Blog Anniversary Giveaway

I didn't even realize but one of my blogs is one year old today. I haven't been blogging all that long but have enjoyed skimming around the blog-o-sphere and reading what is happening in your world, in your part of the country or the globe for that matter.

I think in honor of this blogs birthday I will post this picture of a simple give away that you can put aside for next year. I made a few of these this season. The tealight holder is made from black felt and the top edge is sprinkled with german glass glitter. I wrapped some tea stained cheese cloth around the hat and pinned a rusty jingle bell.



All you need to do for this giveaway is become a follower of my blog and leave a comment letting me know that you are following or if you are already a follower just tell me that. Sound good? I'll make it easy this time and a little more interesting the next. Good luck! I'll post the winner around January 17th.

And Happy New Year everyone

Let the Merry Making Begin

It's Christmas Eve and at our house that is when a lot of the celebration begins. We prepare the rest of the food which this year we bought too much so we will have to finish some of it tomorrow while eating left overs. Micah woke everyone up early to open stockings. I manage to put him off until about 10:30am so we could get a few things started.


On the menu this year is ribs (for later or tomorrow), chicken wings, cranberry chicken wings, lots of dips, hummis and few other things. I'm hoping to make tomorrow or the day after a gingerbread cake. So that will be a nice treat.







It looks like we will be snowed in from the storm that is going on outside today and tomorrow. They are predicting 15-20inches for us. I guess this will be a real "white Christmas". One of the girls is a little disappointed about getting snowed in - she was hoping to go to a movie on Christmas day like we did last year. We don't normally do that but with all our family too far away to travel to we decided to try that. I was actually very surprised at how crowded the theater was last year.

Merry Christmas to all of you. Enjoy your time with family and friends celebrating the birth of the Savior of the world.

Lil' Christmas Eve

Today our family celebrates "Lil' Christmas Eve". We adopted the tradition from our pastor back home in New England. His family has Norweigan background and my husband's side has Sweedish. So the day before Christmas, we start baking and doing those fun little things around the house as we get ready to celebrate the birth of Christ. We listen to carols while cooking and maybe a little bit of cleaning gets done. We finish up the wrapping and put the final touches on our decorations. We baked 3 different cookies today. We usually do much more but the time this year seemed to just get away from me and my little guy started to seem like he was getting a sick stomach. I'm praying not, since it will be no fun to have a sick child on Christmas, especially at his age. He's been waiting and waiting with very little patience, but then I don't blame him for that everyone loves presents.

Children's Christmas Program

Tonight was our church's Christmas program. We had a really good turn out for attendance and some family visitors coming to see the grandkids, neice or nephew of their relative. My daughter Natania had a two verse solo in one of the songs. I'm very proud of her. I think she is a little disappointed in how it went. She got kinda nervous on the 2nd verse, so I think she feels she could've done better. But I'm so glad she even tried. Bev, the lady who handles this each year kept asking for more volunteers and no one was willing to take on a solo verse or two. I know Natania can sing really, really well when no one is looking at her. So this is good practice for getting over those nerves. The hymn had about 10 verses, maybe more I lost track and it isn't the easiest song to sing even the congregation had trouble with their verses. We can't take photos during service so I'm posting a couple from the kids Christmas concert with our homeschool choir. The first is a picture of Natania with her friend Mackenzie. Natania is the blond on the right.

This one is from our concert. She really loves to sing so we are encouraging anything musical for her. She is part of the choir, takes voice lessons twice a month and piano.

Decking the Halls

I finally had a few moments to take some pictures of this years decorations. I'm not completely done. I'm still hoping to work on the kitchen a little bit more but that room is always full of school books or dirty dishes.

This year I did a little bit of outdoor decorating with the sled and the box of greenery under the window. I've wanted one of those sleds for a while now and found one at a reasonable price at the antique store down the street.




Onto the livingroom/dining room area.














After getting the tree up and decorated we lost some lights. I hate when that happens. A few years back we had the same problem just on a different tree and in a different house. We were living in Indiana then.




We have another tree in the dining room. It's a collection of victorian ornaments that we've bought over the years. We've come a long way since the first few years of marriage when we didn't have alot in the way of decorations.


Let's not forget among the fun of decorations and gift giving the real meaning of Christmas.


Isa 9:6 For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Luke 2: 7, 11, 14

And she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you: he is Christ the Lord.

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.

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A cute little story

Yesterday my husband, my son and two older girls went to Sam's club while I took the younger two girls shopping for new Christmas dresses. They finished before us and tried to call my cell but it wasn't ringing. My husband decided to send Arianna and my 7 year old son into Kohl's to find us. They had a hard time finding us in the store and the funny part is Micah's conversation with Arianna which went like this

"Mommy is lost, that's why mommy shouldn't go out alone" Arianna told him I wasn't lost.

Micah continued with "If Mommy doesn't come home then she's grounded."

He says the cutest things.