December 20, 2010

Family Pics

At the beginning of December we visited the most fantastic photographer, Buster Clem, of Clem Photography, to have family pictures done.  He took sports and Senior pictures for Tim and my brother Chad, and we went to church with him for years.  He and his wife do an amazing job, we were SO excited with the way our pictures turned out!

The whole family

Just the guys...and a dog

My sweet lil' family

My beautiful Mama and Daddy

Me and brother (this is my favorite...I think)

And the barn pic :)

December 02, 2010

I'm trying to catch up....

but am pretty sure I'm failing miserably!  It was so easy updating facebook, but when I blog I feel like it takes me FOR.EV.ER to say anything important, and uploading pictures isn't as easy either.  So, I'll try to do better from now on...but I'm not making any promises!

We had a great Thanksgiving, my Mom's family, plus two other families from church came to our house, and as with most families, we had enough for food seconds, thirds, and probably tenths!  I made the mashed potatoes, dressing, and pumpkin roll, and apparently they were all a huge hit, so I was very happy - it was my first time making dressing, and it was my Mom's recipe, so I needed it to taste just like hers....and it did!  The Saturday after we went to Tim's parents to celebrate with his Mom's family and had a great time there as well.  And my dressing got rave reviews again :)  I felt really good, because his Aunt Scarlet's husband said it tasted just like his mothers, and they had been trying to duplicate it for 17 years!  Any time someone says something is as good as their moms I feel like that the ultimate compliment.

We are SO ready for Christmas at my house, we decorated the Saturday before Thanksgiving, because I just couldn't wait.  We went that Friday and saw HP7, then went to Wal-Mart and bought a huge, gorgeous, pre-lit tree and decorated the whole house the next day.  Since this is the biggest house we've had since getting married it took all day to get it done just how I wanted it.  But I also cleaned things out, reorganized our storage area, and had to decorate all the garland, so it shouldn't take as long next year.  Jack has really liked the tree, he walks up to it every day, waves his hand over it and says "bribby", which means pretty.  He LOVES the lights, and did great the first week it was up, but the last three days he's turned into a little terror constantly pulling the same 3 ornaments off!  I was expecting it, but he fooled me by leaving it alone when it was first up!

We've got a bazillion things going on this month; a Christmas party at our house for families our ages from church, family pictures, Riley's birthday party, Christmas for Tim's family at our house, a progressive dinner for the youth group...and that's just what we're doing at home, not including all the other fun stuff that's going on!  I hope everyone is already enjoying a wonderful holiday season, and eating up this cold weather, because it never lasts, does it?  I like the cold, especially when it's sunny so today is my favorite kind of day!  And lastly, the work in our mudroom has finally begun!  Woohoo!  We've got one new door in, and sometime at the end of this week they're going to be replacing the flooring and the door that goes into our backyard - this makes me VERY happy!

Here's a look at what our home looks like all dressed up for Christmas!

I am so, so, so totally in love with my tree!  It's all green and silver and packed full of ornaments, just like I've always wanted.

Riley's first Christmas baby shoes :)

And Jack's.  It took a long time to find a pair last year that were similar to big brothers!

I had so much fun decorating the top of my china hutch.  There are silver glittery swirly things (how's that for a description?) tucked into the garland.

The plate rail - I didn't want to remove all my green glassware, but it needed to be "Christmased Up".

And the buffet....one of these days I would like to have enough of a village to put them around the plate rail, but it will take a looooong time to collect that many!

I found these adorable little things at Hobby Lobby where all the decor is for the miniature trees.  I love how they catch the light!

The garland :)  We've also got it over our two LR windows with a flower and 2 silver ornaments on each corner.

Kohl's had these gorgeous sequin covered candles, and I couldn't pass them up, they were less than $5 a piece and are so festive!

This is pretty much the only decorating I did in the LR besides a couple of cute metal Santas, because Jack wants to "touch" everything.  And touch is putting it mildly, lol! 

And this is totally unrelated, but this is my awesome new kitchen sink and faucet.  It's so shiny.  And white.  And CLEAN!