Sisterhood - a double 60th celebration

My sister-in-law Janie and I decided we'd celebrate our 60th birthdays with a road trip, to Versailles, Missouri to visit the Shady Gables Tea room. 

These were one of the many gifts we received. Thank you Marla for the adorable wine glasses. (Sorry mine was backwards)

On the  bus ride there, I believe two bottles of wine were consumed. But I will plead the 5th here.

We were greeted with a Happy Birthday board.

It paid to be at the smaller table, as we were served our tea first.

These girls are still waiting for their liquid refreshments. They had over 100 varieties of teas to order.


Here is the menu we all chose. 



"The Queen's Choice" Full Afternoon (Luncheon) Tea Meal(Served from 10:00am-3:00pm)
Choice of Tea*
Rosemary Chicken Salad Croissant
Individual Quiche Lorraine
Various Homemade Buttermilk Scones
Imported Lemon Curd
Assorted Savory Finger Sandwiches
Delectable Sweets
Fresh Fruit
Frozen Fruit Sorbet

Look at this food. As my cousin-in-law, Rita, would say, it's all in the presentation!

Raspberry sorbet, delicious but way too small of a portion. I could have eaten a pint at least. 

Janie and I were each presented with a tea pot shaped sugar cookie after our meal. 

Thank you to my son Jeremy, his wife Lori, my daughter Sarah, and her husband Rusty for the birthday gift of the bus ride!  It was a fun trip!  After dinner Terry, the owner, gave Jeremy his sympathy for driving the bus!

We all posed outside of Shady Gable for one last group photo. 


The bus ride home I believe involved 4 or 5 bottles more of wine. Just sayin'.


Thank you to all my sister-in-laws, my mother-in-law, my BFF, my daughter-in-law, and nieces for a great time and great gifts!

The least I could do was give them all a goodie bag. It included candy, emery boards, a bottle of my homemade hand lotion and a bar of the blacksmith's hand made soap. 


Here's to another great 60 years!!

It's almost P-A-R-T-Y time!!!

Saturday morning can't come soon enough. There will  be a sisterhood tea party involving 12 women and alcohol may or may not be involved..

Just like all the kids parties, I made goodie bags for all my guests.

I even jazzed up my hat!

Tomorrow we will travel in style.


Stay tuned!!!

The 3rd annual Sisterhood Christmas party

The Sisterhood party is always so much fun. Today's theme was 'get comfortable in pjs and sweatshirts'.

The tables were all set.

The young nieces were ready to go. 

Our hostesses Janie and Grace started uncovering all the food. There were meat and cheese trays, veggie trays, stuffed mushrooms (thank you Mandy), chicken spaghetti casserole (thank you Marla), sausage pinwheels (thank you Leah), warm blackberry pie (thank you Darlene), little smokies (thank you Karen), chocolate peanut butter bars (thank you Lori), a few pitchers of screwdrivers, and I brought a marinated cheese tray and raspberry lettuce salad.

Lot of conversations were going on at a time.

Lizzie awaits her screw driver. No wait, she had plain orange juice!

Lizzie and I played bingo.

While bingo was going on upstairs . . .

 . . . the guys were playing cards in the basement.

Everyone was letting Lizzie try on their hats.

We played a games of charades. One team would do the charade and the other team had to sing a song.

It was a great day of being a kid again, with adult food and drinks.  Thank you to all my sister-in-laws and family for bringing out the kid in all of us!

Finally the Sisterhood Bridal shower.

The shower finally got started, just a short 24 hour delay due to the Mid-Missouri snow storm that dumped about 8 to 10 inches of snow.

Drinks were first on the agenda. Grace made the best spiced cider drink. It had cream, brown sugar, cinnamon sticks, and of course apple cider in it. you heat it up, and then in each individual cup add whipped cream and a shot of apple schnapps. Delicious!


The bar area was very popular. The food was good too, honey glazed chicken nuggets, sweet chili meatballs, garden salad, homemade hot rolls, sausage stuffed mushrooms, and cupcakes iced in the brides colors of purple and green.

Here we are, mother and daughter wearing each others dresses. I had to really suck up to get into her dress. My wedding dress she is wearing was made by me, and cost a whopping $36.16 for the fabric. That's a looooong way from what they cost now!

Here Sarah is with her other mother Diane, my bff. (More on that later). Notice both mothers are in the same dress color. We both had the same wrapping paper on our gifts too, quit by accident.

Lizzie really got into helping her aunt Sarah open gifts. She was just making up for what she missed by being sick at Christmas. In fact, Lizzie is wearing her Christmas dress for the first time.

Sarah and her cousin Melissa. These girls went all through school together, they are just 3 months apart in age.

For neighbor Kathy, this was her first time at a Sisterhood party. Let me tell you she did an excellent job (thanks to her mother's attic) choosing her outfit.

In side her late Grandmother Meller's purse she even found a piece of gum left behind for the new purse owner.

Check out Grandma's vintage shoes too. Unbelievable that are a perfect fit!

I am so glad everyone came out on a very cold night. Thanks Sisters! It was a fun time regardless of the weather.

Finally this gift brought me to tears. It's from my BFF. A sisterhood gift.

Sisterhood December 2010

Yeppers, that time has rolled around again. Time for the meeting of the Sisterhood.

Host sisters Janie and Grace prepared a wonderful brunch.
If I remember correctly there was:
Bacon and egg casserole
Ham and egg casserole
Cheesy Potato soup
Blueberry french toast (stuffed with cream cheese and topped with blueberry sauce)
Link sausage
Cinnamon rolls
Coffee cake
Fruit salad
Potato breakfast casserole
as well as plenty of wine, mimosas, eggnog, coffee, hot tea and soda.

