Thankful...

for a most blessed, low key Thanksgiving!

We missed our annual trek to Conway, but we got to go to my Mom's which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Not just because it's my Mom and family, but it was nice to come home and enjoy relaxing and lazying around instead of driving most of the day.

I did miss seeing all the Whitten/Garrett clan, they are so much fun to spend holidays with!

Here are some shots from the day.

I should add that I have a pretty monumental birthday coming up next week so we went ahead and celebrated that along with Thanksgiving.  I got my Aunt Kathi's homemade, fresh banana cake that is OH SO DELIGHTFUL!

(told you it was monumental - 4 is a monumental age ya know!)

BTW, Mom if you are reading this, I'm very proud of you for not chopping my head off!) :)

Jake enjoyed the cake also! This was the first of two emptied plates!

Handsome Joe!

Father & son

James &

Memaw were anxiously waiting to get a piece of that cake!

and what Thanksgiving is complete without some football?

There is one more photo of my Mom playing Guitar Hero but she was unhappy that I posted it on Facebook, so I'll refrain from posting it here. Love you Mom!

Black Friday for me was spent sleeping in and hanging out in my PJ's.  Put up the tree and id not, I repeat, DID NOT fall for the obscene early morning shopping craze.  

so thankful

I'm not a big card maker, except for the cards I'm selling in my Etsy, but I decided to whip this one up with my November Crazy Daisy Kit Co. I sent this one to my Granny to let her know just how thankful I am for her. 

Had to join the bandwagon of thankfulness on the blogisphere:

• my faith in Jesus Christ
• the power of prayer
• my family
• my friends - online & IRL
  
• my job 
• my church family
  
• my God given talents
• my Angus dog
• my camera and love of photography
• the freedom of speech that this blog allows - nobody to correct my spelling, punctuation or use of abbreviations.
• my design team work with Crazy Daisy Kit Co. - it has been such a blessing & a treat!
• water
• my health 
• food to eat & a roof over my head
  
• my love of food (sometimes too much) ;)
• all of the inspiration that is right here at my fingertips on the world wide web.  

So thankful for so much.  

Best wishes to you and yours.

Thanksgiving #3

Finally completed the Thanksgiving circuit!
This time close to home - at Mom's.
We pretty much all get together for Sunday lunch every Sunday after church.
This Sunday we simply celebrated with a Thanksgiving dinner and my birthday!

I wanted a picture of myself with the little cousins, Joe & Jake.
I'm obviously not "picture worthy" for Jake.
He seriously freaked out and cried!
Oh well...fickle men!

Here is Joe & me.

He is precious!

Those kiddos gave me some fantastic gifts!
Seriously I collect a particular yellow pottery made by a local potter.
Here is a post I did earlier this year from Ashley Wren's Overlooked project regarding said collection.
Jake gave me a set of six napkin rings and Joe gave me a cute little toothpick holder...both were items I needed!
I was stoked about receiving such great gifts with so much thought.
I could actually list every single gift I received and say the same thing.
I am so blessed to be surrounded by such awesome family & friends.
I'm blessed and sometimes I wonder if I'm worthy of such generosity & love!

Anyway....on to the TG#3 pics:

Another Matt & Alex photo.

Aren't they adorable???

My Aunt Kathi (who just celebrated her birthday) and Uncle Robert or "Ra-Ra" as I called him when I was a little girl, prior to the feast.

Mom & Joe acting like a couple of clowns!And here's my fave of the day:

I am thinking Joe is loving Aunt "Khacki's" mashed 'taters! :)

Here is a little "post-Thanksgiving meal photo.

We've all been there Robert!

I captured the elusive Jake while he was playing.
Check out the new "ink" we put on his forearm.
He's a rockstar ya know.All-in-all it was a fantastic ending to a Thanksgiving holiday.

I have so much to be thankful for.

I thought it only fair to post another picture of Nutmeg getting (or giving, whichever way you look at it) some love from her new Mommy, Joyce!

How precious is that???

And I would be remiss if I didn't post a picture of Schatzi.
Schatzi is Meg's "big brother".
Schatzi is a rescued long hair dachshund that Joyce adopted several years ago.
He is so sweet & loves the camera I might add!
He was abused at one time, but is now living heaven on earth! What a great day it has been. I've had so many phone calls, emails, Facebook messages and cards wishing me a Happy Birthday. I love birthdays...even though I'm facing exactly one year until....ssssshhhhhhh the big 4-0. ugh.

I've also taken a couple of photos and have some thoughts for my December 1 daily for little album.

good times....good times!

December Daily

I have finally completed all of the Thanksgiving festivities and will post more on that subject tomorrow.

I did want to share a little project that will begin taking shape tomorrow - the first day of December.

The first day of December not only marks the day of my birth, it also marks the first official day of the Christmas season. The birthday of the most important figure to ever be born - EVER! Christ. Thus the name Christmas! If you know me, you know one of my pet peeves is how some establishments and people have a hang-up with using the name Christmas for this season. I mean, come on, let's call it what it is: CHRISTMAS! Another peeve is when people use xmas. I know most don't mean anything by it, and use it only as an abbreviation of some kind, but it is just one of those fingernail on the chalkboard things for me.

Okay, I'll jump off my soapbox and get back to my project.

The uber talented Ali Edwards inspired me (along with a bazillion other scrapbookers) to do this project. I'm excited to begin tomorrow documenting a snapshot of each day leading up until Christmas. My hope is to have at least one photo of the day and a little remembrance of some kind for each day.

