gatherings. It is easy and tasty! This would make a great addition to a New Year's Eve gathering. The picture and recipe are both from the Southern Living website.

Prep: 20 min., Cook: 6 min., Bake: 25 min. This is an updated version of a recipe that used ham, cheese, and mustard. Eyes lit up at our tasting table when these came out of the oven.

Yield

Makes 12 to 16 servings

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts
• 2 (9.25-oz.) packages dinner rolls
• 2/3 cup peach preserves
• 1/2 cup mustard-mayonnaise blend
• 3/4 pound thinly sliced deli roast beef, chopped
• 1/2 pound thinly sliced Havarti cheese
• Salt and pepper to taste (optional)

Preparation

1. Heat walnuts in a small nonstick skillet over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, 5 to 6 minutes or until lightly toasted.

2. Remove rolls from packages. (Do not separate rolls.) Cut rolls in half horizontally, creating 1 top and 1 bottom per package. Spread preserves on cut sides of top of rolls; sprinkle with walnuts. Spread mustard-mayonnaise blend on cut sides of bottom of rolls; top with beef and cheese. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste, if desired. Cover with top halves of rolls, preserves sides down, and wrap in aluminum foil.

3. Bake at 325° for 20 to 25 minutes or until cheese is melted. Slice into individual sandwiches.

Note: To make ahead, prepare recipe as directed through Step 2, and freeze up to 1 month. Thaw overnight in refrigerator, and bake as directed in Step 3. For testing purposes only, we used Rainbo Dinner Time Rolls, Hellmann's Dijonnaise Mustard, and Boar's Head Londonport Top Round Seasoned Roast Beef.

A Pink Project

Beverly of How Sweet the Sound is hosting Pink Saturday. Please visit her blog for more Pink Saturday posts.
Do you know where these pink houses are located?
Here's a view of them at night....
The pink houses are part of the Make it Right Foundation started by Brad Pitt in New Orleans, LA. Each time a new home is finished for a hurricane Katrina victim, one of the temporary pink homes comes down.
You can read more about the Pink Project here.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have a home in New Orleans in the French Quarter near the French Market. We have always walked by their home to see if we would get lucky and spot them. Click here to see a picture.

I think it's great that they have done so much to help the people of this city!

Thanks for coming by and Happy Pink Saturday!

Naivee Travelers!

Do you think this man is honest and to be trusted or not?
Last year this time, we were getting ready to go to Italy. One night my husband and I and my friend Karen went around the corner late at night to have some Italian deserts. The Italian man in my picture was so nice and friendly. We paid with our debit card. He handed me the thing to punch in a code...I thought he wanted the pin number! Turned out, it was for the tip! And our pin number starts with 50 something! This meant we were giving him a tip of over $75.00 in American dollars!

Turned out he was honest, and even though he couldn't speak any English he voided the sale and communicated to us what had happened. Somehow I managed to communicate to him that we would tip with cash!
Moral of the story-if you travel overseas, try to learn to speak a little of their language! And use a credit card instead of a debit card! LOL

Visit Deborah at Pictures Pots and Pens for more Family Fotos on Friday!

Thanks for stopping by today!

Bethlehem Morning

Merry Christmas morning to you!

This Christmas morning I would like to share one of my favorite 'new to me' Christmas songs-Bethlehem Morning. I heard this for the first time at the Riley Center in Dec. of 2006 when Sandi Patty performed in Meridian.This song has a beautiful message and I wanted to share it with you this Christmas morning.





Thanks so much for stopping by, and I wish you the best Christmas ever!
Diane

Family Christmas!

Merry Christmas from my house to yours!

Last night we had our immediate family Christmas gathering. We started this tradition a couple of years ago to free Kelli and Chad from having so many places to go on Christmas eve! It was very special to me since it was also my birthday! The gifts were wonderful but the best gift was being together!

Here's a couple of snapshots of the table:

And a close up:

And finally one of my husband with our two grandsons.

Tomorrow we will be at Kelli's house for the Christmas dinner with grandparents, aunts and uncles, etc. The boys spent the night with me, and I'll take them home later in time for some other Christmas gatherings. Then I will spend some time cooking for tomorrow.

Hope all of you have a blessed Christmas eve and day!

Thank you for visiting me!

Trash to Treasure: Mecury Glass Candle Holders

I started not to post a Trash to Treasure this week since everyone is so busy with Christmas activities, but I just had to show you all my newest treasures!

Lots of blogging ladies have been using mercury glass candle holders in their Christmas decor. I really liked this look so when I was in Dirt Cheap ( a local salvage store) the other day I ran across these little round mercury glass candle holders! They were only $1.00 each and the orginal tag was 14.99 from Kohl's! I bought 4 of them.

Here's a close up:
I also found the blue tree for 80% off the original price which was pretty cheap. I used a silver tray from an estate sale and some silver goblets turned upside down with a votive on top. It is in my bedroom on the dresser.

So, if you have a treasure you want to link, please link to Mr. Linky!

And, my Christmas tree is one of the finalists in the Tip Junkie tour of trees. You can peek at it and vote for my tree if you want to-just click here.

