K gift exchange for C and C

Hello Family -

Merry Christmas! Thanks to Mom and Chaz for our gifts this year. Chaz was afraid that his gift to Charles was lame - but we can't wait to pick out our Kansas City steaks! Yum! Mom prepared me that my gifts were phonetically. The candlesticks are wonderful additions to my Christmas mantle. Also, Mom gave me a K tree ornament. Mom wrapped up my gifts with beautiful paper, ribbon and gold snowflake ornaments. Izzy loves her puppy treat and toy too!



Charles and I did not exchange gifts, but decided to purchase a new grill in the coming months. We joked to say we woke up in our gift - the house!

We spent Christmas Day at Katherine and Mike's house. Before we opened up gifts, we had a yummy brunch of french toast, fruit and sausage. Stockings are always first, and every year the stocking theme is a bit different. This year, everyone purchased items for one person, with all the items starting with a letter. I had N (noodles, choc nuggets, nail file, nail polish) from Susan and Charles had L (Lowe's gift card, Little Debbies and Lamisil) from Sarah.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing, eating and drinking. Dinner was tasty - beef tenderloin, , potatoes, pineapple casserole, asparagus, rolls. My favorite is Mike's peach melba for dessert.

Check out our NEW hand made Adirondack chairs from Tommy and Sarah.

K and J share their Ks (REVISED)

Thanks to Lisa for continuing to post updates. Here are our K's.

Kelly received some knickers (a la Victoria's Secret) and some linen cocktail knap

kins with KJW monogramed on them. Thanks Lisa. Oh and Mom sent me some really tantalizing teas from her trip to Chicago. Paris was my favorite!

And, loved the deer droppings--I want the recipe for those nuts. Oh, and Jay got "knothing" yet from Brian. It's "in the mail" we're told. Wink wink knod knod. :) Kidding....we got Lisa's box o' goodies today. That is, box of wonderful K gifts. See the picture here of the items. Can you make them out?

Hanging out at home today...NO WHERE to go, thankfully. We rented some DVDs yesterday after talking with Lisa and getting a few recommendations. We watched Inglorious Bastards today--loved it. Very well done. Jay is making homemade chix noodle soup right now. Then we'll watch Star Trek or The Farmer Astronaut or Anger Management later. So much relaxing to do...

Had a nice dinner with Woody and Dorothy last night. We exchanged gifts. We received a few free vacation trips using Woody's time share...w

herever we want to go. We also joint gifted all four of us a Wii console and games. I ordered online. But i knew they'd be here late. They were really excited about the idea of spending time together learning how to play and having fun, and exercising.

We are all so blessed to have family and friends around to enjoy. Love you all. Attached is also a fun picture from Christmas Eve at Anita's. From the left: Jay, Taylor, Zeb (Taylor's boyfriend), Anita, Jim (Jordan's finance), Cherie, Kelly, Jordan, and David (Cherie's husband). See the jammies--a new tradition this year.

Kelly and Jay

Christmas a la Blackledge

Happy Holiday to all.

We have been enjoying Brian's long break home. He doesn't go back to MO until Jan 4th then back to Maryland sometime in Feb. We celebrated Christmas eve dinner with neighbors George and Claude and their kids. She treated us with prime rib and lobster and I provided the salad, veggies, rolls and appetizers. I enjoyed setting the table with Ruthie's china. Brady spent Christmas with Dean and came home around 1pm. We opened gifts and to Brady's surprise (not) he received a new ipod touch. Brian and Brady added to my Brighton collection and Charles and Mom added to Brian's bourbon stash. My awesome sister, CC added Knives, kookie sheet, and and a wine Keeper stopper.

We will be visiting Brian's family Monday and celebrating New Years together at home with some friends. I certainly enjoyed not working that retail grind. I look forward to continuing my clinicals and classes in the new year.

Here's some pics of our tree going up with Shannon and Brady decorating with DAK's help, of course.

Love to you all, Can't wait to hear the next gifting letter, CC.

Lisa

J&K Christmas 2009

We find the tree on the property. Jay cuts it and brings it in. Then cuts it again, and again, until finally it fits in the house. See me behind the tree. The tree is 16 feet tall, just barely licking the ceiling on the second floor. We learned this year we need more ornaments to fill the tree. But all in all, it looks pretty good.

Here are a couple of pictures for Papa John to show the shop pad that Jay has started. Waiting for the weather now to cooperate with pouring the full floor of concrete. The whole thing measures 40ft by 60ft.

Merry Christmas to everyone.

Christmas Day 2009 Timelapse

Opening presents never happened so fast. This is a companion piece to the time lapse of the decorating of the tree. Opie gets his share of screen time. Look forward to the inevitable timelapse of the dismantling of the Christmas tree to complete the trilogy. Merry Christmas all.

Getting the Cronley Christmas Tree 2009

Here it is, the annual Cronley tradition. The timelapse was a nifty trick this year.



Here is the jewel of the Christmas video. A time lapse of our putting up the Christmas tree, two hours condensed into in one minute, 47 seconds. My thanks to a little piece of freeware called Gawker that allowed me to use my webcam to do this. When shooting this, I had to hide the on-screen preview otherwise Lily's face would have been front and center for most of the video.

Christmas is brought to you by Izzy and the letter 'S'

Commence Operation Christmas Decorating

Mantel is still a work in progress - I am worried the magnolia leaves are not going to make it much longer than a week at a time. After picture to come - I am crafting the last piece of my "vision".

Table a la Christmas stuff... every flat surface in the house is covered!

Brodie even has a bit of the Holiday Spirit!

We are about 95% decorated at the Sumner house. The tree is up, but needs a few more strands of lights and ornaments. The outside lights and wreaths need to be hung. Christmas gifts are purchased, but not completely. I am done with the 'K' gifts! Yes - you read it correctly! Egg nog is in the refrigerator and spiced rum in the cabinet! Fa la la la... and deck the halls, Christmas bells are ringing!