Here is a picture of my little book. It is comprised of kraft paper, transparencies (actually unused x-ray film - thanks Amy!), Anthropologie catalog, envelopes, Hambly, Christmas scrapbook paper, and will have other goodies before it's complete.

I'll try to keep the blog updated with photos of the book throughout the month.

Something new in my Etsy shop, a little different too.
Check out my little JOY notecard set.
I can also customize these to include your name, initial, another sentiment, etc.
If you are interested, let me know!
And thanks to Deltha for this great idea!

Finally, I want to introduce the newest member of our family: Nutmeg (Meg for short!)

She is my Aunt Joyce's new dachshund and how dang cute is she???? I love dogs, and she is precious. She is supposedly 7 months old. I'm thinking she is one lucky pup to have Joyce as her new Mommy. She has been there about 24 hours and is already spoiled! I love it!

More Thanksgiving #3 tomorrow along with a Birthday breakdown!

Thanksgiving #2

Today was the *official* celebration.
We had the perfect weather.
In fact this entire week has been perfect weather.
for that I am thankful.

Something that always stresses me out during the holidays:
having so many places to go - making choices.
"your family this year, my family next." etc.
This year I didn't worry & stress -
something new I'm trying.
Having so many places to go and family to see.
for that I am thankful.

So much I take for granted.
So much to be thankful for.

We drove to Conway today to have Thanksgiving with Hubs' side of the family.
We have not gone there for TG for two years.
What a fun group!
A large group.
So large I cannot capture them all.
Luckily our niece Cassy takes the "traditional" Thanksgiving family photos each year.
Everybody complains.
but I think secretly they are all happy she does it.
Here are few from my Canon:

Alex & her cousin Callie

Father & Son

Brooke & Rob (voted biggest & best teeth by the family!)
:->

Daddy's Girl

Wow! A picture of me!

A pretty nice looking group indeed!

A random observation for the day:
I've used the word "indeed" more than once today.
odd.

No shopping for me tomorrow.
I'm making some sort of stand against it.
and I pretty much don't want to get up at the buttcrack of dawn.
Black Friday is way overrated in my opinion.
Plus I made that whole handmade pledge thing.
I cannot break my pledge.
The Etsy police might hunt me down!

Happy Thanksgiving to all and to all a good night.

Thanksgiving #1

<<<WARNING>>>>

This is a photo heavy post!

Thanksgiving is seriously one of my favorite holidays.
It's like Christmas without the pressure of gift buying.
It's all about family and being thankful for them.
And if you know me you know I'm all about family.
I love spending time with my family.
and the turkey & dressing is pretty cool too!

I am excited because this year's events are spread out.
No pressure again - which is awesome.
I am so over holidays with pressure to be 20 places at once.

Last night we spent time at my Dad's with the DeShazo side of the family.
They are a fun crew.
My stepmom Velisa had a glorious meal complete with all the traditional TG trimmings.
Dad smoked a fab turkey. Seriously, it was great.
I ate a crapload of it too!

My uncle and his friend, Wayne were here from San Diego.
It is always fun to hang out and (attempt) to catch up.
I wish I could see them more often.

All my siblings were there.
We had a blast playing Wii.
I pretty much suck at Guitar Hero.
I can sing like a bird though in Rock Band! tee hee.
I am the next American Idol you know!

I pray that others can enjoy and be thankful for their own families this year.
I have two more TG celebrations to go.
Am I blessed or what?!

Granny and Tommy

Judy
James & Jerry
Dad

Velisa & a pumpkin pie :)

Guitar Hero Diva: Haley!!! She rocks.

Wayne & Tommy - more wii fun.

Kyle & Alex had an intense game of boxing.
I am pretty sure it was a KO by Alex.

Love this one of Granny & Hadley

(he is not a fan of having pictures taken...little turkey!)

Kyle on the baby grand. He is so musically inclined.
I love, love this picture!
so much that I scrapped it tonight:

Last but not least:Matt & Alex.

I could kick myself for not getting a picture of my sister Sarah & her boyfriend Heath.
What was I thinking?

I also didn't get one of Cindy or myself! (per usual)

We also celebrated my birthday...great gifts indeed!

More to come...

What does Spring plus Fall equal

These are some out of car window pics I took going down mom's driveway last Sunday.
I was doing a little editing on these in Photoshop and came across some actions I downloaded from deviantart. The one I decided to try was entitled "spring."
I thought it would be cool to see what it would be like to mix a spring action with a fall picture.
Here are the results.
Odd. But kind of pretty!


This dang week has absolutely flown by!
Where did it go?

So it is two weeks from Thanksgiving.
You know Christmas will be right behind...
If you are wanting to order any CountryText alpha-prints for gifts, please let me know as soon as possible. Especially for a custom frame job.
If you are local, drop me an email or call.
If not, go to my Etsy and shop away!

While you are there, do check out all the awesome eye candy that Etsy has to offer.
Make some Christmas purchases.
Etsy has the coolest search options.
Browse by color, location and a plethora of other ways.

I can promise that the individuals artists and crafters will appreciate it much more than Wal-Mart or the other big boxers. (disclaimer: I am not a Wal-Mart hater, I shop at Wal-Mart almost daily, my family works at Wal-Mart, they have rolled back prices...just sayin').

Plus, the quality will be fantastic.
That is one thing I've noticed about most artists or crafters who sell their own goods, they take great pride in their craftsmanship and want to make top notch items. There is gorgeous stuff on there. I have found a lot of jewelry I would love to have!

Anyway just a Handmade plug I suppose, but do consider at least buying local this year, our local economies need your dollars to thrive in these scary times.

okay, off to wash dishes.