Last Day of 2009!

I thought I'd get on here and make one last post on my blog for 2009!  I really must say that I am glad to be saying good-bye to this year.  It wasn't a "bad" year per say, but it was more so a "blah" year, and I'm ready to move on.  I look forward to seeing what's in store for us in  2010... I just hope and pray that it's all good and positive compared to much of the last few years obstacles and challenges! 

So, Christmas came and went fast!  It was a nice Christmas... the second one hosted in our home.  Once again I made one of our families' favorite main courses, Chicken with mushrooms and wine, and my mom provided a delicious prime-rib.  Of course we had all the other traditional fixin's to go along with and it was all soo GOOD!  Here's a few pix to share from our Christmas...

My mom, gram and I before Christmas Eve service.

Aww... and one of just us two! 

The babies' tree lit up on Christmas morning!

The dining room table all prepared...

Wasn't he a cute lil' boy? Lol!  I cut the Vinyl lettering out with my Cricut!

Our tree in the basement... this is the first time we set up a bigger tree in about 5 or 6 years, so it was really nice to have this up and all decorated again!

Me, opening some beautiful earrings from my favorite Santa! 

There's not much going on here today... just got a new truck load of fire wood, so M is working on piling that all up on his day off!  Can't wait to get a cozy fire going... it snowed here about 3 inches over night, so a fire will be really comforting right now!  We really aren't much for partying in the "New Year", so I'm not sure what all we are going to do yet tonight.  Some friends of ours may come over and I plan on putting together some appetizers,  maybe play some pool or card games, sip on some good wine slushies, but that's all.  I'm going to get some meatballs going in the crock-pot and make some yummy spinach articoke dip because I LOVE that stuff!  Just a very low-key night at home... just how we always like it... together and safe!  And tomorrow, the first of January 2010 will be just like any other day.  He has to work, and maybe I'll sleep in a little longer, lol! 

I hope everyone else has a great New Years celebration with much love and happiness carrying you all throughout!  Be blessed and be safe!  Welcome on in 2010!!

More Christmas Card Creating...

Didn't think I'd be back here with another blog post this week, but I'm surprising even myself! I needed to make a few more cards for my neighbors to go along with their cookie platters that I'll be giving them and I could not resist using some wayyy cute digital freebie Christmas paper for these cards.  If you have not been to Chris Hertel's blog lately, you must hurry on over because she has been in the giving spirit this month and has been generously sharing her talent with us by letting us use her wonderful paper designs!  I LOVE these papers and can't get enough of the houndstooth prints.  The polka-dots are all sweet too... I've used both her houndstooth and dots on these two cards...

I also used my Joys of the Season Cricut cart to create the accents for these cards...added some punched scallop borders, ric-rac trim, twill, glitter, ink, etc...and whaaa-laa, done!  So if you are in need of some extra cute papers to finish up your last minute Christmas cards or projects, head on over and give Chris a visit! 

Another Week Closer!

Can you believe Christmas is in another 10 days?  Hard to believe, but it will soon be here and gone for yet another year and 2010 is right on our doorsteps!  Just seems like yesterday when we were all in a tizzy wondering what would happen when the clock struck mid-night on New Year's 2000 :)  Gosh, nearly 10 years ago... doesn't even seem possible. 

I took some pix of our Christmas decorations around our home again this year and thought I'd share them here.  This first one here is of our babies' white tree which we have in our Living Room.  It has all of the ornaments on it which we've collected for our angel babies these past couple years. 

Here is the ornament that I found for our angels this year...

Isn't it the sweetest?  I saw this in at Kohl's when they first put out their Christmas merchandise, and I of course thought of my precious angel babes right away and I grabbed 3 of them.  After I got them home I took a brown Slick Writer marker and wrote each of their individual names and  the year on the bottoms.  Perfect addition to their tree this year :)

Sitting on the window are a collection of hand painted Santa figurines, and they are representations of Santas around the world.  This is a collection that we've gotten passed down from my parents... a church congregation member painted them all and gave them as a gift to my dad several years ago. 

This is how the mantle is decorated for the holiday...

The art work in the center is a pastel drawing that I had drawn and had framed as a Christmas gift to my parents back in 1999.  I quite like it!

And this here is an absolute favorite of mine to display from year to year!  It's a primitive pottery nativity scene which was a gift to us from my parents for our 1st Wedding Anniversary!  It's a treasure...

And this one is of the babies' stockings hung... these are the ones that were a gift to me from their wonderful daddy last Christmas...

Well, that just happens to only be half of our decorations.  We also set up the bigger tree and some other things down in our basement area this year and I didn't even take pictures down there yet.  Maybe later, and if not, we'll be opening gifts down there this year so I'll have pix in some form later ;) 

And before I move on outta here for the time being, thought I'd also share a sampling of the Christmas cards that I made this year... need to share a lil' something crafty after all...

