New Blogs

I have decided to start two new blogs for 2009 if any of you are interested at taking a peek. I've only started the set-up on one http://Exposure2009.blogspot.com. Please have a look! I plan to begin January 1, 2009. I have an idea for the second one but haven't come up with a title yet.

Our 37th Anniversary

Today is our 37th wedding anniversary and we celebrated by going out to eat and to a movie. We went to see Marley and Me and it just made me want to come home and love, love, love my little doggie, Farley. I wanted to post a photo of him, too. He is a sweet little dog. My husband and I just couldn't wait to get home to him tonight after seeing the movie :)

LINKING

Hey guys! I'm practicing learning how to do links. So here's a cool website I've found. Let's see if this works. Go to http://elfontheshelf.com/ and check it out. (I think I did it!) Yay! I'm learning and all of you are so sweet to encourage me. I'm doing it on my own by trial and error!

A PHOTO CHALLENGE

I was tagged by audreypawdrey.blogspot.com for a Photo Challenge which sounds like a lot of fun. I was instructed to go to my fourth folder in my pictures and to the fourth photo, post it with a description of the photo. I went to my fourth folder and it had only two photos so I decided to go on to the fifth folder and go to the second photo. Does that make sense and sound fair?!? ha! The photo is of my 2 yr. old granddaughter (did you expect anything else? ha!). She is posing for a photo outside her Mothers' Day Out after their Thanksgiving Feast. Her mother made her cute little dress and they did some Thanksgiving carroling that day which was a very new and creative concept to me. Her mother and I were invited to the party and a good time was had by all! Now I pass on this challenge to four fellow bloggers who are to pass theirs on to four more bloggers.

I pass this challenge to:

Mercy kemevans.blogspot.com

Cotton chaseleannesavannahcrews.blogspot.com

justhereformysister jipssy.blogspot.com

celebrateCREATIVITYinallitsforms lisatutmanoglesby.typepad.com

Have fun and I can't wait to see your photos. I'll be checking in :)

Happy Anniversary!

Today is my youngest daughter, Emily's, and husband, Garrett's 7th anniversary. Happy Anniversary you two! I love you!

Quotations to Stir Heart and Mind

"The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time." - James Taylor
(Been listening to a lot of James Taylor lately!)

Making Our Own Snow!!

OK, this grandmother had a great idea for a "photo shoot" for a Christmas card.

We've got the cute little girl, the cute little Christmas coat, the cute little silver star basket and some "fake" snow. Good, right?

Now, let's take some snow and sprinkle it above your head and let it fall down while you're looking up and we'll title this card "Scatter Joy"!

Oh, heck, let's just dump the entire basket. That's a lot more fun!

But look what cute pictures we got and what fun we had and what great memories! We made our own snow on a cold, rainy day and had a great time!

Christmas Time's A'Comin! - THE TREES!!

First came the Gingerbread Tree in the kitchen. It was easy because when I put it away last year, I put it away like a "kit" so I just got out my "kit" and voila, a gingerbread tree!

This is a cute little fiber-optic gingerbread house I found a couple of years ago that I thought Paige would like - good excuse to buy, huh? It sits underneath the gingerbread tree every year on a table that belonged to my favorite uncle. This table and a December 7, 1941 Birmingham (AL) News newspaper with headlines about the Pearl Harbor bombing are the two belongings of his I inherited so this table reminds me of him every Christmas. He was quite a character and this table looks like he just glued two tables together, one on top of the other. When I got them, they were painted pink! ha!

Next up was the Auburn tree which I would put in my husband's office every year for him until he retired so it's now in our bedroom. Even though Auburn had a tough year this year and last year, we still love dear old Auburn so much. I usually try to find a new ornament each year for this tree but haven't shopped for that yet this year. WAR EAGLE!!

Here's a close-up of one of the Auburn ornaments, a cute little birdhouse in dear old orange and blue.

This is the main tree which took a while to get situated. We moved it around quite a bit but finally decided to put it between the foyer and the dining room so the train could go around the tree and be visible from all angles. I have discovered that photographing a Christmas tree is not an easy task. I read up on it but it was an old article describing how to do it with film and really didn't take the time to research photographing a tree with a digital camera so just said "to heck with it" and took a photo! This year we have a Beanie Baby tree for Paige. Remember those? We had a Beanie Baby tree for our girls when they were at home one year during that craze and they loved it. Just colored lights and Beanie Babies and that's it. Paige likes it and especially the ones with "Mommy and Baby"

Then I finally got up a cute little pink and white tree in Paige's playroom. This is a close-up of the classic Pooh. I just love the classic Pooh characters and had some of them to put on this tree along with a lot of pink, white and black Beanie Babies.

And here is the tree with a pink tulle "tutu" tree skirt! ha! I could not photograph the entire room because we had a little visitor, a mouse, that the cat brought into her room and we have just recently captured him. If You Give A Mouse A Cookie?!?
Hope you have enjoyed my "tour of our trees"!

Exciting News!!!

I think I mentioned earlier here that I lost a camera card a few months ago. It was a 2 GB card and I knew I had photos of my granddaughter's 1st and 2nd birthdays, my mother's 80th birthday, Easter and just a lot of photos that were precious to me. I dropped the card between the console and the passenger seat. My husband and I searched and searched. We even vacuumed that area and surrounding areas with a new vacuum bag, tore open the bag and still - no card. So I had the idea of taking my vehicle to a body shop, let them take the passenger seat out and see if the card was under there somewhere. My husband took it to the body shop for me on Monday (this week) and voila, it was there! I cannot tell you how happy this made me and it was so much fun looking over the 459 images (!) that were on that card. So here's one I wanted to share. These are flannel baby blankets that I hemstitched on my machine, appliqued the cute little giraffes, and then crocheted the edging for a baby gift for twin boys. They are in Jackson, MS, now so I could not photograph them again. They're so soft and cuddly and I just love the cute little giraffes. Hope you enjoy baby things. I love them.