Merry Christmas Everyone!

Aron had SUCH a fun time Christmas Caroling! (in case you couldn't tell!)

"Flame"!!!!

I have been struggling on what to buy Eddie for Christmas. Well, my search has ended today. I finally found the perfect gift!
Ladies and Gents, I bring you Eddie's Christmas Gift....."FLAME".....


"Behold the scent of seduction, with a hint of flame broiled meat".
This is the new men's cologne BK is currently selling!!! This website was cracking me up! If you have some spare time, you have to see this for yourself!
http://www.firemeetsdesire.com/

Merry Christmas!!.....To ME!!!!!!!

Wooohooo!!!!! My blogswap gift game today!!!! Could the post office have been ANY slower in getting this package to me??! Angela had me and she sent it on December
3rd and today is the 10th! I have been waiting and waiting and waiting! Every day I hear the mail truck pull up and I would go to look out my window to see if they would be delivering a box to my door. Well......today it FINALLY happened!!!! I'm SOOOOO excited!!!!!

I'm not certain, but I'm pretty sure my mail lady thinks I'm crazy. Hand over that box, woman!



This girl went ALL out!!! First off, I have known Angela since we were about 10 years old or so. I remember the first time I met her, we played Hungry Hungry Hippo's and we were acting really loud and crazy! I was SO glad there was someone else out there that enjoyed my quirky humor (other than me, of course)! We went to school together, cheered together...I could go ON and ON..... Anyhow, my point is that it is really special to me that I was chosen as the recipient of her swap!
Thank you so much Angela!

Now, onto the goods:
As soon as I got my package in the house, I plopped on the floor and ripped it open!

First, check out that packaging!


The first thing I grabbed were these babies! I LOVE me some Ande's Candies!!! I love using these to make these cookies!


Next, I saw this beautifully wrapped candle that smells like Christmas Cookies! It's already lit and the aroma of cookies are in the air!!!



Next, I grabbed this. I didn't want to unwrap it, but I'm glad I did! It was Mint 3 Musketeers!!! Yummy!!!!


Here we have some snowflake plates and napkins! Perfect for Christmas or winter parties!


A gift card to Starbucks (wonderfully wrapped, I might add!) and I LOVE Starbucks!


I used to subscribe to this magazine, but since I stopped working full-time, it was one of the things we had to cut back on, so I am SO glad to have it! I think I'll take this up to Starbucks tomorrow while I drink my Peppermint Latte!


Now that the cold weather is approaching, I'll be needing these! They are so soft and pretty!


And last but not least, a warm, red, fuzzy blanket to snuggle in next to my fireplace!


Thank you SO VERY MUCH, Angela! You are awesome!

Christmas Lights!

I just love Christmas lights! The other night, we had the privilege of visiting Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden's "Festival of Lights". For those of you not familiar with Lewis Ginter, it is the largest Botanical Gardens on the east coast! Every year, they decorate ALL of the gardens with extravagent lights! This year, Alex's class made ornaments for one of the trees there. The theme for their class tree was "Garden Gnomes". Each child molded a gnome out of clay and painted it.
Here is the tree. Notice the "topper" (It was the best picture I could get! That place was CROWDED!)


Here is a close up of the "gnome" Alex made....isn't it....um...beautiful!!??


Here is the proud owner of said ornament:


Now, each year the gardens have a theme for their lights. Last year it was fish (I think) and this year it's.......SPIDERS!!! Ugghhh...they couldn't have chosen ANYTHING ELSE??!!


Those spiders were everywhere! Finally, we took shelter in the greenhouse, where I spotted this beauty! I love it!!!! I think I'll do this theme on my tree next year!


Also, this has nothing to do with this post, but Aron is cracking me up! He LOVES the camera! He was falling asleep in his high chair and my camera makes a little noise before it actually takes the picture and as SOON as he heard it he woke up and flashed a VERY sleepy smile!!! Ha! Ha! Ha!

These are a few of my "favorite" trees......