Italian Nativity-Blue Monday

When we were in Italy last year, there were Nativity Scenes everywhere-in stores, restaurants, etc. Here is one that I photographed. Notice the blue clothes on most of the figures. Do you see a missing person?
Hopefully Mary was behind the king, and not really missing. Just an example of my amateur photography. LOL
The backdrop for this Nativity was plain brown paper like used for packaging. I wanted to try to copy this idea for my Nativity so I think that was why I took this picture. It looks like it had been crumpled up, then straighten out with a brownish glaze on it. I really liked the look but didn't get around to it..but there's always next year! Visit Smiling Sally to see more Blue Monday posts.

The Vatican Tree

While browsing blogs yesterday, I came across a blog , Water Once a Week that mentioned the tree at the Vatican.
That gave me the idea to post this picture I made last year. We were in Italy after Christmas last year, and here is a picture of the Christmas tree in Saint Peter's Square in front of the Vatican.

The Vatican has been putting up a tree since 1982. The tree this year is the tallest one that they've ever had and will be recycled into toys for needy children. The 109 foot high tree is from Austria, and is around 120 years old. It is a very interesting article and if you want to read more and see a picture, click here.

I feel very honored that I was able to photograph last years tree. Wish I was going back and could snap some pics of the new one!

Thanks for stopping by!

Special Cookie Plate

Beverly of How Sweet the Sound is hosting Pink Saturday. For lots of wonderful Pink Posts visit her blog! Thank you Beverly for being our hostess.

This Fitz and Floyd Santa plate with lots of pink embellishment is one I received as a gift from my aunt several years ago. I've used this one for milk and cookies for Santa on more than one occasion.

Do you have a special plate for cookies for Santa?

Hope you enjoyed peeking at my plate! have a happy Pink Saturday!

Christmas Past

Deborah of Pictures Pots and Pens is hosting Family Foto on Friday! Today I'm going to show you pictures of my own two children in 1985 as they were helping decorate the tree. This was one of the prettiest trees we ever bought. It was a real tree and was flocked with snow! I love their sweet smiles!
Here's Jonathan clowning around with a patchwork wreath I made when I was sewing. He was 4 years...a little younger than Connor. We still have this old chest and lots of the decorations...but not the wreath! LOL
Kelli always loved clothes! Here she is posting in front of our Buck Stove after she had helped hang the stockings!

Everything looks so 'Eighties' doesn't it? Dark wood paneling, etc! I cried when we moved from that house...there were so many memories there!

My Christmas pictures from years past are so special to me. I didn't have a fancy camera but always took lots of pictures and still have them all. My goal is to scan lots of my favorites and make slide shows of special pictures. The Christmas pictures are mostly done -I've already made a couple of DVD's of old Christmas pictures!

Thanks for coming by today!

Santa Tour

I don't really have a collection of Santa's but thought it might be fun to look around and see how many Santa's I could find displayed this year.

I've had this first one a long time. He has a long straw like beard and I usually hang him from the door knob!

Here's a cute candle holder Santa that I got at an ornament exchange a couple of years ago. In the back ground do you recognize a special little Santa?

I have 4 of these long legged Santa's from Dept. 56. I bought these several years ago on sale after Christmas. This year they are used in my Christmas card display.
And here is a light bulb Santa hanging on my tree...I have two of these.
This Santa sits in the middle of the North Pole Village houses on the sideboard.
I think Connor's favorite is the one on the sideboard. Cooper seems to like the long-legged ones...he walks up to those and says "Ho, Ho, Ho!"

For more Show and Tell Friday posts, visit Kelli at There's No Place Like Home.

And for more Holiday posts, visit Melissa at The Inspired Room.

Thanks for stopping by!

Today my husband and I celebrate our 37th wedding anniversary! It is hard to believe how fast the years have gone!

Here we are with my parents on December 18, 1971 at the wedding.
And here we are recently in front of Cinderella's coach in the Magic Kingdom at Disney World.
We have been so blessed in our marriage-two wonderful children who have made us so proud, and two beautiful little grandsons that we love and cherish!

And as the years go by I am more and more thankful to have such a wonderful and considerate husband

Thanks for coming by!

Barley Twist Pedestal

Here's another one of my one half price items from my Southern Living at Home party.

This pedestal is called the Barley Twist pedestal. This is actually the first time I've used it. Pictured here it has a multi-wick large candle in vanilla with red berries around the outside.

I'm really nearly brain dead as I write this post. Can you blogging ladies make some suggestions for other ways to use this pedestal? Do any of you have this piece?

I really like it-I just can't come up with much else to do with it!

Thanks for stopping by!

Trash to Treasure: A New Look for a Nativity

Welcome to Trash to Treasure! Please link you new to you treasures for us all to see using Mr. Linky at the bottom of this post.

For this week's treasure, I would like to show you one of the ways I displayed a Nativity. This tarnished silver plate platter came from an estate sale. At the end of the sale, the platter had not sold so my son who was helping with the sale brought it home. I used moss that came from a huge box of craft supplies I got for 25 cents this past summer.
My daughter decided a few years ago she wanted to start collecting Fontanini Nativity pieces. I started by giving her the Holy family. Later I bought her the stable, and it came with a Holy family-so I kept this one for myself. This is one of 5 Nativities I have scattered through the house, and for now it is my favorite. It is on a little lamp table close to the door and is one of the first things I notice when I walk in the room.

There is something about the simplicity of it that I really like!

For more Christmas posts, visit Kimba at a Soft Place to Land!

Thanks for stopping by, and don't forget to link to Mr. Linky!