Christmas gifts!

I have been making so many Christmas gifts this year and I'm loving every minute of it. In the past I didn't really think people enjoyed the things that I was making for them but in the last few months it seems that some have actually requested them. So this year I am attempting to make something for everyone on our gift list. The downfall is that I'm about to bust with excitement when I finish something. Typically I would post about it so I could share it with someone (yes I can show the boys in my household but they just don't get it all the time!). Two gifts however were already given so I can share the info with you all! Last year Ali Edwards shared what she did to record the Christmas season. So this year I decided to give it a go. But instead of just making 1 album I made 3 and gave two as gifts. This gift does come with work because the recipient has to add to it as the month of December goes on. Here is the album before the month begins. I had so much fun picking out random things to put in here and am getting so excited to start filling it with memories! I'll show you the completed album again in January.

Tomorrow also marks the start of Advent. Last year I started a tradition that each day we pull a slip of paper out of our advent box. The slips include various things like activities, treats or acts of service. I'll keep you posted on how this goes too. Jameson didn't get into it too much last year but this year I believe it will be enjoyed!

So are you making any gifts this Christmas season? Share yours with me!

Thanksful for...

“Open for me the gates of righteousness; I will enter and give thanks to the LORD.” Psalm 118:19 (NIV)

Here is a limited list of the things I'm thankful for right now:

• Family to share a wonderful Thanksgiving feast (pictured here are the pies that dear hubby prepared).


• A little boy that says he is thankful for: His 4-wheeler, motorcycle, our house and God (his words exactly). Isn't he the cutest, here he was praying while practicing for his upcoming school performance.


• The bible to be able to read and learn from on a daily basis.


• A wonderful, providing husband that loves me for who I am, quirks and all!


• The many friends that we have, both locally and from a distance.

I am thankful for so many others who are using their talents to help others in creative ways...

• Each month Songbird Avenue has a new kit and the proceeds go to a different charity. This month they are supporting toys for tots. Get a digi kit for yourself while helping out at the same time.


• By sponsoring a child through Compassion International we have the ability to share the love of Jesus with a child in a foreign land.

In other news, over the weekend we headed to Charlotte to stay with a friend of James'. We went downtown to go ice skating. It was so funny to watch the little ones on the ice. Jameson did go around about 10 times and seemed to enjoy it. Syd didn't like it so much. Here she is watching Jameson try to get his skates off. We're happy to be home again preparing for our upcoming trip to Disney. I am beyond excited to take this little boy (and big boy for that matter) to the happiest place on earth!!

Thankful!

“Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.” 1 Thessalonians 5:18

We are so thankful this year! Look at our cute little indian! We are thankful for you too! Hope you are having a yummy meal with those you love!

Christmas!

Are you preparing for a holiday season focused on the true Christian meaning of Christmas? Check out this article that discusses the retailers that are proud to declare that it is the Christmas season. For our family we will be shopping at retailers on this list as much as possible. How about you?

Another option to help on a local level...buy homemade like at etsy.

Or a global option might be to help Samaritan's Purse, World Vision or Compassion International.

For us this Christmas season we're going to try to remember all the people that make a difference in our lives...like teachers, friends, sales/service clerks, family, neighbors and others. Not that we'll be buying something for all of these people, just doing something to help brighten a moment in their life. Now I'm off to finish designing our Christmas card for this year and hopefully update the header on the blog.

Our weekend!

Jameson's favorite part was probably the hot bath (aka hot tub). He had so much fun swimming around, jumping around, overall just having fun in the water. We all enjoyed the awesome homemade goodies from Mother Crill, a mini hike in the woods with Joe-Joe & playing a bit of pool. I had fun taking some pictures of James' sister Caree. Caree & Chris are expecting their first baby in 2009. The rest of the time at the camp was a great relaxing time (no cell phone service or wifi so it was a true get away!).

