Christmas 2012

Hey friends!  I hope you all had a wonderful, calm, relaxing, exciting, and love-filled Christmas!

Things were pretty low-key here, and I am actually really thankful for that!

Even though there was a smidgen of hope that we may have a little snow for Christmas, that was quickly thwarted by all of the severe thunderstorms and tornado WARNINGS in our state.  Everyone spent the entire day watching the weather and changing plans.  We were home by 4:00 pm, hunkered down, waiting for the bad weather to arrive.

We were extremely blessed that we didn't get anything but a ton of rain and wind here, but several people weren't so lucky.  Thoughts and prayers for all of those who did suffer damage/injuries in the storms!

Anyway, on to the fun!

Christmas eve, the kids and I decided to try our hands at our first ever gingerbread houses.  Well, none of us actually like gingerbread, so we used graham crackers instead.  We made a HUGE mess, had a fight with the icing and piping bag, but had a blast!  Chelsea and I worked on ours together (was scared we wouldn't have enough icing to make 3 houses after I lost a fight with the piping bag) and Jameson did his all on his own.  I think they ended up really cute.  Next year, we will be better prepared!

Jameson's on the left, Chelsea's on the right)

They were so proud of their creations!

I purposely didn't post pictures of the kitchen.  It was horrible.  LOL

Since Chelsea got her "big" gift two weeks earlier, Jameson got his big gift too.  It's a pellet/BB gun, not a real automatic weapon.  (I was going to post it earlier, but with the horrific school shooting on that same day, I really didn't think it was appropriate.)  He is excited that he can actually pop a balloon with this gun!

 

I gave Chelsea this shirt I made for her on Christmas eve.  She loved it.

Scotty's autograph

Here is what everything looked like right after Santa came! Ahhhh, the calm before the storm! 

You see my mantle?  Yeah, that's all the decorating I managed to get done this year.  No banners, no garlands/balls hanging from the lights, no little trees up.  Nothing.  And you know what, Christmas still came and was successful without all the decorations!

Chelsea opening the one thing she asked for.  A blonde, curly-haired, Cabbage Patch doll.

Lauren Alaina autographed picture.

Sweets playing with some of her toys that Santa left for her.  Jameson was so sweet.  He was SO worried that Santa would forget Sweets.  He was very excited to see that she got gifts too, and he made sure to "help" her open all of her things before he even touched his presents!

Lauren Alaina t-shirt.

It's a watch!

Best face of the morning!

Lisa Leonard necklace "Just like mommy's!"

A tent!

Real, hunting-legal bow.  He totally wasn't expecting this.  He is excited to learn how to use it.

Alabama hat.

Sweets being tortured by Jameson.  She hates anything on her head, but she was a good sport about it.

We went out to Marty's mother's house, and I totally forgot to get my camera out of the car.  It was POURING rain and I was just trying to get the gifts and food in the door without ruining them.  I did get this picture of the tree AFTER 90% of the gifts were opened!

Marty was able to get his baby-fix in with Easton.  He is a DOLL!

Weather-wise, it definitely wasn't the Christmas we were hoping for, but we had a wonderful day full of family and fun...and really, isn't that what it's all about?

I hope you all have a wonderful rest of the week!!

Merry Christmas!

Thank you all so much for sticking around and reading our itty-bitty blog!  You all mean the world to us and our lives are better since "meeting" all of you!  We hope you have the most incredible Christmas ever!!!

 And remember, Jesus is the reason for ALL seasons, not just this one!  :)

A few cute and quick Christmas crafts!

Every year I try to make some things for my kids to take to school during Christmas. Normally, I try to do so many different things, I usually end up running around like a mad woman. This year, I just didn't have the energy (or the funds) to make a hundred different things, so I just settled on two.  It also helped that I only had one class to make things for, not two.  **sigh**  They just grow up too fast!

Of course I had to make some M and M tubes.  That has sort-of become my "signature" treat.  They are super-easy to make...well, except for the 1000 M and M's I kept dropping in the floor. (They were thrown away, not added to the tubes) 

  

Next, I made some elf legs using Pixie Stix as the "legs"  They were also super-easy (once I got my Silhouette to cut through the glitter paper).

 

I am also sending this Santa ornament to Jameson's teacher. (Along with a gift card)  This was also super-quick!

And that's it!  That's all I am sending to school.and to be honest, it feels GREAT!  Why have I been torturing myself all these years?

I hope you all have a wonderful and blessed holiday weekend!!

