Christmas is almost here!

Christmas cookies made...

Christmas gifts made and wrapped...

Christmas party finished...

And soon to have sleeping children who will awake on Christmas morning to open presents!  Ron and I are super excited for Christmas this year now that the kids are a bit older.  Ronnie is already anticipating it!  But most of all, we will be sure to share the true reason for the season with our kids, the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  We will read the children's bible story and watch the children's video about the nativity.  Looking forward to it all!  Merry Christmas to you and yours!

Our Christmas cards!!

Well, I ended up choosing a different card design than the ones I blogged about.  But I LOVE how they turned out!  They arrived last night, so I filled them out and mailed them today.  Here is the front of the card:

The inside has a large photo of our whole family with our names underneath it.  And the message says: Merry Christmas
"She will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." Matthew 1:21


Thank you Shutterfly for the wonderful FREE cards!! :)

Baking with my friend Mandy

My friend Mandy posted on Facebook last week that she had tons of whole wheat flour and eggs and was going to do some baking.  She wondered if anyone would like to join her, so I did!  We are like- minded when it comes to eating healthy, natural foods, so I was thrilled to be able to spend some time in the kitchen with her whipping up some yummy recipes.  Her son Hunter is in the hospital recovering from his bone marrow transplant for his leukemia (click on the "help Hunter blast leukemia" link for his Facebook page).  Her husband is staying in the hospital with him, so Mandy is home alone with the kids, and her wonderful friend Tawnie who is staying with her right now.  We had a great time baking up a bunch of different things to try.  All of which tasted great!

Tasty muffins!

Mandy's youngest two children, such hams!! (Almost 5 year old Ronin was the bone marrow donor for her bigger brother, she is such a brave little girl!)

Just some of the mess we made. :)

Me and Mandy.

Hamming it up again with the cheesy smiles!

Mandy was taking out the peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, while Drayken was spitting out the piece of thumbprint cookie he didn't want.  LOL!

These scrambled egg muffins were fantastic!  Like mini quiches!

Dishing out the muffins while Tawnie does dishes for us. :)

Drayken just cracked me up!  He was up on the chair playing with the radio.

A Shutterfly Christmas

I am new to Shutterfly, but so far I have been pleased with them!  I signed up for a new account a couple months ago and received 75 FREE prints!  I had not printed any photos in a long time, so it was fun to be able to get copies of some of the great photos we took this summer.  I had edited some on-line and they turned out so neat!  I kept some for us, and also put some together as Christmas photo gifts for both sets of grandparents.  So right now they are offering bloggers 50 FREE photo cards!  So I am going through their awesome selection of Christmas photo cards.  I like this one as well as this one and this one and this cute vintage one.  It won't be easy to pick out my favorite, but I will eventually narrow it down.  Here are some of the photos I am thinking of using:

In addition to their great card designs, I also love Shutterfly's calendars!  These are a great gift for grandparents, or just for yourself.  Something that I have not seen at many other sites is the option to have your photos made into canvas wall art.  This is neat!  I may have to look into this for a family photo next year.  One other item that I think is neat are their thank you cards.  What a great way to send a thanks to those who attended your child's birthday party!  Fun stuff!  What are you doing for your Christmas cards this year?

Giving thanks for family

This year we went to Ohio to spend Thanksgiving with Ron's family.  We had a nice time and so did the kids.  They loved spending some quality time with Paps and Mamaw!  Here are some photos from our trip.

Ronnie taking a walk with Mamaw down the driveway.

Riding the 1 cent pony at Meijer, just like daddy and mommy did when we were kids!  (I REALLY miss having a Meijer nearby!)

Doing the finishing touches on Thanksgiving dinner!

Rack em!

Some of the desserts, including Ron's grandma's carrot cake recipe, which I now have. :)

Daddy teaching Ronnie how to play pool.

Ronnie with his cousins Trent and Zandra.

Ron and his sister Jennifer.

Mamaw letting Ronnie play with some of her cow figurines.

Ron with his uncle Ralph, they had not seen each other in probably a good 10 years or more.

Paps playing with Ronnie.

Me and Carrie (Mamaw) playing with jewelry.  I made her some rings, and she gave me some vintage jewelry.

Mamaw with Elise.

Carrie and I with Elise.

Another "photo shoot" weekend

There is a neat little area here in our town with some old buildings and tractors and a train.  So we wondered around a bit and snapped photos.  I didn't get many of Elise because there was a wedding going on there and she is a handful to chase around! :)

Fun "photo shoot" in downtown Nashville

Last weekend we went to downtown Nashville.  We spent some time on the Bicentennial Mall right behind the capital building (as well as Centennial Park where the train was).  It was a great opportunity to get some fun pictures of the kids.  I edited these on Picnik and love how they turned out!

A trip to Papa and Nana's house!

The kids and I spent a week in Michigan with my family while Ron was out of town.  We missed having him with us, but we sure had a great time!  Here are some photos from our visit.

The littlest cousins got to play together for the first time!

Papa and Ronnie played with trains a lot!

Great grandma holding her great granddaughter for the first time!  They share the same middle name.  This was a very special moment for me to capture!

Papa took Ronnie fishing for the first time.  He loved it!  He wanted to hold and touch the fish, he showed no fear at all!

My parents with all five of their grandkids!  Very special!

My brother's baby Laci taking her first steps.  We all got to witness it, so fun!

My brother Scott and his beautiful family.

Me and Scotty. :)

We walked down to a pumpkin patch right by my parents house.  The kids enjoyed that too.