I did these using the Winter Woodland Cricut cartridge and dressed them up with some chunky glitter, Prima flowers and pearl and glitter and gem brads.  Thanks for stopping by... I'll try to make it back for another post before the 24th, but have yourselves a great week getting all the last minute stuff checked off your lists! :)

Glitter, Bling and Cuttlebug!

Good Monday to ya!  And a very cold Monday at that!

I've decided to participate in a challenge going on over at the Cuttlebug Challenge Blogspot this week.  I'm entering a card in hopes of winning one of *15* Cuttlebug folders that they will be giving to some lucky peeps!  They are being sponsered by, Oh My Crafts!, who has 4 new exclusive Christmas folders from Provo Craft!  One can never have too many Cuttlebug embossing folders now can they?!  No... never too many! ;)  So, here's my card... the requirements of the challenge are to use glitter, bling and Cuttlebug.  Easy enough!

Winter Wishes

The "wishes" tag that I used on this card was cut from the Cricut Winter Woodland cart and embossed with the snowflake folder.  I cut my snowflake-like flowers out using Cuttlebug dies and then I embossed them (Victoria and Diamond Plate folders) and blinged up the centers with sugar coated doodlebug brads.  Those loopy edges are Bazzill decorative edges and I stickled them with Frosted Lace Stickles. The alphas that I added for "WINTER" are AC Thickers and I stickled them too!  After my card was all assembled I gave it an all-over spritz with my Old Lace Glimmer Mist to give the card an even icier sheen. 
Here's another detail photo, and don't forget if you click on the photos, you can see them all even larger...

And now for other scrappy news of the day, I found out recently that I did NOT make the design team for the new company, Couture Cardstock, however, I was asked to be a guest designer for them in the coming year!  I gave it my best shot, so I couldn't be prouder about that.  I'm very excited about my guest designer spot and I congratulate the new team!  You can read the announcement today for the new designers here.

Okay, I'm off to make a run to the store.  I am finally baking some Christmas cookies today and there's a few extra ingredients that I need to go fetch.  But, I hope to be back a little later this week to post some pix of our Christmas decorations!  Hope you all have a terrific week of Christmas preparations ahead!

December's Here and It's Flying By Already!

S-L-O-W down!  Where's this month going to... it's already the 5th, less than 20 more days til Christmas and I'm not ready!  It sure comes and goes quickly as you get older, doesn't it?!  I did get the house decorated this week, trees and all, which is excellent but I still have a lot of shopping left, cookies to bake and some crafty projects to complete before the big day arrives. 


Today I've really been getting in the spirit by listening to a ton of holiday music!  I have acquired my dad's vast collection of religious Christmas music, and when I say "vast" that could quite possibly be an understatement, lol!  See, Christmas was most certainly my dad's favorite time of the year and he loved everything about it.  He loved decorating, and he was perfectly content to start and complete all the decorating by himself while my mom and I and others would brave the Black Friday madness!  After a long, draining day of shopping, walking through the front door was always a beautiful site to behold!  Anyway, getting back to the music, I have found that it is now one of, if not my most  favorite part of the holiday season.  I have discovered that listening to the music he was passionate about is what draws me closest to my dad during this time of year, and I am so glad that I have his collection to love and enjoy!  I find myself listening to some of his favorite songs over and over again.  He loved, "Once In Royal David's City"  and, "In The Bleak MidWinter".... I can remember him telling me that those were his favorites, so now when I play these tracks, I imagine that he's beside me in the room listening.  And sometimes his presence feels so strong that my heart just crumbles all over again.  This will be our second Christmas without him, and it just doesn't feel right.  I really hope that he and our baby girls can feel our celebration of Christmas in Heaven and that they can sense how much they are all missed! 

Before I head out of here, thought I'd post some photos from last week's Thanksgiving dinner...  it was very good, as I didn't have to cook the turkey, lol!  My sister in law and brother hosted, but Christmas will be at our house again... minus the turkey!  I'll be making my signature Mushroom Chicken and Wine and I can't wait!   Here's my full plate...

Here we are enjoying an after dinner glass of wine... or two!

Here's my two crazy loons, my niece and my DH...

Do you think maybe they ate too much turkey?  I think so!!

Here's a better picture of them...

and one of her and I ...

Her 20th Birthday was the day after Thanksgiving!  I still can't believe that she's that old because it doesn't seem possible!  I feel so old :( 

I made her a card... she's into music and likes guitar and now she's all about tattoos too (she has 2 small tatts now).  So I created this one for her...

I think she thought it was cool!   Yep... it was a great day to be full AND thankful!  Hope that yours was too!