Meeting Scotty McCreery, Part 2

Thank y'all so much for such a positive response to my post yesterday with the videos of Chelsea.  We have been blown away by your comments!  Chelsea and my mom just got wireless internet (my mom lives in the boonies), and they spent all day reading your sweet notes!  They really made our day!

I was hoping to be able to get some photos edited of the meeting, but it's not going to be possible to "fix" Chelsea's closed eyes.  So, we've decided to just embrace the closed-eyes pictures and post them for everyone to see

Coveted meet-and-greet passes!

The kids are ready!

 Between the guidelines/rules from the fan club and the concert hall, our hands were pretty tied when it came to cameras/photographs. Originally, we didn't think we could bring in a camera at all, but at the last minute, we were told we could bring in a non-removable lens camera (aka: a point-and-shoot).  Also, Scotty's manager took all the photos (except for all of the cell phone pictures I snuck in)   I am just thankful I did manage to get pictures.

My attempt at sneaking a photo.  Scotty caught me.  LOL

 And here are the "closed-eye" photos.  These are great pictures, except for the eyes.

The manager (who took all the pictures) said he had finally got one with her eyes open (I couldn't actually see the pictures).  This is that picture.  :/

He was really sweet and Chelsea was thrilled!

Since I did have a badge on, I thought I would get my picture made, too!

This is our seats.  I pre-ordered these, through the fan club, within minutes of them going on sale.  WORST.SEATS.THERE!  We were 5 rows from the very back.  There was NOBODY sitting behind us and the 6 rows in front of us were EMPTY, too!  Next time, I will DEFINITELY take my chances with Ticketmaster.  At least we had room to spread out.

 Paul McDonald (another fabulous American Idol alumni) also performed, accompanied by his wonderfully talented wife, Nikki Reed.  For you Twilight fans out there, you may recognize Nikki as the actress who played Rosalie Cullen.  What you may not know is that Nikki and Paul have written and made a beautiful album together.  We were blown away by their music! (You can order here)  Nikki was gracious enough to endure tons of fans, including myself.

Paul signing autographs.  This was as close as I could get to him.

 

I rushed back to our seats and asked Chelsea if she wanted to go meet Nikki (considering she is a huge Twilight fan), but surprisingly, she said "No!"  She later said she was scared she would miss one second of Scotty, and she just couldn't risk that.  HAHA!  However, Jameson asked if he could go meet her.

 

He was SO excited!  He said he couldn't wait to tell everybody he met a "really famous person." He even wants to go see Breaking Dawn, Part 2 now.  LOL

And of course, a couple of shots of what we came for....

 

Scotty put on a really great show!  He sang a mix of songs from his first album, his Christmas album, and songs originally performed by other artists.  He really had the concert hall hopping!

We all had a fantastic time and were so glad that Chelsea finally got to meet "her man"....and a few others along the way!

Meeting Scotty McCreery, Part 1

Friday night, Chelsea was able to have a dream come true.

She got to meet Scotty McCreery.

Click the photo to make larger

Because of strict rules about photography and camera usage, I don't have a lot of "great" photos. All of my photos had to be made with my phone and a piece of junk point-and-shoot camera.  I've been trying to edit them as fast as I can, but I need some major editing on the "best" photos.  To be honest, I'm looking for someone who can edit Chelsea's eyes OPEN.  Every single stinking picture we have of her with Scotty, her eyes are closed.  Yes, she definitely takes after her daddy!

Anyway, until I can get that all figured out, I wanted to post some videos of the events of Friday, so you can see how completely excited she was.

PLEASE excuse my horrible accent, loud laughter, and just all-around annoying voice.  Just focus on Chelsea and the pure joy in her reactions!

(And of course, I can't get the best video to upload.  GRRRRRR! See if this link to my FB page will work:

Chelsea finding out she gets to meet Scotty McCreery.

 We really did have a fantastic time, and we even got to meet a very unexpected person....a Cullen!

Hopefully, I will be able to get some decent photos up within the next couple of days!   If I can't get the photos fixed, I will just post the ones I have.

Pleasantly Surprised!

Hey y'all!  It's just ONE DAY until Chelsea's Scotty adventure!  I am so nervous and excited for her....

and she still doesn't know!

I will make sure to post full details as soon as I have them!

Anyway, it's Christmastime (well DUH), and one thing that I have done EVERY year without fail, since my babies were born, is make and send out photo Christmas cards.  Now some years, the cards may not have made it to their recipients until New Years', but they were made and sent. 

