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Saturday, December 22, 2007

My Decorations







This year I placed all my photo Christmas cards on my mantle. Some of the families are people that I see on a weekly basis, others are family, some are people I see only see once a year, many are people that moved away, but all are people that I love keeping in contact with. I love getting to see how all the kiddos grow from year to year. I keep all of my Christmas cards and scrapbook them in our Christmas album (I know that sounds pretty adventurous, but I'm only about 4 years behind-I should say my plan is to scrapbook all of them). We received more cards this year than ever! I think we have 35 now. I love racing to the mailbox in December to see which ones have arrived. My friend Stacey (who now lives in Arkadelphia) is always the first Christmas card to arrive. I know I can always count on that. I saw an idea on another blog that I may try next year. This girl bought a small Christmas tree and barely put any decorations on it. Then when her cards would arrive, she would punch a small hole in them, string some ribbon through and use her cards as the ornaments for that tree. I'm going to look for a small to medium size tree to do that!!!

Luke has his own tree in his room. It's a 6 foot tree that I rescued from my neighbor's trash. I know what you all are thinking...that I'm a Dumpster Diver-ha! But my neighbors were military and moving again and they were chunking all kinds of cool things. I don't know why she didn't take it to Goodwill or call someone to pick it up, but anyway...she was wasteful and I got a nice tree because of it. Luke has lots of colorful handpainted ornaments that Randie and I worked on about 10 years ago. He also gets a new ornament every year that kinda represents what he likes at the time (when he was two it was Mufasa and Simba, last year was Superman and this year it's Yoda). He also has lots of photo ornaments and handmade goodies. He likes having his own tree. FYI-don't let the Christmas tree cord get too close to your guinea pig cage. I promise they will chew through it! I don't know how one of them didn't die, because the lights were on when they started nibbling. I would have puked if I would have walked in there and seen a fried pig in that cage! But I learned how to splice wires this year-all from help from my mom and electrician brother-in-law Bryan. This could be dangerous!

Next are pics of my Dept. 56 Snow Villages. I have eight total. Most of them were gifts from family (especially April). I have Grandma's cottage, Garage Sale (my friend Julie said only I would have a garage sale in my Christmas Village. Ha! I took her to her first garage sales last year and she loved it!!!), Public Library (to represent my love of libraries and books-I know...I'm a nerd), All Saint's Church, Fishing Cabin, Christmas Store, Hunting Lodge (Eric dropped this one out of the attic about 8 years ago-I cried so hard! But I salvaged it and I just put lots of little trees next to the big hole in the side of it!) and the Ice Castle. We all love looking at them all lit up at night.

The last picture is of our tree. I bought the green ribbon at Holiday House a few years back and really like the color. We have a variety of ornaments. Eric and I used to exchange ornaments every year (I'm not quite sure why we stopped...maybe we were getting too many). Some of my favorites are my Hallmark ornaments. I have several Scarlet O'Hara ornaments, Baby's 1st Christmas, Our First Christmas Together, Our New Home, Luke's Growth Chart Ornament, etc. Eric said our tree is prettiest it has ever been! I love it!

Merry Christmas from our home!
Amy, Eric and Luke

Silly Snapshot Saturday


Don't you love the title of this post?!? I had to invent it since I forgot Favorite Foto Friday. I was too busy wrapping Christmas presents and watching Christmas Vacation with Eric. He has to watch that at least once a year.

This picture was taken by my very good friend, Kelly. It's of my crazy sister, April. She cleans Kelly's house on a regular basis (that's her career and she's very good at it-no need calling me for her number...she's always booked!). Well, for some reason she thought it would be a good idea to vacuum while holding Kelly's baby, Parker. He looks kinda content, doesn't he? That is SO April. She's always multi-tasking. She can get more done in one hour than most girls I know do all day long. And the whole time she will be on her cell phone (which one you ask? she has two!!!!). That's April and I love her!

Monday, December 17, 2007

Pajama Night at Bunko


Tonight I hosted Bunko at my house. Last month, all of us decided that it was about time to have a Pajama Night. So we all wore our comfy pajamas and I made breakfast for everyone (Tamara, Julie, Jennifer, Amy B., Leslie, LaDonna and Leah). We had gravy and biscuits, bacon and egg casserole, cinnamon rolls and juice. Later for dessert, we had chocolate fondue (this was brand new for me-I've had my fondue pot for two years and never tried it) with pineapples, pound cake, bananas, apples, raspberries and marshmallows. YUM! We had a great time and may have to repeat PJ Night really soon! I offered to take a group shot, but I don't think anyone felt like seeing themselves posted on my blog the next day. Ha!

God has blessed me with some wonderful friends. The older I get, the more I realize how valuable these friendships are between us girls. I love my friends! Ecclesiastes 4: 9-10 says, "Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work; if one falls down, his (her) friend can help him (her) up."

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Favorite Foto Friday


This picture was taken in 2004-when Luke was about three and a half years old. We were having our pics taken by a friend for our Christmas card. This was such a fun age with Luke. It was around this time he told me one day, "You are the best mama I've ever had". AWWWWW!!!!
I love him!

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Christmas Musical at Church


Here's Luke singing at church last Sunday. He's the only 1st grade boy in Children's Choir at our church. He seems to enjoy choir. He always wants to play his choir CDs in the car. He usually sings pretty loud and remembers most of the words. But he also rubs his eyes a lot, adjusts his zipper (YIKES!) and yawns throughout most of the songs. We love watching him sing and that's usually the only time we use our video camera. Sucky parents!

Luke's Christmas Shopping is Finished!



About two weeks ago, Luke's school had a fundraiser called the Christmas Store. We sent money with him and he was able to pick out presents for us and a little something for himself. We sent with him $13. That was $5 each for us and he had $3 to spend on a gift for him. That night, he was so excited and wanted to give us our gifts immediately! We tried to explain that we still had over 3 weeks left until Christmas and that we were to save these gifts so we would have something from him on Christmas Day. He would not take no for an answer. So we celebrated Christmas almost a month early. Eric got a ballpoint pin that said "AWESOME DAD" and I got a white shell necklace. He bought himself a plastic stretchy lizard. He had over $8 left in his envelope. I guess it's good that he's not a big spender. :) Our presents were so sweet and we'll keep them forever!

Happy Anniversary to Me!





Eric and I married on December 11, 1993. We were both 22 years old at the time. We had a pretty big church wedding that was all decorated for Christmas. Our colors were green and red (of course). My dress had a cathedral length train, huge puffy sleeves and gigantic bow on the back. Ha! Too bad I don't have a scanner...I know you are all dying to see those pics! had to get the pictures out last night to walk down memory lane. I had so much fun planning the wedding and would do it all over again (with only a few changes).

I can honestly say I am happier now than I have ever been. Eric was such a support for me when I had five long years of undergraduate and graduate school to go through. He's a great daddy and is a very loving and helpful husband. It's not to say that everything has been perfect and that we haven't had bumps along the way. Every couple has problems and the Lord sure has been with us every step of the way. Remember that the best marriages have three people involved-God, husband and wife. I'm so thankful that He gave me Eric.