The real adventure for the weekend begin on Sunday as we were leaving the cabin. We started out down the road and when we got to the bottom of the Blue Ridge Mountains we found that the road was closed (it has snowed on the mountain overnight). So we followed the rest of the traffic and about 90 minutes later we found ourselves in Cades Cove. Now if we had only known this at the beginning we probably would not have gotten to drive through a creek in the road - which surprisingly did not make hubby come unglued, while driving my new truck. Nor would I have gotten the chance to capture the image below with the fawn in the foreground and the snow caped mountains the background. We found a ranger and found out that the main road over the mountain was now open, so we headed back in that direction. We got to the point we had been at earlier in the day and started up the mountain. Things were going good, Jameson was taking a nap and James & I were chatting. I was also able to take a few more pictures of the awesome snow and ice that had covered all of nature. Then we got to the top and found traffic completely stopped. And right there just 6 vehicles in front of us 2 cars had collided and caught on fire. Praise God all of the people had gotten out without harm. Then for the next 2.5 hours we sat at the top of the mountain while we watched most of these vehicles burn away, with a few pops in there when the tires caught fire and then the gas tanks. Jameson got to play in the snow, I took a few more pictures, watched a movie, got to see a few different news helicopters right over us - overall we got to spend some safe time together as a family. Once they had gotten everything cleared away we were escorted down the mountain with a salt truck in front of us. Then we got a little dinner and drove the rest of the way home. What should have taken us 3 hours took us 10 but we were safe and together...thankful to God.

Here is our weekend recapped in photos...

Fun banner!

Hello to everyone out there in cyberspace. Boy do I have a story to share with you all. We had a great time away this weekend. The real story happened yesterday on the way home. I'll come back later tonight to post the full story. Before I go into all of that, I wanted to share with you a couple of other things. First I want to share a charity kit with you. A member of the digital scrapbooking community, Danielle (Artemia) was recently in an automobile accident. 13 fabulous designers got together and created a kit to show support. You can read all about it here. And more about the kit here. I'm planning to work on something with this kit but wanted to spread the word now so you could show your support as well.

One more thing...I recently I had the pleasure of working with a digital leaf template from Cafe J. I sent Janelle the pieces that I used to create it and she added it as a free gift with purchase of the fall leaf stackable kit. Let me know if you get it and how it turns out. Here is a picture of a different version that I'd created using paper from Sugarplum Paperie. I hope you are all feeling thankful today!

Creating!

Boy have I been on a creating binge lately. I love it but I can tell that I'm neglecting some other areas of life - mainly sleep! We're heading out of town this weekend so I'm excited to spend time with family and take a break from making things, I'll focus on making some memories!

Yesterday Jameson & I did some baking - one of our mommy & boy activities that we both enjoy! We made some cute little bear faced muffins. He doesn't like this picture, actually asked me to delete it and take it again - such a big personality for such a little boy!

I have a couple of fun things to share...I wrote up instructions on how to create a hybrid clipboard for the digichick blog. I also just found that I was selected to be a November guest for Plain Digital Wrapper. And I'm super excited to let you all know that I'm now on the CT for After Five Designs. I've also recently accepted the duty of hybrid project coordinator for The Daily Scrapper. This is an online publication - which I have a fun wreath spotlighted in for the issue that comes out this Friday. For future issues I'll be on the lookout for some other talented hybrid artists. If that is you, leave me a link so I can check out your gallery!

I had a friend call me earlier today to let me know about a great deal that Oprah is offering through snapfish - a free bound book, it is only good until midnight on Friday so go now! Click here!

Back to personal matters, when I was putting Jameson down for nap I was singing to him (he is the ONLY person that I have or will ever sing to). I have been singing the same songs since he was a witty bitty babe (Jesus Loves Me and Go Tell it on the Mountains). For the first time he actually sang along with me. So sweet. I love this boy so much it hurts my heart sometimes. Earlier this week we were watching tv and there was a section that was talking about Thanksgiving. The characters were talking about what they were thankful for so I asked Jameson what he was thankful for. He said, "my four-wheeler". Then I asked him who he was thankful for the four-wheeler. He looked right at me and said "God". I do hope he always remembers that everything that we have is because of our God.

Foreign Missions...

Do you ever have those days that one topic is mentioned in various places? Yesterday it seemed that foreign missions was brought up quite a few conversations. Then today I received the Proverbs 31 devotional and it talked about building a home. In the devotional written by Marybeth she was talking more about the spiritual home that we as Christians create. It brought me right back to the conversation I had with my dad last night. He had just returned from a foreign mission trip to Mexico. He was telling me about how one family had been praying for over a year to that the roof of their home would be repaired. To this family this group that my dad was involved in was a direct answer to prayer. Now the connection between the devotional and what my dad had told me about his trip was that this family was happy to have their roof fixed. The part that they hadn't factored in was that to do this they would have complete strangers in their home. Dad said this was a very emotional thing for everyone involved because they were fixing parts of the roof right over the bed that these people sleep in at night. Directly above their personal belongings. It makes me think that sometimes God puts us in uncomfortable situations only to know that it will help us grow and become closer to Him. Thank you dad for using your talents in such awesome ways!