Thankfully, the digital age has made creating beautiful and unique cards very easy.  However, printing those cards has proven to cost a fortune!  Between buying the paper (I always try to use quality photo paper), the printer ink, and the envelopes, I probably would have come out cheaper to order them from somewhere.  However, I am a stickler for quality of photos and I have been disappointed with some of the cards I've had made from other places in the past.

I designed our card a few weeks ago and I was already dreading shelling out tons of money for ink/paper/envelopes.  Then, somebody mentioned Uprinting.com on Twitter one night, so I thought I would check them out.  I looked around their site and it proved to be super easy to navigate and looked to be pretty inexpensive, too!  I decided to build my card and see how much it would actually cost.

I was floored with how inexpensive it was!  Around $50 (that price included shipping) for 125, 5" x 7" thick cardstock cards, printed on front AND back, with envelopes!  Seriously?  I can't buy ink for my printer for that price!  After a few tweaks, my cards were approved and ordered.  

I was really nervous about the quality of the cards.  So when they came, I will admit I held my breath when I opened the box.  I shouldn't have been worried, because I think they came out great!

Front

Back...even though I realize NOW that you can't read if I decide to write something on the back of the cards.  LOL

I am thrilled with the feel of the cards, too.  They feel exactly like I hoped they would.  They are heavy, which is one of the reasons I love Tiny Prints cards so much (just not the cost....WOW!). 

I do wish MY photo quality would have been better.  We couldn't afford to have professional pictures made, so we got these shots on Thanksgiving, just using my regular camera.  You can tell we weren't prepared for photos by what we are wearing.  Chelsea had her Scotty McCreery shirt on so I made her zip-up her jacket, and Jameson had his basketball pants and camo jacket on.  HAHA!  It was a beautiful day, so we decided to go for it anyway.

I will admit, this has been the least stressful Christmas card I've done in the past 21 years!  No planning, no rush, no fuss!  It has definitely been a pleasant surprise!

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Uprinting.com did not compensate me for this post.  The fine folks at Uprinting.com have no clue that I even exist.  This was such a fabulous find for me, I just wanted to share with all of you!

She's going to FLIP!

****If you are Chelsea, STOP READING NOW!  LOL****

A few weeks ago, I told you all about a very special Christmas gift for Chelsea.  

We are taking her to see Scotty McCreery in concert.  Scotty is last year's American Idol winner.  Chelsea is "in love" with him and talks about him constantly.  We went to one of his concerts in September, and she loved it, but he was only on stage for about 30 minutes, and we were a long way from the stage.  She had a blast, but you could tell that she wanted more.

Well, I found out that he was coming in concert in Birmingham, and just knew we had to get tickets.  So, I made a phone call to Santa, and we managed to come up with some.  Once I ordered tickets, I wrote an e-mail to his fan club to see if they were having any meet-and-greet opportunities at this particular concert.  I was thrilled they answered me, however they didn't know if they would be able to do anything.  They encouraged me to keep in touch with them and they would do whatever they could.  Well Friday, I received this in my e-mail:

Click on photo to enlarge

 

If you can't read it, it says "This e-mail confirms that you have been chosen for a meet and greet."  How awesome is that????   I was concerned because the e-mail says only the fan club member would be allowed to go back, so I e-mailed them again and asked them if there would be an adult who could make sure that she was able to get to where she needed to without any problems.  They quickly responded and said I could go back with her!  I am the MOST excited that I actually get to see the look on Chelsea's face when she comes face-to-face with "her man."

Chelsea is going to FLIP!

(Please pray that none of us get sick this week.  The flu, strep and a horrible stomach bug are floating around our community and NONE of us need to get any of it ....of course, neither does anyone else....But we would be heartbroken if anything happened that would cause her to miss this opportunity!)

It's the busiest time of year!

Hey friends!  I hope you are all having a wonderful holiday season, so far!

I am still around...peeking in here and there, whenever I can.  Things have been incredibly busy around here. This time last week, I had more than FIFTY items to make for customers.  I was stressing out in a major kind of way!  However, I buckled down and as of Sunday night, I only have THREE shirts left to finish!  The vinyl is cut, I'm just waiting on the shirts to get here so I can press them.  My poor machine has steam coming off of it!  HAHA! 

I wanted to post pictures of all of them, but I realized most of them are for Christmas gifts, so I can't show them yet! ;)  Here are a few that I can share, however:

And here is a little something I did for myself:

I'm not quite finished with him, yet.  I'm still thinking about how I want the finished product to look.

**phew**

It makes me tired just looking at these....and this isn't even a quarter of my finished projects!

So my friends, if I'm not around a lot before Christmas, you know what I'm doing!

I hope you all have a wonderful Monday!