Counting My Blessings

It's wonderful to continue this blessings meme that Tamara started - it can now be found at Homemaker's Heart.

64. "Aunt" is a blessing. Near the end of school today, the office called my room and said that Aunt was on the phone and wanted to know if she could pick L. up at school. Absolutely! What a treat for him to not have to ride the bus and to get home early! Aunt stayed quite a while and played games with the boys and then joined us to meet Hubby at Wendy's for dinner before we had to do errands and get M. to basketball practice.

It made me reflect on what a blessing it is to have Aunt as an influence on our boys. I'm truly thankful.
Aunt, L and Me

Daybook - Thanksgiving Weekend

Outside my window…darkness. The dead flowers are gone now thanks to hubby, the grass is brown, it’s definitely feeling more late fall/early winter now.

I am thankful for… God and His character more than His blessings. Sermon today (from Jonah) made me think about this.

I am wearing… black corduroy pants and purple sweater (a rarity that I have something decent on – usually when I write this I’m in sweats).

Some plans for the rest of the week… put up and trim the tree, basketball practice starts, make some Christmas plans, take J. the dog for a trial run at the kennel.

I am hoping… to get our December calendar set soon and to be able to enjoy the moments of the season instead of just going from one activity to the next.

On my mind… what to give as Christmas presents…

Hearing…. the air purifier and Hubby working on the computer behind me, every now and then I can hear a thud coming from the boys upstairs.

I am praying that…… (still) we figure out our car situation to ABQ for Christmas and that we have good travel weather.

From the kitchen….. Brazilian out last night; roast, rice and broccoli tonight and stew tomorrow (if I get things together, I haven’t been very together myself on Mondays lately)

Around the house… a partially decorated mantle, new candles, boxes of Christmas decorations waiting to be used.

One of my favorite things… going to Silver Dollar City with my family

From my picture journal…

I think my eyes are closed in this picture. That shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who knows me.

To view more daybooks visit Simple Woman's Daybook.

Silver Dollar City - Christmas Edition

Last Christmas we used some family Christmas money and purchased season tickets to Silver Dollar City. We had full intentions of going more, but we made it there twice as a family (I went once with Aunt also). Our Christmas trip was well worth the tickets.

The Christmas celebration was what actually led to getting the season tickets. I had wanted to go last year, but an early snow storm axed those plans. It was really neat though to enjoy this season as SDC celebrated their 50th anniversary.

After a few pictures yesterday, first on the list was having my 50th anniversary jar repoured with a Christmas scented candle. (When I picked it up today, I found out I was the only person this year to bring back one of the special edition jars to be repoured. They gave me four free Christmas votives too.)

Yesterday and today we enjoyed several shows, rides, shopping, and lights (especially the parade and musical tree). M. enjoyed kettle corn, most of the funnel cake L. couldn't eat because he felt sick, dinner (harvest skillet of ham and vegetables), a caramel apple, and hot chocolate with a giant cookie! (I think the food is M's fav part of SDC!) I did get the Christmas photos I want to use for cards, but, I won't show those here. L. participated in a song with the Homestead singers - he squawked like a chicken on cue during many parts of the song. It was his second time participating in something at SDC!

On the set of the Living Nativity

L. is the only child on this side of the Giant Barn Swing. Hubby is on his left. (seat 4 & 3). Rest assured, you won't catch M or me here!

Kettle corn. Mmmmm....

A family snapshot before the Fa La La Follies

I loved the gingerbread behind this train!

On the way home we decided that waiting an hour and a half to eat dinner at our first choice (Lamberts) wasn't ideal, so we treated the boys to their first experience at a Brazilian restaurant. Now they can't decide if this, Mongolian, or fondue is their favorite. L's eyes lit up every time they brought out a new meat and he was happy to have some foods I never make - like fish, sushi, shrimp and lamb. M was excited to watch football and have all the steak he could eat.

It was a wonderful weekend - wonderful to spend time together as a family and wonderful to start our Christmas season with the true meaning at the Living Nativity.

Fall Wrap Up

Aunt usually always has her camera with her. Because of this we are blessed with photos from many activities. She recently gave me the completed scrapbook from Christmas 2009. It's a treasure of all kinds of Christmas celebrations. Anyway, I also just got the photos from her camera downloaded to my computer (and I didn't blog a lot once I started working - but I'm off today!! Yay!). So...

The official end of summer/beginning of fall for us (nevermind the calendar) was at the lake with friends. This was M. driving the golf cart.

L. and Aunt went to the VA at Halloween to help Grandpa pass out candy.

Aunt also took both boys to be in the Veteran's Parade with Grandpa.