The table settings were so pretty with green tablecloths, lace doilies, crystal stem ware, too many forks, and lots of candles.

Before we ate Elizabeth posed in front of one of Janie's 10 trees.

Reindeer Callie and Santa Ellen smile for the camera.

Marla and daughter give a quick smile.

Annie, Ellen, Jessica, and Melissa serenaded us with Christmas carols.

Lori and Elizabeth are all decked out. Oh I forgot to tell you, the theme for today's event was gaudy Christmas sweater. Not that Lori's was . . .

Elizabeth is enjoying her powdered sugar donut while sitting on my lap.

Darlene is doing her annual Christmas reading. It went something like this:

HOLIDAY EATING TIPS

1. Avoid carrot sticks. Anyone who puts carrots on a holiday buffet table knows nothing of the Holiday spirit. In fact, if you see carrots, leave immediately. Go next door, where they're serving rum balls.

2. Drink as much eggnog as you can. And quickly. It's rare... You cannot find it any other time of year but now. So drink up! Who cares that it has 10,000 calories in every sip? It's not as if you're going to turn into an eggnog-alcoholic or something. It's a treat. Enjoy it. Have one for me. Have two. It's later than you think. It's Christmas!

3. If something comes with gravy, use it. That's the whole point of gravy. Gravy does not stand alone. Pour it on. Make a volcano out of your mashed potatoes. Fill it with gravy. Eat the volcano. Repeat.

4. As for mashed potatoes, always ask if they're made with skim milk or whole milk. If it's skim, pass. Why bother? It's like buying a sports car with an automatic transmission.

5. Do not have a snack before going to a party in an effort to control your eating. The whole point of going to a Holiday party is to eat other people's food for free. Lots of it. Hello?

6. Under no circumstances should you exercise between now and New Year's. You can do that in January when you have nothing else to do. This is the time for long naps, which you'll need after circling the buffet table while carrying a 10-pound plate of food and that vat of eggnog..

7. If you come across something really good at a buffet table, like frosted Christmas cookies in the shape and size of Santa, position yourself near them and don't budge. Have as many as you can before becoming the center of attention. They're like a beautiful pair of shoes. If you leave them behind, you're never going to see them again.

8. Same for pies. Apple, Pumpkin, Mincemeat. Have a slice of each. Or if you don't like mincemeat, have two apples and one pumpkin. Always have three. When else do you get to have more than one dessert? Labor Day?

9. Did someone mention fruitcake? Granted, it's loaded with the mandatory celebratory calories, but avoid it at all cost. I mean, have some standards.

10. One final tip: If you don't feel terrible when you leave the party or get up from the table, you haven't been paying attention. Re-read tips; start over, but hurry, January is just around the corner. Remember this motto to live by:
"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand and wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!"

Grace is leading the nieces in a little song and dance routine.

Of which Elizabeth had had enough!

And then, we all, me included, performed a rendition of Rudolph the red nose reindeer.

The five sisters also sang for us.

Larraine's sweatshirt. (Sorry that's all that would fit in the space)

Our annual group picture!

Off we went in multi vehicles for the house tours. My house was first. We then called Mom on the web cam in Texas!

Another outstanding sisterhood party!



I leave you with Grace leading us in song.

Thrift shop buys

Today the Blacksmith and I went to the resell it shop. We were on a mission to find holiday sweaters. You see there is another Sisterhood party this Sunday. If you are curious as to what the parties are all about, please click on that link.

The hubby found this beautiful red felt hat!

It will match both of these sweaters. One for me and one for the DIL.

I even found the little granddaughter this cute outfit. The purse is to die for, it's a Liz Claibourne and are you ready . . . it cost a nickel!

Our total bill was $7.35 and we walked out with a smile. I'm taking him shopping with me again. He found both of the sweaters while I was shopping for Elizabeth!

Stay tuned, party is just 4 days away!

The Sisterhood Christmas gathering

The sisterhood held its first annual Christmas house tour party today.

Warning this is a long picture post, so I will make it very little reading.

This is our group picture.


The day started at 11:00 with brunch. Darlene then read "Twas the night before Christmas. Grace's reading included everyone wish list from Santa, her version.

As usual there was beautiful food, and way too much food. Alcohol was involved too.





The little girls always enjoy the dress up as much as we big girls. (I really love it)











Whether there was alcohol involved in this lap sitting picture or not, I plead the 5th.





After a quick kitchen clean up, we loaded 3 chauffeured vans for house tours.

There were trees, lot of trees to see.

This is Annie's tree.

This is Sarah's place, she lives in Edmond Oklahoma. It was too far for the sisterhood to travel. We missed you Sarah. Love Mom!










Darlene's rotating tree.












The first of Grace's 10 trees.










Janie's pink tree. She had more than 5 and less then 10, but I forgot the actual count. And alcohol was not involved on my part.

Jenny's tree.

Lorie N. tree.











Mandy's tree









Marla's real tree.







Larraine's tree. For the record, she was not home, but her house was left unlocked.











Sheila's tree. She too was not home, however her children were kind enough to let a bunch of crazy ladies come in out of the cold.






Here I am shutting the door after they left the viewing of my 6 trees.










I had even set the dinner table (okay it's really the kitchen island) with my Christmas best.







Santa left his suit behind in my living room . . .








Another great day!