Christmas Time

We had a very Merry Christmas this year, even a visit from Old Saint Nick! Here he is instructing us on the difference from "aside the nose" and "inside the nose!" Gotta love those replacement clauses.

The kids got tired of posing for pictures. I got a new lens for Christmas and I took over 500 pictures from Christmas Eve until Christmas Day! Thank goodness for digital.

My children got everything they wanted and more. I can't believe how everyone is so good to them.

My daughter looks so cute, she doesn't need that makeup she is putting on. Makeup is one of her favorite things to play with, thanks to her godmother who gave her some last year.

We have had a very blessed Christmas time! It has been very busy with work, family and colds! I hope to get back to my regular blogging after new years! Happy New Years to All!

Christmas Home Tour

Welcome, welcome! I am so glad that I finally am able to host all of you! I have been so excited about this day, that I took too much time taking pictures! But, we are here and I want you all to enjoy.

This is my home all aglow! My husband enjoys Christmas lights and loves decking it all out. He says it is for the children, but since we are all children at heart, it is for him as well!

This year we added a nativity set. This is my favorite outside decoration, after all this is truly the reason for the season!


And Santa is waiting by the front door to greet all of you as well!

He is also at your feet as soon as you open the front door. Be careful where you wipe your feet!

This is what you see when you open the door.

To the right is our living room. When we bought this house, the first thing we thought was a room for the Christmas tree! Our last house did not have a front window to put the tree in.

This is my collection of Santa pictures with my children. It is so much fun looking at how they have changed over the last six years!

The village has taken over the living room. We have a town, a North Pole and a country setting. These are a few of my favorite pieces.

The church, the school and the coffee house. I also like the kids sledding in the front.

The North Pole is next. It sits on top of our antique piano.

The kids around the campfire and the tent is a fun accessory to our country area.

This is the front room tree. It is more of a designer type tree. It has poinsettias, red and gold ornaments, angels and snowflakes on it.

The snowflakes are hand made by my husband's late grandmother. I love them! I have them on both of our trees. Just like real snowflakes, each one is a little different from the next.

These angels are from my mother. She gave them to me along time ago. There are about twenty of them and they are all different sizes. They are all very cute.

The Santa Express winds its way around this tree. This is one of the things the kids just love to put up. We got this when my son was a year old. I can still see the look on his face the very first time that we set it up! A great memory!

Grandma got this for my son that same year. It is an advent calendar. In each box their is an ornament to hang on the trees. For his second year, we put a Hershey kiss in each box as well as the ornament. He started asking if he could do the "Kisser Calendar." The name stuck and this is what they both call it now. I only wish it would have been a nativity scene.

We now enter my dining room. This is my buffet. I love the snowmen and the glow they add to the wood.

Our kitchen table. We added the hanging ornaments this year. We light our advent wreath during dinner. The kids love to take turns blowing out the candles. You can also see our window box that is decorated. We love to watch all the cars go through our neighborhood looking at the lights.

Next we go to our Family room. The first year we were here, we couldn't wait to put the Christmas tree in the Living room window. The only problem was that we didn't hang out there. We missed having a tree to enjoy, so we went and bought another one. Here are some of our favorite ornaments.

Mary and baby Jesus.

A beaded snowflake made by my husband's grandmother.

I don't know what happened to the rest of my pictures:( I will have to add another post showing the tree, my inside nativity and a few other things!

I hope you enjoyed it and will come back again! If you want to see more, check out Boomama.

Christmas Home Tour

My Christmas Home tour is coming soon!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas at our house, and I love it! We love to turn all the Christmas lights on at night and no regular lights. It is beautiful and really helps get all of us in the mood for Christmas. Here is one of our trees on Friday evening. It wasn't decorated yet but we could still light it up!

My husband has the outside almost all done. He worked all weekend on it even though he was sick! All he has left to do is go buy more extension cords! It is amazing how many more we end up buying every year.

My daughter was a big help on the living room tree. We turned up the Christmas music and enjoyed putting on the ornaments. I didn't let it bother me that all her decorations were in one spot, I just moved them later without telling her. It was more important that we were making Christmas memories.

A Thanksgiving Feast

Thanksgiving came and went so fast this year. It seems like before I even realized it, I was planning the meal and going grocery shopping. I have been blessed to be the hostess for both my family and my husbands family for Thanksgiving the last several years. This year we were a smaller group with only 25 people. But like usual, we had plenty of food!

We had a smoked turkey, a barbecued turkey, a ham and lots and lots of side dishes. My favorite this year was Pioneer Woman's corn and wild rice. It was so good that I am going to make sure it is on the menu again.

After my sister got her plate she told me to get my camera. I am glad she did because her plate looked so pretty. I just love white plates, they make your food look so good!

This was suppose to be the drink table but some of the many desserts made it here. My mother in law makes the best punch and my sister in law again brought some outstanding wine! She also made the cupcakes. They were so pretty and tasted great too.

She did such a great job on them. She must be taking after her mother when it comes to baking. My mother in law always brings the desserts and she didn't disappoint this year. She made cookies, fudge, peanut butter balls, lemon meringue pie, two chocolate pies, two pumpkin pies, pumpkin cheese cake, peach cobbler and pumpkin roll! Can you say stuffed!

Before dinner the kids were out playing in the backyard. They even let me take a picture of them all together.

