Sassy Seventeen

That is what this girl is today:

I'm so very proud of the the person she is
the possibilities she has.
the good sense God gave her.
the beauty she has inside and out.

the sassiness? Well that makes her Alex.

I love you Alex and pray for a fantastic year of 17 for you!

Blog lazy

That's what I'm coining it anyway.
I've been so lazy in updating the blog since Christmas Eve.
I will catch up this week.
I'm nursing my sore wrists and fingers so it is difficult to type.
Why? you ask.
Guitar Hero will do that to you. Period.

I'm missing this tonight:

I took all the Christmas decor down today....until next year.
Usually it doesn't bother me and I'm always ready to get it out, but I truly enjoyed the tree and few decorations I had out, so I'm a little sad.
2009 is upon us,
which makes me say "Dang!" in my best Joe Dirt.

Merry "Week-Between-Christmas-and-New-Year's-Eve"

Merry Christmas

These moments are what giving*love*family*Christmas is all aboutBlessings to all and to all a goodnight!

is this thing on?

Just checking in to make sure the old blog will still let me post...it's been a little crazy getting prepped for Christmas. Still lots to do but I hope to post something later tonight.

for now some photos from yesterday:

Alex & Matt wanted some pictures together and of course we HAD to do it on the coldest dang day of the year! They turned out pretty good I think.

I especially love this one:
Also had our annual mother-daughter lunch - Here is a group shot. We had so much fun and were already planning next year's get together.
My prend and I are standing with our mom's sitting. Left to Right: Judy and her mom June, Karla and her mom Joy, and me and Mom!

Okay, back to gift wrapping!

roll with it

I was so ready for the sunshine we had today.

Evidently so was Dog.

Dog is a horse.

I know it doesn't make a lot of sense.

But at our household,

that's how we roll.

twas the week or so before Christmas...

and I've been taking pictures like a madwoman!
Between my picture of the day I'm doing over at SIStv and my December Daily - which I realize I have not posted but I am doing every day or every other day - I'm snapping even more than usual.

I just thought I would post some from my last few days:

In fact, I'm simply going to post without descriptions.
Sometimes just a visual is all that is needed!
These are chronological from Saturday through today...

We have had ice and some snow since Monday AM.
No work again tomorrow - evidently the roads are pretty treacherous.
Not that I would know as I've not left the house since coming back home from work yesterday AM.

Cans for Comments

Two posts in one day!
I know I'm just crazy like that!

I had to post this to urge any & all my blog readers to visit Courtney DeLaura's photo blog:
Peachtree Studio

PLEASE go make a comment.
For every comment to her Cans for Comments post, she will buy a can of food to donate to a family in her community.

Also this cutie patootie is matching it in her community!
How cool is that?

Go - NOW!

so many birthdays!!!!!

December is heavy in birthdays for our family.
Beginning on the 1st with mine....ending on the 31st with Alex's....
...and seems like one a day in between.
Sometimes two!

Yesterday was a celebratory day for many of those birthdays.
Granted some were not actually on the 12th, but we there's no rules anywhere in any official "birthday rulebooks" that you cannot celebrate your day of birth on another date.
Is there?
I hope not after I've made such a bold statement.

Anyway....
I spent a great day with several important women in my life, two of which are having birthdays this month. (three if you count me.)
I know I've blogged about mom's birthday but I did want to share this lovely photo of her.

My Granny DeShazo will have her 87th birthday on the 15th.
She was amuzed over something when I took this picture.
I love it!

We (mom, Granny, Judy & I) were sitting around Mom's kitchen table enjoying a delicious piece of mom's fresh banana cake and a cup of coffee (or milk for Mom).

It was a good moment in time.
Especially seeing Granny laugh and smile.
So glad I spent the day with those chicks!

Fast forward to the evening....
we had a little get together at my boss's home.
Great food and friends.
I didn't get many good photos though unfortunately.

Except for this little cutie patootie:

Ms. Annie Grace, who was attending with her Gram Karla and PawPaw Fred.

I just had to share this photo of George and Nancy listening ever-so-intently to a Fred Rush joke.

He is quite the joke teller.
Fred can make the dumbest jokes hilarious.

As Nancy said, it's his "delivery".

After leaving Dr. J's, we drove over to the Tally Ho for this chick's Big 3-0!!!!

And it was her official birthday I might add.
I love her hat!
Brandi is so photogenic I think!
Apparently that is where Molly gets her photogenicness.
(Yes, I realize that's not a real word)

There was like 30 people at the surprise dinner.

I have converted all these to B&W because of the weird-dim lighting in the restaurant.

It was also this guy's 30th birthday
Happy Birthday John David!

Molly had to help him blow out his candle!

