Christmas Day

Christmas is a little different for us this year. The kids went to spend Christmas Eve and part of
Christmas day with Vanessa's step-mother's side of the family. We get Remi the day after Christmas so we will be celebrating Christmas tomorrow.

The tree is brimming with presents! It looks a bit ridiculous but then I remind myself that two families are using the same tree! The kids temporarily moved back into the Peanut Palace in August.

Our church didn't hold services this morning but will tonight.

The kids should be back tonight. Once the kids get home they will open their Christmas jammies. That will be for another post.

Hope all of you are making wonderful memories with family and friends.

Merry Christmas!

Kennedy Turns 7!

My Lil' Peanut turned 7 years old Sunday December 18th! How can that be?! Although I can no longer pick her up, as she is 3/4 of my height, when I look in her face I still see a sweet little girl who used to say "I want to hold you"!

You have seen from some of my posts that Kennedy has shown an interest in music. She is always wanting to play either my piano, keyboard or guitar.

I started thinking about trying to get her a child sized guitar and start her in lessons. I let Doyle know my thoughts and he readily jumped on my band wagon. He began researching and found something we thought we wanted to get her. There was one time Kennedy was at the house that she actually said she'd like to have a guitar.





Vanessa had planned a birthday dinner at Kincaid's, a burger place in Weatherford, with family and friends the night of her birthday. We decided to give Kennedy her present that afternoon before dinner.

Looking at the card I made her.

Here's the card.

Daddy reading the card to her.

Granddad helping open her gift.

One excited girl when she figured out what was in the box!

Thanks to Keannon, I got to be in some of the pictures.

I'm showing her it has a built-in tuner. My guitar doesn't have that!

I love it. She's strumming and singing even though she doesn't know how to make a chord yet :)

Showing Kennedy how to make the "D" chord.

It's just the right size.

That night at Kincaid's we had a good turn out.

Looking from the other end of the table.

All the grandparents were there and the Great-Grand (Mom).

The birthday girl surrounded by friends and family.

It was a great birthday!

Have a good one!

Dancin' Etc Christmas Dance Program 12-16-16

Kennedy has been doing so well that she has been bummed twice to the next level class. She is now
in a dance group of mostly 8 and 9 year olds and she just turned 7! She is so tall for her age that she looks like she's 8 or 9! I wish there was a way to slow this down just a bit!

Every year the dance studio "Dancin Etc" puts on a Christmas dance program of all age groups.

While we are waiting for the show to begin. I capture Kashton still just long enough for me to take this picture. He has such pretty eyes!

I also take pictures of the girls I know for their parents. Most try to take pictures with the camera on their phones. Sometimes they work okay but most of the time it doesn't. Our dear neighbor had 3 girls in dance.

This is her middle girl Rachel and also Kennedy's friend.

This is her youngest, Samantha (on the left). They were performing to a song about Chicken Pox for Christmas. That's why they have red dots all over their faces.

Her oldest, Tessa (on the left). They performed to Silent Night.

This little girl is Kabella the daughter of one of Vanessa's friends. Isn't she adorable? So is her little sister.

Here is her sister, Kayah, (on the right).


















Another friend of Vanessa's had a daughter in the same class as Kayah and asked me to take pictures too. She is a doll as well. Her name is Gannyn.

Then the "star" attraction. (At least for me)

I love this one!

It was a great performance by each group!


Have a good one!

Christmas Cards for 2016

I'm been on a roll making Christmas cards. I don't mean to wait until the last minute but it seems to happen every time. If the weather isn't good then I craft in the afternoon. Otherwise I craft after I get supper over and the kitchen cleaned up. I like to listen to Christmas music or watch Christmas movies on the Hallmark Channel. I've been using up lots of left overs from scrapbooking and some I retrieved from the trash before the scrapbook store closed.

These are papers I retrieved from the trash that were from an album class done at the store several years ago. The papers are Bo Bunny but I don't recall the name of the collection.

I love this stamp set. It has the words "Joy, Peace, Hope and Love". Using Versa Mark ink I used gold embossing powder to heat emboss the word "joy". Very simple.

This image is a "Unity" stamp set. I used silver embossing powder to heat emboss this image and sentiment. I used foam tape to give some dimension to the sentiment.

This one I decided I didn't like that there was nothing on the dark blue. I didn't want much as I didn't want to take away from the focal point of the main image. So I came up with the idea to use a snowflake with swirls stamp and use clear embossing powder for a subtle image.

 This sentiment is also a "Unity" stamp. I heat embossed using silver. Instead of having a square or rectangular shape I decided to make it interesting by following the lines of the tree.

This is a stamp from Stampin-Up. The words are the lyrics to "Silent Night" in a shape of a Christmas tree.

I was very pleased how this one turned out. I only had this one piece of design paper so I could only make one of this card. I heat embossed with gold embossing powder.

Of the cards shown here, this one is my favorite. This is a "Unity" stamp also.

I'll give you a break and post more another day.

One of these cards may be in your mailbox soon :)

Have a good one!

Sunset December 12, 2016

The thing about clouds is you never know if it will bring lots of color to a sunset or none at all. This one was looking promising so I kept watching.










Then the pinks came out in full force!

Almost every direction I looked there were pink clouds.

The color soon intensified.

I made a full 360 degree turn and saw the moon. It was behind a thin film of clouds but still visible and there was a hint of pink in those clouds too.

If you look closely you can see the outdoor Christmas lighting across the street from the pasture.

The sky was just so pretty!

Have a good one!