Christmas & New Years 2009

Yes, this is a very creative post title. At least you know what's coming! Christmas was a whirlwind as usual. We enjoyed so many fun things and visiting so many of our family and friends. Thank you everyone for sharing your time with us! It snowed on Christmas Eve this year which was a very unexpected surprise. The kids were so excited, they could hardly wait for Christmas to get here.

The Sunday before Christmas we wore our 'Christmas outfits'... I like to call it. Then I realized I left my camera at someone else's house! So we made do with cell-phone pics this year. Still love the kids in their matching prints!

My family and in-laws joined us on Christmas morning for presents and Christmas breakfast.

The kids could hardly wait to see what Santa brought!

Gingerbread man pancakes! The kids (and I!) thought these were a hoot.

I had little treat boxes for visitors. Be sure you come visit me during the Holidays to get a treat!

And Jeff and the kids had a snowball fight.

Then we enjoyed a Christmas Eve 'make-up dinner' at our in-laws house.

I love this picture of the Sabin cousins... Steven, Hunter, Margaret, Tristen, Ethan & Sydney

And the adults....looking nerdy.

For New Years we enjoyed the bounce house and partying at our friends! The kids were so tired they barely made it to midnight!

Check out the slide show below. We hope you had a wonderful time as well.

A Country Thanksgiving

This weekend we celebrated an early Thanksgiving with my maternal Grandmother and family. Everyone is so busy during the actual Holiday that it becomes easier This side of my family is decidedly 'country'. Built a house on the prairie, down to earth, good country food, wear cowboy hats, keep horses and chickens kind of people. So it was only appropriate that the event be held at the community center in Blue Ridge, TX....population 970.

Directions went something like...travel down this major highway, turn right on this tiny road and when you get into Blue Ridge turn right at THE stop sign. Yeah, the one stop sign. Driving down this tiny road into the middle of nowhere, Jeff and I kept looking at each other like 'where are we going?' We finally found the place and they had a surprisingly cute playground and a community center with a little kitchen to heat up the food.

First order of business was eat! We had all the traditional Thanksgiving foods plus Grandmas giblets gravy. Since I don't think about what is in it, I think it's pretty good.

Then we played games and the kids were able to have fun running around outside and playing on the playground. It was a bright and sunny day - perfect for being outside.

Jeff spent the day on crutches. He sprained his ankle pretty badly in a game Friday night. Silly Jeff. If there is a family gathering I can almost guarantee that he will be hurt. We've spent many holiday mornings in an ER or with him hobbling around unable to help. Hey wait... hmmm...maybe that is a clue! ;)

We had a great time seeing the family and celebrating together! Happy early T-day!

The month of February

I didn't post anything for the whole month of February. I was too busy doin' to have any time for 'splaining' what I was doin'.


So here's my quick run-down. Most of the month I focused on Valentines Day. Some people hate it. Me, I love it. Lots of fun.


I took time to make some valentines cards. Then promptly sent them out late. Oops.

Hmm. I should think about taking better pictures. These have a 'postage stamp' feel to them. These use chalk and an overlay to make the white lines across the center and have a postage stamp edge on the white.

I feel like this pink and black is sweet and simple.

It's hard to see but these have glitter hearts in the bottom right corner and an embellished word.

We also made some quick and easy valentines for the kid's classes. These have a conversation heart stamp and the kids wrote their names on the back. Later I added ribbon but forgot to take a picture. Boo.

For valentines I received lovely tulips, candy and a bear (really for Sydney). There were two dozen tulips and they flowered so nicely in a few days.

My visiting teacher dropped by a really cute little cookie mix/heart cookie cutter/frosting package that I took full advantage of. Some cookies to go with a gift for my DH:

The kids also had fun helping to decorate some heart cookies (none of which survived the weekend!)

How cute is this little valentine holder Tristen made? It's a dog 'holding' a box to put his valentines in. He also wrote his name on it. I thought it was a fun idea for kids to do.

Happy Belated New Year!

We rang in the new year with a family party and lots of food (anyone see a theme here?) and games.

I love the start of a new year. It feels like you can wipe out all the things you meant to do the previous year and start again! This year I am working on my food storage and cooking better with it. I found some additional material and am reorganizing the information I already have so I can use it better. So if you have any suggestions or want to work on it with me let me know!

I also will be the Sunbeams teacher (for children 3-4 years old) at church for the 3rd year in a row. I love the little kids, but using the same manual every year can get a little, um, boring for me. Plus I don't get to meet many new people. But working with the kids is always so much fun. This year I will have Syd in my class and her first week went fairly well. It's always hard for the little ones to make the transition from having a snack and to sitting (somewhat) still for 45 minutes instead of being able to play with toys. Every year the first few weeks are always spent on learning to sit in their chairs, not talking over one another, and just learning how to be in a class.

What new resolutions are you working on? I love to hear!

Christmas 2008

Christmas is such a fun time of year. We were able to have a lot of our families come and visit with us for Christmas. We even had a sleepover party on Christmas Eve with our family and cousins. It was so nice to see everyone and we are thankful they could all travel to see us!

We enjoyed more food than we could finish.

We read "The Night Before Christmas". We played some fun new games and enjoyed hanging out together.

And on Christmas morning, we all ran downstairs to see what Santa had brought us!

The kids were espeically excited to play on the new trampoline Santa brought. Sydney was very sad that Santa had left before she could see him.

Enjoying more of our presents in Christmas jammies.



Sydney took most of her gifts and tried to stuff them in her backpack.

Later we got to visit with more of DH's family.

We hope you all had as much fun and family as we did!

Christmas Cards

I do love Christmas cards. I wish more people sent them. I also wish I had more time in between work, family, and projects to work on creating some cards. This year I just ran out of time. Here are some candidates I made for this year's card. I always like humor, I've never been a very sappy person. I tried to inject a little humor into this year's card (see gingerbread man). I kinda failed miserably, but I did have some laughs while trying things out.

I confess I made my card list this year in a rush. Which was hard considering I stink at keeping addresses. Then DH added a few names. So if you get a Christmas card from me and wonder, why is this person who I don't *really* know well sending me a card, well...either I like you or my DH thinks he knows you. And honestly, who could be offended by getting an extra card right?

Jingle Bell Rock

Christmas Sayings

Falling Snow

Felt Christmas Tree

Gingerbread Man 1

Gingerbread Man 2...the inside of this card reads:

And finally...our photo card for 2008 because I only made ideas and didn't leave time to actually replicate any of these.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!