So tomorrow is Thanksgiving. It will be the official end of fall and beginning of winter (again, nevermind the calendar - this is what's in my heart.)

While I was mopping today (one of those things that just doesn't get done much anymore), I had the urge to take down some fall items and move some nativities out of the curio cabinet. I resisted though! I'm very anti-do anything that has to do with Christmas (except gift buying when it's financially to our advantage) before Thanksgiving.

It's already starting out to be a good Thanksgiving. Hubby came home from work a bit after noon and he and I went to lunch and spent the afternoon window shopping. I've made some chex mix, the boys got a free Wii game rental, they're out with Hubby right now and when they return we'll enjoy the end of the end of the evening together. I love my family!

Shutterfly Special for Bloggers

Shutterfly is offering a special to bloggers: 50 free holiday cards (Thanks to KG at elegraph for bringing this to my attention)!

I'm planning on getting a great photo shot at Silver Dollar City this weekend (and if that doesn't work, I'll just take one on the porch Sunday).

Shutterfly's vast selection is amazing - here are two designs that have caught my eye so far (each image is linked to its specific Shutterfly page):

Have fun! If you participate, just be sure to blog about it and link back to Shutterfly's site. Thanks again KG (BTW - some of this wording is hers - I copied and pasted! Wanted to give proper credit.) Happy Thanksgiving!

UPDATE: I got those shots I wanted for the Christmas card this past weekend. I plan to use the layout of the first card shown here and put our family photo first. Then, I'll put a picture of M. with a snowman (stuffed of course!) second and finish with L. and a snowman. There's actually a similar card that uses the same layout, but has blue and green for the colors. I think they'll complement my photos better.

I looked at the Shutterfly site more closely this weekend and loved how each design clearly showed how many photos were needed for each card. I used their search feature also to find exactly what I was looking for. This is the link for Christmas cards at Shutterfly http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-photo-cards .

Don't stop at Christmas...you can use Shutterfly to personalize thank you cards and birthday invitations among others. I haven't used Shutterfly before, but know that friends have been very satisfied with it. I'm looking forward to getting to know Shutterfly better for Christmas cards this year!

Counting My Blessings - Day 31

63. God, my biggest blessing.

How blessed is God! And what a blessing he is! He's the Father of our Master, Jesus Christ, and takes us to the high places of blessing in him. Long before he laid down earth's foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!) He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved Son. (Ephesians 1:3-6, The Message)

I count among my blessings - adoption into God's family, His love, high places of God's blessing, being on His mind, His lavish gift-giving and His love.

This is the final post in Branch of Wisdom's Month of Thanksgiving. However, Tamara announced today that she will continue hosting this meme with Counting My Blessings on Tuesdays. So, there's still time to join!

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Counting My Blessings - Day 30

58. M & L's constant creativity and learning. M. had to make a ping pong ball launcher for science. He and Hubby had been working all week on designs and prep work and put it together in the garage Sat. M. spent most of the weekend doing trials. My children are such a blessing and it's such a blessing to have a husband who is involved with them and intentionally guides and teaches them.

59. Extended family. We've been back in my home state for a little over a year now. I have an aunt and uncle and an uncle who will be joining us for Thanksgiving dinner at the VA. I don't ever recall (or it's been since I was tiny) having Thanksgiving dinner with the group who will assemble on Thursday.

I also have a (3rd maybe?) cousin who works at the same school I do and now goes to my church (along with her family). We were blessed to have her son (and my cousin and the boys' too - I know it gets complicated) spend time at our house yesterday afternoon. Somehow he got elected to fish the ping pong ball out from under the oven. With it came tons of dog hair! Woops. Dog hair is definitely not a blessing (unless it's on the dog!!).

I didn't blog much about it, but last weekend, we were blessed to be visited by two sets of extended family from out of state!

60. Medicine - even though I may disagree with some on when to take it, etc. I am extremely blessed to have access to medicine and medical care. Last night M. dropped a bottle of Mucinex that didn't have a completely closed lid. As we were both working on getting it cleaned up, I was trying to find the blessing of having sticky syrup on my floor and I found several. -we can afford medicine - I am able to clean and care for my children - I have a floor in which to spill medicine (and many other items) and -the care of my home isn't my sole responsibility.

61. A very old van - We have a completely paid for van that has over 187,000 miles on it. That van has carted us around to two long distance moves and countless family vacations and holiday trips. What a blessing and what fun family times we have shared in it!

62, Saving money. Hubby is doing some work on the van right now. Once again, it is a huge blessing for Hubby to be able to do routine maintenance and not-so-routine work on our vehicles. He saves us loads of money.