Christmas Cards!

In October we had our Fall family pictures done at McClure's Orchard by Harmon Photography. She did such a great job, and she's always so patient...which is nice when you have two very busy little ones that you're trying to capture! :-) She designed our Christmas Cards with those same pictures. I love how they turned out, and I love even more that you can make our card into an ornament for your tree! :-) So neat!

We'd love to send a card to each and every person we know, but that's just not possible. So, for those of you whom we missed this year, this one's for you!



And while I'm at it, I'll go ahead and add a super-precious photo...


And a bit of a surprise, too...


Yes, that's right, you're not seeing triple. We're expecting a new little bundle around the beginning of next Summer. :-) More details soon!

Happy Holidays!! :-)

Thanksgiving

Okay, so I'll admit that I am seriously awful and did not take 1.single.picture this year at Thanksgiving! DEF am regretting that one. BUT, we did have a really great time visiting with family and friends over the long weekend.

My sister and her little crew came in to visit from California. It has been over a year since we were able to visit last, so it was nice to see her, and to see how BIG the boys have grown :-) She DID take pics, so I promptly stole some!

{Alex (Levi on his Shoulders), Shelb, Weston, Luke in front, Me, Jacob, Evan, B in the back}

{Alex and Levi}

{Sleepy Levi}
{Mom, Shelb, and I}

We had Thanksgiving breakfast with B's Dad, Sister, and Brother-in-Law. We've never done Thanksgiving breakfast before, and I must say that I (we) really enjoyed it. We will definitely consider it again for next year :-)

Thanksgiving with B's Mom and crew was on Sunday. I know that it was way out of the norm for them to host Thanksgiving on a day other than, but it was nice to not have to hurry from one place to another. This year we didn't feel rushed at all, and we were able to spend a good amount of time with each side of the family! LOVE that! :-)

Luke and Levi *really* loved holding their newest 2nd cousin (or so). Of course, I knew that Luke would because he simply adores all babies, but Levi's hit-or-miss (literally! HA!). Luke immediately started rocking baby Addy as soon as she was placed in his arms, and he even snuck her a sweet kiss on the head. Melt my heart! Levi enjoyed giving the baby some snuggles, too, but I tried to keep it short and sweet before he changed his mind. :-)



This Thanksgiving, we are so thankful for our friends and family, a healthy year for ourselves and our boys, and the love that keeps us bound together. We are so blessed!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Now, get out those Christmas decorations!!

August Recap

Okay, so remember how I was playing catch-up with my lost months of July - September?! Well, here's August!!!

Lukey started school!! Although he was in a sort of pre, pre, pre-K last year, this is his first year at an official "school". Luke attends All Saints, which is a Catholic school. He is currently in the Little Saints class. Next year he will start Preschool, and then the following year he'll be in Kindergarten. We really, really love the structure that Luke gets, and his teacher, Mrs. Callaway, is awesome! He's learning a ton and making lots of new friends :-)

What a little cutie, on his first day:

In Levi news, well...Levi's doing a great job at being a little brother:

This picture was taken after Luke decided that finger painting little brother with grease from Daddy's tow ball seemed like a great idea! (see hand prints?!) We always know that something is up when Luke is laughing hysterically, and Levi is whimpering. That hardly every happens at our house, but when it does, some sort of initiation into little brotherhood is certainly taking place!

At the end of August, I threw Brad a surprise 30th Birthday bash, but I'll post separately about that :-)

So, that was our August in a nutshell!!

Etsy and Pinterest

I have two new-found loves, my friends. They go by the names of “Etsy” and “Pinterest”. Haha! Okay, so Etsy’s not so new, as I’ve done a post about the site and my purchases before, but Pinterest is very new to me (I’m actually still learning how to maneuver around it). Anyway, I have gotten several, several questions about where I find things…random things, mostly gifted to others.

{Wait for it…}

All of these “things” that I have purchased, I have purchased from Etsy, which is a site where you can basically purchase all things handmade. Etsy has several individual shops that make and sell various handmade items ranging from clothing for children, to printables (I use these a lot with my cookies and cupcakes), to wooden crafts, jewelry, etc, etc.

All of these “things” that I have made, I have gotten the ideas from Pinterest. Pinterest is a site chalked FULL of ideas of handmade crafts, art, food, clothing, etc. If you know me, you know that I am not very creative in the least. I am however very good at copying things if I have a picture in front of me, and a step-by-step tutorial. :-D This is where Pinterest comes into my life, and makes me look like a really, creative chica!

If you click the names above, it'll take you straight to these sites. :-)

So, there you have it! I'm not so crafty afterall!! Maybe I shouldn't have disclosed this info...I'd look way more cool!!!

The Letter "I"

So, Lukey's in preschool. He goes to All Saints and absolutely LOVES it! Anyway, each week he has show-and-tell on Thursday. They designate a letter of the alphabet each week, and the item you bring in for show-and-tell has to start with that letter...right?! Okay. So this week's letter was "I". Yes, "I". What in the heck starts with an "I" that I have just lying around my house?

• Ice
• Insect
• Igloo
• Indian
• Iguana
• Instrument
• Island

Yeah, of all of the items listed above that I could rattle off quickly, we have ZERO of in our house. (Oh, except for the ice. We have that. Of course, it would melt, so I didn't think that would be a good option.) I also thought of icing. I do have a can of icing, but I didn't think that would be a great idea to send as a show-and-tell for a group of preschoolers :-) So what did we show-and-tell?!

A map of Indiana. Yep. That was the best I had :-D