Now as I'm typing this the XM station I'm listening to just talked about the most recent compassion international trip to the Dominican Republic, see there is something that God wants me to hear or do. Is a mission trip in my future?

Great birthday!

For anyone that might not know, I celebrated my birthday this weekend. I had a good time Friday night spending time with my local scrappy friends. They totally surprised me with a very touching box full of personal notes to me. I actually got teary eyed reading them. I love my friends! Then Saturday our family headed into Anderson to do a little shopping. It was around lunch time and Jameson was requesting shrimp (he really is my baby!). We ended up at Red Lobster, which totally reminded me of many previous birthdays. One of my all-time favorite foods is crab legs. Growing up the only time I really ate them was for my birthday dinners. So it was a great blast from the past to have crab legs on my birthday. Jameson actually shared them with me instead of having shrimp. And when this boys says "I do like shrimp" he means it. He would eat it every single day for every meal.



Since Friday I've been working on a fun Christmas album. I'm so excited about it. The inspiration came from Ali Edwards. I'll share the pre-December album in a few days (I made some for a couple of friends so I don't want to share pictures until they see them in person). I'm excited to record the season in a different way. I did one of these for the month of July and really like this approach to recording this. As I'm working on them I just think how cool it would be to have something like that from one of my parents or even grandparents. I love the ordinary things that make up days.



On another note...for anyone that has head about the Chatterbox Christmas kit, my mom was able to find a couple of them and has listed them on ebay. If you're interested here is the link.



One more thing, I'm thinking about creating a separate blog for the creative things that are on here. Would you prefer to have our family things mixed with the creative things? I've added a poll to the right...cast your vote!

Little bits...

I'm not sure if you've heard but there is a group of bloggers traveling in the Dominican Republic. They are traveling on behalf of Compassion International. One of the travelers is the Pioneer Woman's husband, I've been following her blog since I started reading blogs. Here is the post I'd like to share.

In other news, I'm excited to share with you soon that I've been added to another creative team. I am so excited! I can't share which one just yet but I will as soon as I can. Today I finished up 13 projects, most of which will be Christmas gifts so I can't share them now. I can however show you this fun thing. For the past few years I've wanted Christmas pillows for the living room. I haven't been able to bring myself to spend the money on them. So I had this idea to grab some inexpensive pillows at walmart and add some digi love to them. Here is the result...

Jameson is feeling better. He didn't go to school today but really probably could have gone. We had a glorious day at home, just the two of us. Now I'm heading to bed as I am way past my bedtime.

Papercraft Planet!

I have something to share with you all. I just found out about a new online community (similar to Facebook & MySpace). The best part is that this one is for crafty people! It is Papercraft Planet. They do have some digital and hybrid sections too. Won't you come join me?

Lately I've been making some crafty things but I won't be able to share quite as many on the blog because they are gifts (I don't want to spoil the surprise since the recipients read the blog). Did you know that Christmas is only 50 days away? Since we celebrate with all of our parents at various times surrounding the holidays we actually have our first gathering next weekend, so that means I'm already in the full swing of Christmas creating. I'm having fun! I'll share some fun things with you all once they been given away.

This morning all 3 of us headed to vote. It was fun to talk to Jameson about what it means to vote. From there James headed to work and Jameson & I came home. We got to watch the local electric company take down a dead tree from our yard. It was pretty cool to see them use boom truck right in our driveway. Yesterday we watched some men pour concrete walls for a new house that is being built around the corner. Super cool stuff going on right at home! After the fun of watching the tree come down we headed to the park to meet some friend from church. It is so awesome to have such a great network of friends. After seeing them and playing for a bit Jameson & I headed into the big downtown area of our town. We placed an order at the local embroidery store, then headed to the drugstore to get some new crocs & then we visited the local barber. He picked out the same exactly color and style of crocs (the others had NO tread on the bottom). We donated the old pair back to crocs so they could be melted down. I love that we get little lessons from even simple things like this - giving to others. Another teaching moment came while he was getting his hair cut. The barber had a speech impediment. Jameson whispered to me about him not speaking like him. That was all he said and went on talking to me and smiling to the man through the mirror. I was happy to see that it didn't make him uncomfortable or that he was loud about pointing it out. Now tonight our family is hanging out at home to not share our germs with others. Jameson got up from nap and decided to empty this tummy all over the couch and floor. Not fun but so far he seems to be feeling better so we'll see how tomorrow goes...

