Jesus is what life is all about....all the time.

 Does Christmas decorating stress out anyone else, or is it just me? I used to love it, but now there's just so much to do. When it was just a tree to decorate it was more fun, but now it's the mantle, the table the front porch, the windows, the banisters, and dining room, the...you get the picture...However, I love a decorated home for Christmas, and the celebration of Jesus' Birth... so it's worth the momentary stress of gettin' it done!

We have a large tree in the living room. It's full of sentimental ornaments from years gone by including handmade glittered creations from my kids' preschool and elementary days, our first Christmas ornaments, and baby's first ornaments times 3...I've got to get one up there for Jolie. I have one it just needs a photo of her.

The two above ornaments were given to me when I was a baby by my grandparents, Honey and Lovey. The little girl in the shoe and the red and white ball always go near the top and are my absolute favorites.

 Shek helps Jolie trim the tree for her very first time. When the guys lugged the tree up from the basement, and hooked it together...and finally got the pre-lit lights to actually turn on, thanks to Shek, Jolie looked across the room smiled and said, "Christas tree" and gave it a thumbs up. We were surprised because we figure she's never really seen a Christmas tree before. BUT she probably heard me talking about getting the tree up, and we might have pointed one or two out in a book.

 The Joy in a child's eyes is extra special.

Shek was an awesome Christmas decor helper.

Karlie puts one ornament on the tree.

My oldest two 'help' by being near the decorating. lol

 The Jesus tree is in the dining room and filled with Jesus ornaments.

 This is another of my favorites. When I taught preschool, we would have  a Christmas ornament exchange...and then we'd have one of those games where you pick numbers and then you can 'steal' ornaments from each other....This is the one I got that year, and it was brought be my friend Elizabeth. She's a dear friend, my oldest boy and her  boy were  best buds, and her hubby built our house.

 One of the kids made this in Sunday School and it really is the meaning of the whole season.

 A sweet cotton ball  angel ornament

 RED is my favorite color can  you tell?

Mary Joseph and Baby Jesus on the mantle...they sit there year round, because

Jesus

is

 what 

Life 

is 

All 

About...

all.

the.

time.

Merry CHRISTmas Season, y'all!

Love. Live. Give. Go.

This is what you see when you walk in the front door of our church and look to the left. In Lifegroup, we are doing a study on the words of this sign. Each week we study a different topic. The first week was love....we missed that one...this week we did Live...and so on. Pretty neat, huh?


After Lifegroups on Sunday night, the whole family got out early except Karlie who got out late. So while we waited on her, I snapped photos. I also snapped this one of Jolie. She was feeling very free on Sunday night, shaking hands with all of the greeters and the Pastors and blowing kisses to all of the preschool teachers. So when she hopped up on the stool under this sign I snapped a photo...and when she gave  a  thumbs up I snapped it quickly...too cute.

Jolie gives church a two thumbs up? Do you? Our church has an Iphone app. with sermon notes and other neat videos and such on it...how cool is that?

Wherever your church family is, I pray you are learning, loving and growing closer to your church family as well as the Lord Jesus Christ.

And as the Pastor says...

Live

 for

 Jesus.

Sunday Snapshot~Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeet 16

Sixteen years ago Karlie was born on November 24th, the day after Thanksgiving. Here she is pictured with Zach. She is smaller than the cabbage patch doll she is sitting next to.

SO

16 

Years 

Later..

We decide to have a little sweet 16 party. We have it earlier than the real day because this year it falls on Thanksgiving Day.

Karlie wanted to have an awesome birthday cake. My friend Shannon showed me a photo of a cake that her friend Missy made.  I decided to get her to make one just like it for Karlie only to change the colors to lime green and zebra instead of hot pink and zebra.

Shannon and  Missy delivered this awesome cake the night before  Karlie's party. They even brought over the zebra material, tulle, feathers and satin to make a great table topper. It looks even better than a cakeboss cake and it was so yummy.

Karlie poses by the cake...and Jolie  had to pose too.

Candy buffet

Can you believe my girl is sixteen?

After having pizza for lunch, doing make-up with marykay, discovering our "kissable personality". We enjoyed cake and icecream and candy. The girls were loving the cake. I could hear audible "YUMs" as they ate...

 birthday cards and gifts

 hugs

 more hugs

 more cards

 more hugs

 more cards

and hugs...

Happy Sweet 16th to my sweet Karlie girl...

the past few days

A lot has been happening over the past few days. It seems like the calendar gets  full of "stuff" this time of year, many times beyond my control. So I am going to cram all of the past few days happenings into one post.

This past Sunday evening was the first fashion show of the season. And, yes, FOX5 was there. There was only about 5 seconds worth of coverage about Pure Fashion on the Evening News...Karlie was not on tv..but they did an audience shot...and I was on tv (from the back side)....oh how I hate Back Fat.. and front and side fat too.

We had our cameras ready...

We waited FAH-eVAH for the show to start...

 Here's Karlie...

The final walk through of all of the models...

All my kids after the fashion show...and where did they want to go when it was done?
DQ!

Pure Fashion happened on Sunday night...

On Monday night....we went to the Soccer Celebration Service at our old home church of the past 15 years.  Shek plays sports in the church league there. After each season, Jason, the Rec. Pastor has a huge celebration service celebrating the kids and their achievements and this year a juggler/uni-cyclist guy was there to perform. He was quite entertaining and fun and he also presents the Gospel of Jesus Christ at the end of his presentation giving people a chance to hear the gospel of Jesus who might not darken the doors of a church on a Sunday, but would come to see their children get a sports trophy.

THEN each team gets dismissed to different classrooms for a few last remarks from the coaches, a presentation of the awards for the kids, and gift for the coach, and pizza, coke and cake...

Pizza is always a good choice for a meal.....at least that's what my kiddos say.

 Shek and Ben, buddies since the baby nursery, enjoyed the celebration service and party afterwards.

Shek and his soccer trophy...

THat was Monday night!...

Tuesday was the day that Debbie called me saying that she had Jolie's shirts monogrammed and that she had finished the turkey shirt. Today, Jolie wore that cute turkey outfit to the dentist. She had a dentist appointment for a routine cleaning at the office at Scottish Rite...the traffic was AWFUL...because of the rain and storms in the area...we were 20 mins late to our 11 am appointment. 

Anyway ....she was the HIT of the office in her cute turkey shirt. The dentist said he had to take a photo of her with his iphone to show his wife. Turns out, his wife is a seamstress and he too had a two year old ....he took several photos of the her with her shirt and her fancy pants... I told him he could find a brown turtleneck at Walmart in the boys section because the girls' section had no brown shirts.

 Jolie in her Thanksgiving outfit...

Saying CHeese with her bro.

See....why she was the hit of the office? Thank you Pinterest for the idea and thanks Debbie for putting the turkey shirt together...and thanks Honey for the fancy pants...

She has another appointment in December for a cavity... Wonder what they'll think of her Christmas outfit?