Merry Christmas!!!!!!!

"Lots of hugs and licks from our home to yours"

(I did not stress about getting a Christmas card photo this year. While we were decorating the tree I told the kids to grab the dogs and hold still for a photo...so this is it!)

In less than an hour I have to be up at Reed's school to set up for their Christmas party. I have a crock pot of nacho cheese warming up and teachers gifts I still need to quickly wrap, but wanted to take a few minutes to do some catching up here. They all get out of school early today and their break will begin so I may not have much time to get on here before Christmas.
To say we have been busy around here is putting it lightly. Buying a home and trying to paint it and fix it up during the holiday season is not the smartest thing to do!!! Every thing is kind of "half done" around here this year. With trying to pack up and move we only have half of our ornaments on the tree this year, half of our decorations out, half of our Christmas cards mailed out, half of my shopping is done....you get the idea!! But, oh well!!!
We are hoping to wait until after the holidays to start actually moving into our new home. Our home we are currently renting is being foreclosed on so we really have no idea what is going on with it. We have been trying to get some work done on our new house that is so much easier to do without all of our furniture in. Painting, putting new flooring downstairs, and we are also having our kitchen cabinets resurfaced and granite counter tops put in. This is mine and Dale's Christmas gift to each other this year. After years of living in base housing and rentals one thing we really wanted was a kitchen we were excited about. Our new home was built in 1992 and although very well kept it has not had any kind of updating done to it. I have always wanted white cream cabinets and Dale has always wanted granite counter tops so we are treating ourselves this year!!! We went yesterday to pick out the granite we wanted and also pick out handles for our cabinets and it was like Christmas morning for us!!!
Faith has been in a "kids are music class" and she has her Christmas performance on Saturday. She has 3 special little parts that I am so excited about! I am hoping to get the rest of my cards mailed out and shopping done this week-end so I can just enjoy doing some baking and special things with the kids next week.
Well off to get ready for the fun to begin!!!!!!!!

I leave you with a couple of funny things Faith has said to me this week that I want to write down so I do not forget......

As she was getting into the tub one evening she said, "ahhhhhh a nice warm bath is just as fun as getting nice and dirty."

Yesterday she told me that "the work in first grade is so much easier than Kindergarten, but behaving is so much harder."
She cracks me up!!!

i heart faces....sweet dreams

"My sleeping beauty"

This week's theme at i heart faces is sweet dreams. For me there is nothing sweeter than watching your child as they sleep. This is one of my favorite photos I have taken of Faith as she was sleeping. I love the small details I see when I look at it.....the way her little hand is resting under her chin, the way her hair strand is draped around her face, the small scratch on her nose, the pink nail polish left on her little finger......ahhh all those sweet moments.

To see more "sleeping beauties" go to the "i heart faces" link above!!

Happy Thanksgiving Day!!!

Wishing you a wonderful Thanksgiving Day!!!
Many blessings to you!

We have been up early prepping the turkey and Faith has been a big help in the kitchen. She has been so excited for Thanksgiving! She even told our turkey "Happy Thanksgiving turkey!"
Thankfully it defrosted just fine after yesterday I found out the boys put the turkey in the garage "freezer" after bringing it home from the grocery store (their job is to unload groceries and put things away) instead of the refrigerator like I asked them too. LOL Hmmmmm, I wonder if they really listen to me???

Faith and I have been outside this morning looking for pretty leaves to decorate the table with. She gets so excited about decorating and making things festive. Our house is in complete chaos with boxes all around getting ready for our up coming move, our dining room chairs are disassembled as I am in the middle of reupholstering the chair pads for our new house, so we will have to use our little breakfast table chairs to eat on. But. Life is good!! We have sooooo much to be thankful for!!!

The other day amongst all the chaos of preparing for our move and feeling very overwhelmed and stressed ( The holidays is not the best time to be moving) Faith brought this leaf to me and said "look Mommy, it is a heart just for you."
I have no idea where she found it as most of the leaves have changed color and I could find no other leaves around like it, but it was a reminder to slow down and just enjoy the simple and most important gifts in life.

Hoping you are very thankful today for all the simple gifts in your life!!!!!!!!!

Faith and her friend Santa!