One more thing, Sarah Hi tagged me to share 7 random things about me. Here goes:
1. Making gifts, instead of buying them makes me happy. However since it isn't about only me, I will be purchasing some gifts this Christmas season. (Like maybe some of these or these or something from here)
2. Excited to be doing a bible study with our life group and actually doing it as a couple. We each read the chapters and then discuss - yes he is even reading it, for real! Answered prayers - yeah God!
3. I don't remember many of my childhood birthday celebrations but my 5th birthday is one I do recall.
4. I love to watch certain movies over, and over again. Good for background noise while I'm doing other things - I'm a multitasker.
5. I have saved over 800 pictures from last month.
6. Having a DVR is awesome! I have lately gotten better about not recording every show but only those that I really enjoy. As crazy as it is, it stresses me out to have too many unwatched shows on there so I just limit the number.
7. Like Sarah, I enjoy baking but don't like to cook too much. I love it when the weather is cooler and I can make dinner in the crock-pot. Having it done in the mornings is relaxing to me! My latest baking adventure was to make my own granola. It seems to have turned out pretty good too!

I'm going to tag: Crystal K, Crystal, Heather, Jenn Tr, Jen Ta, Shari, & Sue

Halloween pictures!

I finally have some Halloween pictures to post. Jameson & I had a great time carving the big pumpkin on Thursday. Then last night after trick-or-treating Jameson wanted to do another one. The little one was all we had left so he went to town. He was so proud to show James how he could do it himself. He did at least get two eyes and a mouth - not too bad if you think about it was basically just him carving.

Okay now the details on the rest of the pictures...the one with the 3 pirates was in Lavonia where we went in the afternoon. The shop always has a little bit of candy in the office for the kids and it is a good time for the dads to show off their little ones. It was great to catch up with Sheri & Todd and their 3 growing boys. After that we headed back to our development for trick-or-treating and a Halloween party. Jameson was excited to be dressed in the same costume as Cade (I'll give some details about the costume). Here is a picture of these two as the Lightning McQueen drivers. The other pictures with Jameson and his bag was at the end of the night when he had obviously had one too many pieces of candy. Oh boy was he hyper. It was so funny while he was running from house to house with RL he was hopping and just could not stand still.

See that adorable baby. His big brother RL was dressed up as Handy Manny and this was his saw. Isn't that adorable!!

Here is the story about the costume. About 3-4 weeks ago I started asking him what he would like to dress up as. He couldn't make up his mind. The first two mainly were SuperWhy or batman (pronounced fatman by Jameson). I couldn't find a SuperWhy costume but had picked up a fatman suit at the consignment sale. We also had about 4-5 other costumes here that he could pick from (fun trip to walmart a few years ago and got them like 75% off - great to play with). Then on Thursday Jameson was playing with a box and came over and said "Hey mom this would make a great robot costume". So we got some spray paint and got to work on that costume. He was all into it, even up to nap time on Friday. Together we added some pipe cleaners to it for some added sparkle. We even wrote "Robot Jarvis" on the back because that was what he was calling it. Then when he got up from nap he brought down the pit crew outfit and didn't want anything to do with the robot box. He was happy and has gotten into the fun of being creative for Halloween!

Happy DSD (Digital Scrapbooking Day)!

I can't believe that November is actually here. Time really has been flying by lately. As most of my crafty friends know the first Saturday in May is National Scrapbooking Day, well the digital side has their own day and it is today. There are lots of sales going on and I'm sure some freebies can be found around as well. One of my favorite designers, Nicole of Sugarplum Paperie has put her entire store on sale. Click on the image to go to her blog for a freebie.

I also thought this might be a good time to share with you some of the recent projects that I've been creating. All images are clickable for full credits.

We had a great Halloween. I haven't had a chance to upload the pictures yet but I'll get that done before the weekend is over. Jameson did dress up but it wasn't one of the first 4 costumes that he'd picked out...he went as a Lightning McQueen (KaChow) driver. He is his own man!