We were also fortunate to have our parish priest, Father Mike, come for dinner. I don't have the pull to get him to my house, but my sister does. She works at the parish office and she invited him for dinner. We were glad that he came.

I don't know what I would do with out Auntie D! She is my brother in law's sister and also my husband's 2nd cousin; confusing I know. But Auntie D always makes the turkey gravy and she makes it so good! It would not be Thanksgiving without her.

My husband's side drinking and chatting before dinner.

My mother in law making the punch.

I didn't get very many pictures because I was busy cooking. I hardly took any of my family. I hope my sister got better pictures and shares them.

I had a great time once all the food got on the table. There was a brief time when I was wondering what I was thinking when I set the time for dinner at noon. We didn't eat at noon, but since my sister made great appetizers, everyone patiently waited. Since all the food was so good, it was worth waiting for!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! I am getting ready to load the dishwasher one last time before I go to bed. I am having twenty four of my favorite people over for dinner tomorrow night and I just put the last dish in the refrigerator. I was getting ready to turn the laptop off (I have been on Pioneer Woman all day preparing her recipes) and thought I would post a Happy Thanksgiving to All! May the Lord bless us all, with many things to be thankful for. May we all be safe, happy and full on this day!

A beautiful thought

"When the time comes, as it surely will, when we face that awesome moment, the final judgment, I've often thought, as Fulton Sheen wrote, that it is a terrible moment of loneliness. You have no advocates, you are there alone standing before God -- and a terror will rip your soul like nothing you can imagine. But I really think that those in the pro-life movement will not be alone. I think there'll be a chorus of voices that have never been heard in this world but are heard beautifully and clearly in the next world -- and they will plead for everyone who has been in this movement. They will say to God, 'Spare him, because he loved us!'"

-- the late pro-life hero, Congressman Henry Hyde

I read this quote after the election on Let the Little Ones Come. It has crossed my mind over and over since then. What a beautiful thought this is. It gives me hope in the midst of this depression.

The Cutting Room Floor

I was looking at the pictures that I rejected from for our Christmas card. There were several that I liked for various reasons, but they just didn't make the cut for one reason or another. I hate that no one will see them, so I thought I would share them here. A little too tilted and my son is slightly fuzzy. But their smiles are great.

Too squinty. I was trying to keep the shadows off their faces put the sun was just too bright. But that girl is too cute!

If I could put my daughter from the last shot in this one, what a great picture that would have been.

Sand angels, not such a great idea!

The lighting was so bad in these shots, but the background looked good.

One of my favorites, but couldn't bring myself to put it in the card.

A great serious shot, but not very Christmassy. I like how her hair is not in her face!

The thinker!

This one looked to grainy to me.

A great profile, but that strand of hair on the next bugs me!

I guess that is why professionals take so many pictures. Out of about 300 shots, I got about 10 t0 15 that I liked. Thank God for digital!

Christmas Cards

I have been working on creating our family Christmas card for the last week and a half. It has been so frustrating!!!! It is hard when you have an idea in your head, have some decent pictures of your children, have little money in your pocket, and zero ability to do technical things on the computer! I had such high hopes for a great original card, but I don't think it is going to happen. I finally just ordered what I had after doing and redoing the card on at least five different card sites.

I remember as a child the hard part was getting a decent picture of six kids with a film camera. Oh, how great digital photography is! You can at least see if you have a picture before the kids get undressed. But at least back then, Mom just took the picture down and had them print 200 copies of the card! Today you have to be creative and create one, or at least that is what I have been thinking. I guess I should just go retro and do a simple, one photo, photo card. Yeah that is it, I'll go retro! Too late, I all ready ordered the other ones. I hope they turn out okay. I guess it really doesn't matter because it is the thought that counts, right? Merry Christmas!

39 Days until Christmas!

Oh I can't wait for this! In case you don't know it, but we LOVE Christmas at our house!

Veterans Day

God Bless Our Troops who sacrifice so much for our freedoms! May God also bless their families who sacrifice everyday. May God Bless Our Country and May we remember what it takes to have freedom and liberty!

A Weekend Refresher

After a few strenuous weeks and the depressing reality of our future, we took off for a weekend getaway. While we had windy, cloudy, rainy and cold weather most of the weekend, we had moments of wonderful weather as well. The blessing in the bad weather is that we spent time inside as a family playing games, reading books and having fun as a family. It was just what the doctor ordered! Here are a few of my favorite pictures!

We found this rock at Montana de Oro, it symbolized the love of family we were feeling this weekend!

Playing in the sand, with all the sand toys was a priority for the kids. We did not think this would be possible, but because of the protected cove at Montana de Oro, we had a good time at the beach.

My son loves to put things in rows. He will line up all his toy figurines, his cars, his shoes whatever catches his fancy at the time. Today it was all the digging toys!

What a cutie!

Playing the air guitar at the beach, who would have thought?

An absolutely beautiful sunset on Sunday!

The day was perfect on Monday when it was time to go home! It never fails to be that way whenever we are at the beach! This park has a pirate ship and other nautical things that the kids always enjoy playing on. They had fun being pirates today!

I love this picture. In the back ground are two favorite landmarks that the kids get so excited to see. They both try to be the first one to see them on the trip over. The kids have even named the smoke stacks and of course they love Morro Rock!

What a blessing it was to go and enjoy the big big beach with my family.