It has been over 2 weeks since posting here and even longer since picking up my camera! Until today!! Today was a big day! Faith went to visit someone special at the mall.........

(I have never taken the kids this early to see Santa and it felt kind of strange. The kids are off of school this week so thought it would be nice to try and beat the crowds.)

She chose her outfit carefully all by herself wanting to look her best. She even had to wear her hat. (She is starting to get quite a few red highlights in her hair that you can kind of see in this photo)

Faith and Santa Clause!!!!

I LOVE this picture!!!!!

Faith was much more cautious of Santa this year. Past years she always jumped right on his lap and would give him a big hug. This year she sat by his side and said good-bye with a high five. I guess my baby girl is growing up.

Santa told her that she was definitely on "his good list!!!"


We have had SOOOO much going on these past few weeks!!!! Will try and get caught up tomorrow with everything!

i heart faces..."sun flare"

This week's theme at i heart faces is "sun flare." I have not had time lately to pick up my camera (I am really missing it!) but really wanted to join in on the fun! As I was going through my past photos I was not too sure about the "etiquette" of a proper sun flare photo. I took this photo of my daughter's first 4th of July home with us. We were living in England at the time so 4th of July festivities were a little sparse ;) We had our own quiet 4th of July backyard celebration dressing Faith in her red, white, and blue! I love her little serious expression in this photo and the way the sun flare is shining right down on her.

You can check out many great "sun flare" photos here:

Halloween week-end Recap......

Can't believe almost a week has flown by already since Halloween. Although we kept Halloween pretty low key this year it was a very busy week-end with having it fall on Saturday this year. We didn't have near as many trick or treaters this year. At first I figured it was due to it falling on Saturday and everyone was busy with other things. The h1n1 virus has really been going around in our area though, and the more I think about it I bet many parents were just trying to keep their kids in this year.
Friday started with a costume parade at Faith's school. They have really put a stop to all of the parties at school because of all the sweets so I am so glad they kept the school parade tradition. I took tons of photos but most of them have other students in them. Here are a few of my cute little witch......

Faith getting ready for her school parade.......

notice she had to wear her high tops instead of her black boots.

Faith's homework assignment was to make a puppet out of a paper bag of her favorite monster from the "Where the Wild Things Are" story. She chose the one that looked like the goat. I had Daddy take over helping with this one, and being the artist that he is he got a little carried away.....

Halloween night Faith decided to go as a cat instead of a witch....

"MEOW"

The boys normally choose to dress up a little on the creepy side so we were a little surprised when they saw these costumes and just HAD to have them!

MARIO & LUIGI!!!

Even Pearl dressed up like a bumble bee. She refused to wear the head piece. The kids called her a transformer.

It has become a tradition for the boys to have their neighborhood friends over for Halloween. We have pizza and they get ready at our house. After trick or treating they all dump all of their candy and swap it with each other.
(Reed's mustache would not stay on!)

I love this witch that one of our neighbors puts out every year

Faith couldn't quite keep up with the boys so we let them go on ahead and we took our time. She had Pearl and Ruby to walk with:)

The kids look forward to this house every year! They do the whole Nightmare Before Christmas theme and always hand out the best treats including a juice box!

On Sunday we had a fun girls day out going to see Disney Princesses on Ice. We went with some friends of ours and Faith even had fun dressing up as Jasmine!!!!!

She refused to wear the crown, but hey, I was thrilled she actually wanted to dress as a princess!

Of course Jasmine wears pants, not a dress!!! :)

We stopped off at a cupcake shop on the way for a yummy treat!

The girls had a great time!!
With 3 different costumes for Faith in one week-end I was all "costumed" out by the time the week-end was over!! :)

Flash Back Friday..........

Because it will probably take me weeks to get around to posting Halloween pictures I thought I would post some "flash back photos" from Halloween 3 years ago. Faith was 3 years old and it was the only year that she dressed up as a princess for Halloween. I bought this Snow White costume for her when she was a baby not realizing I had a baby girl that preferred super heroes over princesses. The only way that I could get her to wear the Snow White costume was if I dressed up as the evil queen! She loved the idea! We had so much fun trick or treating that year!!!

"Mirror mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all??"

Why Faith of course!!!!!!!!!

Wishing everyone a "spooktacular" Halloween!!!!!! Be safe!!!!!