She also helped him eat his cake.

It was too funny!

I tried to get photos of everyone but was not successful.

I will share some of the ones I took starting with

John David & Tiffany:

Cody & Amy:

Cline & Ashley:

Alex & Tracy:

Alex, Gabby & Tracy.

(Gabby is so pretty I think! Actually, they are all three pretty, I think!)
Gabby is an exchange student from Brazil who is staying with Tracy & her mom, Toni.

I love this shot looking down one end of the birthday table.

You can see Molly's little face sticking up above the table.

When we arrived back home, I knew I wanted to capture a photo of the moon since it was at it's biggest and brightest for the year.
Mind you this photo doesn't do it justice.
It was so bright last night.

So bright in fact that there were deer out EVERYWHERE!
We drove really slow on the way home because they were all over the place.
We made it without a hitch.
One of my co-workers was not so lucky.
As he was taking his niece home, who had been babysitting, a deer came through their windshield and she is in the hospital.
Pray for her speedy recovery.

Amazing the damage these beautiful creatures can do.

More birthdays to celebrate this month.
stay tuned.

she crafted

I have seen so much Christmas craft inspiration as of late on the world wide web.
So much in fact that my head is swimming with lots of ideas that I want to try out.

Wreaths seem to be the most popular items to craft.

Since I have started utilizing my Google Reader and subscribe to every artsy-craftsy blog known to man (or woman) I have found some really good ones that I attempt to check out with every new posting.

Especially those with new handrafted eye candy.

One such blog: A Foothill Home Companion is filled with the eye candy I speak of.
And yesterday there were these great little origami stars with a link to the video tutorial.
I watched - amazed at how simply they went together.
Well I immediately pulled down one of my Anthropologie catalogs and my paper trimmer and went to town.
With some trial and error, I came up with several of these little cuties and put together this tonight.

How cute is this?
A little wreath ornament! Yea!
There are so many possibilities with these.
There is even an Etsy shop dedicated to making these into jewelry.
clever? yes!

Now I realize it may not be Martha Stewart worthy and my little stars are far from perfect, but I love it & it is now hanging on my tree - with is also not Martha worthy -OR- perfect either!

happy hump day

This week has been one of those short yet long weeks, KWIM???

I have failed to photograph the December Daily, but I assure it is pretty well caught up...well except yesterday and today.
Not bad for a chronic procrastinator, huh?

Just a short blog recap of the past two days.

Yesterday was the "best-mom-in-the-world's" birthday.
Yes this woman:I was happy she got to just relax and hang out at home, watch movies, take a nap, put up Christmas decorations, have lunch fixed for her, and have tons of calls from everyone who loves her.

She is deserving of that and so much more!

{ Love you mom!!! :) }

FFWD to today:
freezing dang cold!
icy windows - chance of snow....no go!
Christmas reception at work in Melbourne.
These chicks who make my work life a pleasure:
They are awesome and fun and I'm blessed to call them not only my "department" but also my friends.
Observation for the week: I'm living up to the woolly mammoth look in every group picture. Case in point today and the previous post.
GEEZ!!!

okay so....

I have my Daily December all caught up and ready to photograph and post.
I'm so excited about this project.
I'm also doing a POTD (picture of the day) over a SIStv, which I'm then incorporating into my little book.

Did the Tour of Homes yesterday.
Local beautifully decorated homes and cookies at the end. :)

How can you go wrong?

Here is a quick pic of us chicks that toured, thanks to Nancy (far left) who was generous and kind enough to purchase extra tickets for this annual fundraiser for the local Timely Club.
More to come..

Christmas parade recap

This has become one of my favorite things each year during December.
Last year it fell on my birthday which made it doubly cool.

I especially love when the day is pretty & sunny like today.
It was also a tad bit cold & pretty darn windy too, but hey, can't have it all!

I remember it snowing one year.
Booosh, it was cold.

Anyway, I actually have a picture of each individual entry in the parade but will certainly not bore you with all of it, but I did want to share some of my faves, beginning with these two chicks riding the Ozarka College float.

Yes, that is Karla and Nancy - also known as The Grinch and Cindy Lou Who!

This was pretty nifty!
Apparently there is an antique tractor club somewhere in the community and they brought some of their beauties to town.
John Deere:
Farmall:
and Case:
Next we have Cody & Marcus, A.K.A Twiddle Dee and Twiddle Dum! (j/k guys!)

They were pulling Molly's daycare float.

And you cannot have a Christmas parade without the Big Guy!
Better known as Santa.

Okay, I have to tell this story, so please bear with me.

