Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Christmas is coming

I can't believe how fast time is flying. Halloween came and went, my sisters wedding is a blur, and now Thanksgiving has already come and gone. How can time go by so quickly? I feel myself aging everyday and I feel like time is going by so quickly that I can't get anything done.

This years Christmas is going to be smaller, for two reasons. First of all, we just don't have the money this year, but more importantly we want to teach the kids that it's ok to get a few things for Christmas, but the real reason of the season is to celebrate Jesus' birthday. They are very excited to start their Advent calendars this year. I'm having a hard time thinking of some good toy ideas for them, but am super excited to try and make Tess some bows for her hair to put in her stocking. She desperately needs some and I have all the supplies to make them, and found plenty of instructions online on how to make them. I am getting a sewing machine from my mom and dad for my gift this year (yes I already know because I ordered it online on Black Friday from Wal-Mart), and SOOOO excited to learn how to sew on it and make kids gifts for birthday's and Christmas' from now on.

Next weekend we will go cut down our tree from the tree farm, and it's predicted to be the coldest day of the year again so far...like it is every year on the day we choose. We will also decorate the house and tree next weekend. We always like to wait to do it the first weekend of December. I don't like to do it in Nov.

Anyways. We have a few gifts bought and a few more to go, but we will have a nice smaller Christmas this year. I am going to look into some volunteer opportunities that I can do with at least the two older boys.

I hope you are all enjoying this time of Christmas prepartion. Don't forget Jesus this season, he's the only reason we have this holiday to begin with! :)

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Wedding Bells are Ringing!

So I know it has been F-O-R-E-V-E-R (say it like Sandlot) since I have posted on here. To be honest, I almost forgot that I even had a blog, I've been so preoccupied and busy. Many things have happened, including lost teeth, Raymond's birthday, my birthday, Halloween, and more. But those things I am going to put on the back burner for now because the thing that has been happening for months that has led up to this final major event  this past weekend, is my sisters wedding. Since it is still fresh, I have decided to post on this for now.

My oldest sister Kimberly just got married to Todd Kittel. They have been together for over two years now and Saturday they finally sealed their love in marriage. Kimberly has been planning this for a long time now and my mom has been working on it too. In fact we've all been working on it little bits here and there and my mind has been on the wedding for so long that it has taken precedence to many daily things in my life that I have not gotten done. Now that the wedding is over, I feel almost like a weight has been lifted in many ways. I am now free to concentrate on other things.

There were SO many details to her wedding that in the end were beautiful, but they were time consuming and I seriously thought that we all might die of a heart attack brought on by stress over the course of the weekend while we broke our necks trying to get it all done. We even ended up starting the wedding a few minutes late cause we were rushing, ha ha. But in the end it all came together, and was majorly the doing of 4 or 5 of her best friends from DC. They were awesome. But without going into too much detail the wedding was beautiful, so was my sister and I wish her and Todd the best. Below are a few pictures I took and most of them are ones that I stole from my cousins daughter, Amber Todd. So thanks Amber. We still have not seen the ones that her photographer took, but for now I hope you enjoy!! We were all a part of the wedding. The boys were SOOOO handsome in their white shirt, black pants, belts, dress shoes and gold ties. Each of them got a boutonniere from their Uncle Todd and they were technically junior ushers. Tess was a junior Bridesmaid, I was a bridesmaid and Tony was a groomsman.