Happy New Year!

Wishing a very fond farewell to 2010 as it draws to a close. 

Hello 2011.  I have big plans for you. 

Wishing everyone a very Happy (and safe) New Year! 

15 Years!

15 years.  Wow!  I love you, sweetheart! 

Happy Anniversary! 

{I can’t wait for you to sing me the song tomorrow…}

Technorati Tags: anniversary

Holidays at Home

Packing up the All-wheel Drive Sleigh for a trip back home on Christmas Day.

I finally finished Mom’s Apron! 

The tree. 

Dad finally got his tractor.  I love it! 

He had the driveway all plowed for us by the time we got there!

Tigger was pretty uneasy the whole day.  But she enjoyed hanging out in her chair.

I love the way Mom decorates the house for Christmas. 

{Too bad we spoil it with our beverage boxes on the front porch…}

Merry Christmas! 

{With a yummy turkey sitting in the background…}

Waiting for Sarah…her plane was delayed on the runway…

The “soon to be” Mommy and Daddy!  She looks so cute!

William in his new warm & soft North Face jacket.  

Our gifts

Dad got a cheesehead from Jake and Patricia.  He said he is going to wear it on the tractor.  Haha!  What a sight!

Santa Ryan brought Clay Matthews…I mean Sarah… in his sleigh…we were so happy to finally see her! 

Katie and Jeremy with their gifts!  They had a long day of celebrating behind them by the time they got home!

My sweetheart. 

Mom:  Is that a new shirt?

Bill:  This one, or this one?

Me: She doesn’t care about that one, just nod your head and say yes…

I love you, honey 

Jake and Patricia opening their gifts.

Mom opening gifts.  I love the Christmas fleece she found-even if it doesn’t have any pockets…

I’m not sure what this is for…but I get this face a LOT!

Bryan finally got his Chicago Bears snuggie.  Thanks, Mom!

We are so very blessed to be able to spend Christmas together as a family in the house where we were raised. 

It wouldn’t be Christmas without family. 

Thank you, Mom & Dad!

December Bokeh

The Journal Your Christmas InFocus prompt today was to do something like this.  I got instructions for rigging up my camera from The Scrappy Jedi here.  It doesn’t look real, but these are all photos of my Christmas tree using black paper over my 50 mm lens, setting the lens to manual focus and the f-stop to 1.8 mm, then making sure the tree is out of focus and the star shape is near the center of the lens.  LOVE IT!  

I have been wanting to do something like this all season. 

So happy to have some spare time to just play around. 

Good times!

December Daily-Day 25 & The Wrap-Up

I hope everyone had a WONDERFUL  Christmas!  I know we sure did!  Here is the finished album. The bracelet was something that Bryan made at religious ed on Wednesday night and gave to me.  He said that he didn’t think I should wear it because it kept falling apart, so I put it in my December Daily! 

This year isn’t quite as thick as last years’ album.  I used a LOT of Ali’s December Daily Template Package, Vol. 3 (available here) digital templates this year for a more hybrid combination in my album-it was a really easy way to combine many photos into one 8x8 printout to add to add to my album.  My printer also decided that it would let me print today (yay!) so I was able to finish my December Daily!

The note that my husband left for our daughter, asking her to wrap my gifts  

Our gingerbread houses this year-we barely got them made before Christmas! 

Day 23: The kids exchange gifts between each other and it makes for a pretty calm day. 

Day 25:  the tags that the kids gave to each other.

The photos are actually from the 24th, but I LOVE the Anna Griffin felt “25th” so I added it to the page. 

Santa made a visit once again! 

I made a pocket on the back side to add some bits of wrapping and tags that I got with my gifts. 

Day 25 journaling about our Christmas at home and then at Grandma’s. 

More journaling.  It was a wonderful Christmas! 

Another December Daily album complete (this is my third full year of following along from start to finish)! 

Merry Christmas!

December Daily-Day 24

Since we open gifts on Christmas Eve, I was able to add some photos to another page in Ali’s December Daily Template Package, Vol. 3 set here, and instantly have a home for all of my favorite photos.  We had a wonderful Christmas!  William has a couple of things that he didn’t like…no big surprise…, but everyone else was happy!  Merry Christmas! 

December Daily-Day 21, 22, 23

 

Since I lost a fight with my printer, many of the rest of my pages are either going to be preview pages from the digital templates, or they will not have photos, or I will make up the page and wait for the photo. 

Love these envelopes that come with the Dick’s Sporting Goods gift cards…hee hee…

Inside the envelope is journaling about my decision to ditch the card effort on Monday night. 

Dec 22:  Cookies that I took with me to my Bible study class. 

Elizabeth got the Abominable Snowman sticker on Thursday morning when we had to stop at the Doctor’s office.  She got it just for my December Daily album-so sweet!

Day 23: Trying to get a Polaroid of the kids…They look like they are going to jail, not like it’s almost Christmas…

Day 23, Part 2:  The kids exchange gifts between themselves on the 23rd every year.  They each get strategically purchased gifts to keep them busy for the next day and a half so that I can get SOMETHING DONE!  (The template is from Ali Edwards December Daily Template Package Volume 3 available here.)

I am so excited for Christmas to be here!  And to relax and just enjoy the next couple of days.

Merry Christmas!

December Daily-Day 20

 

Since I am crabby and tired tonight, I haven’t printed out my template, so here is a preview of Day 20 (Another Ali Edwards Template Package Vol 3 available here .  I am seriously LOVING these this year!) We finally got the Gingerbread houses built on Sunday night.  Matt even helped out.  William put in an appearance too.  Love that the kids aren’t afraid to stick with tradition even when other people are here. 

My shopping is done   I am waiting for one more present to get here and everything else is done!  {Except for the Christmas cards…but I’m not going to discuss the Christmas cards right now…}

One more workday for the year, and I am done.

Now-I am going to bed early tonight. 

Happy Wednesday!

December Daily-Day 19

 

Time is going so fast!  It’s almost Christmas!

I used one of Ali’s December Daily Templates (Pack # 3, I think) on this page and was done in a flash. 

Happy Monday!

December Daily-Days 17 and 18

 

I got my Mom’s Christmas card and she sent a photo of the 5 of us and some teddy bear Christmas stickers, so I slipped them into a page protector for Day 17. 

A polaroid that I took on Thursday morning of the two of us in the snow. 

Friday night-dinner at the Outback Steakhouse.   YUM!

We drive by this house on the interstate all the time and we finally had time to stop and take some photos  after dinner. 

Daddy shoveling snow on Thursday morning (a little out of order…)

I wrapped presents most of the day on Saturday.  But they are done!!

Some pretty blue ornaments up in my scraproom. 

 

Our house from the outside.  So pretty this year!

 

Me wrapping presents and Bryan and Ralph hanging out on our bed.  Ralph loves to come upstairs and sprawl out on our bed all by himself. 

Happy Sunday!!