Alex & her friend Tracy decided to ride their horses in the parade this year, first time in a couple of years they've ridden horses. Anyway, they wanted to carry a banner to "advertise" their 4H club and Alex went to Tracy's house last week and they made a nice looking PAPER banner. (key word = PAPER) - just stay with me a minute.

Now, when she came home and showed it to me, I was like, "that is really cool, but where is the banner going?"
and she said, "we are going to carry it."
I said, "on your horses???"
and she was like, all nonchalantly/smart aleck-y, "well, yeah!"

I don't know how many of my blog readers have ever ridden a horse - in a parade - but there is a lot going on when you are riding - in a parade. Kids everywhere, sirens, candy being thrown, bands, music, screaming. Not to mention you are riding on asphalt which is slick to a horse wearing horseshoes.

Anyway, I am picturing these two knuckleheads on their horses - good horses, but "HELLO!" A paper banner between two horses, during a parade....come on!
I explained to her that the banner would probably never make it through. She explained how they were planning to rig up the banner with these large plastic candy canes so they could hold onto it. yeah right....

So that was our conversation last week.

Fast forward to today.....
Do you remember me mentioning how windy it was today?
Well, that was just double jeopardy in my mind for their groovy banner.
I even told Alex I needed to get their picture before they left because that banner would never make it through to where I was going to be during the parade taking pictures.

Well, low and behold - those little stinkers made it all the way through! I was astounded!
Are you still here?
Okay, good.
Sorry for the long story, but I was just so floored that #1 they made it and #2 that I was wrong!
I can admit when I'm wrong.
Mind you it doesn't happen very often! ;)
I was wrong in this instance!

I present Tracy, Alex, Toby & Hippy....AND
their banner!

Here we have the ever loveable, ever cutie patootie, Molly Grace.
She had a blast being in the float throwing candy.
And here is Amy, Molly & Brandi.

Lastly, the girls! Including Nancy.

This parade is just so downhome and fun.

There is free cocoa, coffee and cookies at the end.
And the Big Guy is set up handing out candy & fruit and finding out what all the locals want under their tree Christmas morn.
They even take Polaroid pictures of the little ones with Santa.
Just good times all around.
I love living in Small Town, Arkansas, USA!

There will be another parade next Saturday down the road in Hardy.
Don't know if I'll make that one.
Probably depends on the weather.

Wow, I've blogged two nights in a row.
I'm on a roll here!

I'll be back tomorrow with more of my Daily December pages.
Happy Saturday Night!

First Three Days

Yes, I realize it is December 5, but I have not completed today or yesterday.
I will be working on that tonight...promise!
I did want to go ahead and share what I've completed so far.
I'm really enjoying putting this together & I know it will be so cool to look back on, say like, next year!
So without further adieu:

This is the front again. This time you can see through the transparency to the first page.
[I will also attempt to list what I've used for each page, a la Ali].

Transparency with a chipboard snowflake with white acrylic paint and date stamp in lt. blue, red and black.

Here is the first page: December 1, 2008 (aka my 29th I mean, 39th birthday)

kraft paper with deco scissor edge, sharpie, my very favorite alpha stickers of all time: Scenic Route Black Berkely stickers. (I need to find more somewhere)

back of Page 1 and page 2:
photos and some journaling to document my day. I also added a little clear sticker "Celebrate" that I got from my Prend, Judy in my birthday goodies. page two is a small one: I used a piece of a Christmas card sample that I had gotten in the mail @ work. I usually get tons of these and throw them away...for some reason I kept this one with the pretty silver snowflakes. A piece of chipboard and silver glitter sticker. Self-Photo: Me. :)

Back side of Dec 2, just a bulleted list of the day's events with a sharpie.

Page 3 - Dec 3
used a paint chip swiped from a paint dept. sssshhhhh, don't tell. And sharpie on a piece of Christmas paper leftover from last year.

back of Dec. 3

One of my stamps on a piece of sticky backed paper. Also another clear word sticker - I hope to use those throughout this book.

I'll share more as I complete this little baby.

Now I leave you with a funny photo from today's lovely Friday Steering committee meeting at work. I am always snapping pictures so I can keep the blog/site documented with who is there, presenting, etc. While snapping a photo of one of my co-workers, I noticed another familiar face & camera on the compressed video TV.

Thought it was too funny not to share. :)

Tomorrow is our annual Christmas parade.
Prayers for pretty weather as I'll be taking lots of pictures.

...notice I switched up the font?
I decided it was an Arial kind of day.

Check out this giveaway

HOW AWESOME IS THIS???Would you not love to win this groovy*glittery huge 3x4 feet Santa canvas?

Go here to enter.
(Thanks Mandie for the head's up.)

I'll post an update on my Daily December book later - tonight? maybe,
or tomorrow.