A Christmas Upgrade

My life will never be the same. I went from limited texts, no camera, and no bluetooth, to the world at my fingertips.

I just need some practice typing on it...

Christmas Parade and Lights

I have really enjoyed spending time with my entire family during this Holiday Season. Last weekend we stood in the freezing rain to watch Martha march in the Germantown Parade. At least they were #3 in the parade so we could go home and thaw out sooner!

We take pride in our ability to judge Christmas lights. You would think our good taste would rub off on our neighbors, but no, they have three strikes against their lights:

1. Their lights are colored.

2. They have net lights.

3. Not only do they have net lights, but they don't care enough to make them touch and cover their bushes....

We tried some new things this year, but decided to stick to what has been successful in the past 6-8 years:)

Rendezvous in Little Rock

Last week, I took off a day to meet up with Frasepoo in the 501. All we need is Hobby Lobby and a Mexican Restaurant for a good time. We even lucked out and found them in the same shopping center.
Although we a long way away from each other we've met up 4 times this year, each in a different city (and 3 states). So fun!

Preparations for Christmas

Eleanor made her annual visit for Thanksgiving (she's the blonde on the left) and we got to spend some time with her a couple of weeks ago. She shared what she has been up to, and I have to mention that she dated a real-live Malaysian prince... and looking back all she has got out of the experience was the claim that she has dated a prince. But alas, he wasn't her Prince Charming:) But Ashley had her Prince Charming with her!

We ate at American Cafe, where our waiter was in a hurry to clear out table. He took my plate while I still had a third of my burger in my hand!
The funniest part of the evening was when we were leaving and Samantha started walking toward her car without saying good-bye to Eleanor. When Eleanor accused her of this, she said, "No, I wasn't walking away without saying Good-bye, I was just exercising." She was just exercising her lying abilities... unsuccessfully...

Since I'm not stressing out over finals, I helped a lot with decorating our house for Christmas. I made a new bow for the Christmas tree (my mom thinks I should go into the bow making business) and I helped put up our outdoor lights as well. I made a mess of the strand of lights I was laying out, proving I don't have a future in the light-hanging business!

I've also been doing some crafting getting ready for Christmas. Last weekend, we completed 30 wooden letters to donate to the Winter Wonderland at the local prison for the inmates to give to their friends and families.

Ashley and I quickly took over the kitchen and I recruited Martha to help finish. Since we did not know who they were going to be given to, Martha and I had some fun coming up with names that each of the letters represented.

These are some of my favorites! I'm volunteering at the prison to help them "shop" for their gifts and to wrap them and I hope these letters are a hit!

Making Plans

My mom cut this out of the paper for me last week. It is ironic to me that not only is it human nature to dream and make plans, but it is what I have gone to school for. Yet, no plan is perfect but God's, and where he has each of us right now...

Thanksgiving

First, we celebrated Thanksgiving at home, which would not have been complete without pumpkin bars-

Mi madre y su madre

My grandmother fussed about how old she looks when I wanted to take her picture, so I refused to show her the picture on my camera because I did not want to hear her say ugly things about herself. I think she looks great. She did turn 80 this summer!


We drove to Alabama and met up with Carolyn at our Aunt Carolyn's house. She lives in the country where there are barns and turkeys on the walls.

Where you can also find gems of houses like this one. It dates to pre-civil war, and has had many additions since then. The antiques and decorations are fabulous.



Not only is the house awesome, but look at the yard! These images are from Alabama Bride, which featured one of their daughter's weddings. Yes, those are chandeliers hanging from the trees, and yes, they worked.

They could not have painted a more perfect backdrop to this wedding...

Our trip also included lots of cousins; 1st, 2nd, and beyond

And some fun...

And then there is the Christmas tree with all of its breakable antique ornaments. The bucket was leaking, so some plastic needed to be slid underneath the tree. Some resourceful engineering called for a pole screwed to the trunk and manpower lifting while womanpower slide the plastic underneath.

Not pictured: about 15 onlookers

History of Christmas Cards

I've been doing some digging to document and share previous Christmas cards. Many have a place on our fridge.

The first edition, 1987

1989

1993

1995 (I think?!)

1996

2000

2004 (*take note of my name... this one was reprinted before being sent out because to quote my mom "We're not advertising")

2007

I'm sure there will be many more to come, but it sure has been fun to reminisce through these pictures. It makes me sad to think of Hershey as I look through these photos. We just put her to sleep this summer (at 14), but she retired from our Christmas cards awhile back because she made a difficult process even more involved.