Ok.....deep breaths.....
I haven't gotten my Christmas Tree yet this year, because I am up in the air as to how I want to decorate it. I am so sick of the "same 'ole, same 'ole" every year!
Anyhow, I wanted to get some creative ideas, so where did I go to look, you might ask? The 2008 Worldwide Christmas Tree Contest, of course! (You really have to go to this website when you have some time. It is hilarious!)
I thought they would DEFINITELY have some REALLY GREAT trees there! UUUUUUMMMMMMM.....yea....well.....lets just say I don't feel so bad about my "same 'ole, same 'ole" tree anymore! Here are some of my "favorites":

Here we have the classic upside down tree (I thought that was just a "Y2K" thing??


Do you see what I see????? Are you serious???


Why even try? Definitely not contest worthy:


I think there is a tree under there somewhere:


Holy Ribbons!:


Hmmmm..."crafty"...but not something I'd want to put presents under:


How many tissues do you think they had to go through for this one?? I call this one, the "Space Saver":


Okay...this IS a Christmas Tree contest, guys! This living room just SCREAMS "Close Encounters of a Third Kind"!


I give this one an "A" for most decorations used in a background:


This is what Christmas Trees will look like in the future (even matches his "trendy" clock):


And in all seriousness, here is pretty much the ONE tree I found on there that I liked, but unfortunately, there is no way I could pull it off!:

99 Balloons

I saw this video this weekend and I just can't stop thinking about how strong these parents are! God is so good and we are just so blessed for every day on this earth! This Thanksgiving, remember to be thankful for everything we have and not dwell on those things that we don't have.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! (grab some tissues before you view the video)

Gobble, Gobble!

My son is gonna just LOVE these pictures when he gets older! Ha! I made this costume out of a sweatshirt, felt and feathers. I used his bib as the "gobbler".
I made some homemade treats and then dressed him up as a turkey and brought him up to Eddie's work and we passed out the goodies! It was so funny walking Aron from the car to the building because it was really windy outside and his little feathers were going all over the place. I can only imagine what people thought!
Then, afterwards we went outside and it was snowing!! I think I'm starting to get the itch to decorate for Christmas!

A Christmas Blog Swap!

How exciting! I've never participated in a blog swap before, so I think this will be fun! Head on over to http://seasonalblogswap.blogspot.com/ to sign up to participate! Yay! I love this time of year :)

Gotta love the free stuff!!!

A good deal is one thing, but free stuff is even better! And, well, let's face it, money is a little tight this year! So, just wanted to share that I will be posting a LOT about different giveaways and such on here throughout the holiday season.

On a different note.....are these two "separated at birth" or what??!

Just in time for the holidays giveaway!

There is a website called skip to my lou that has great ideas for Christmas cards! They are giving away 5 digital downloads to 5 lucky winners. I suggest you stop by there and check it out!

Giveaways

Okay, here is the deal. I go to this website http://www.tipjunkie.blogspot.com to get all kinds of really cool craft ideas. Right now, they are doing a "12 days of Christmas" giveaway and they are giving away some really cool stuff! I suggest you stop by the website and enter!

A little catching up here.....

I'm not even going to talk about the election because I'm so disappointed and mad (see below post) for several reasons!
SO, on to Halloween!
We had such a good time in Lynchburg this year Trick or Treating! We went to my old neighborhood (the one I spent most of my childhood in), Poplar Forest, and it just brought back so many memories!
Check out this house! They went ALL out....You'll have to excuse the girls, but this was literally the last house and they had taken off their wigs. My niece and her friend were supposed to be Hannah Montana and Alex was a hippie. The wigs were SO gone by this point!





Aron was Mickey Mouse....


Just kidding! He was a monkey! But isn't that picture of him in the basket precious??!



We also helped my parents move to their new house. The house conveniently came with a new dog! This guy is HUGE! The picture doesn't really do it justice, but I thought he was a polar bear! He is not even one year old yet! Apparently, the people that lived their before couldn't take him with them, so my dad said he could just stay there. He's really sweet, though :)

Enough is enough...let's move on, people!

I have a ton of catching up to do, which I plan on doing in the morning, but I just visited the CNN homepage to find this:

Are you serious?? Like they couldn't do "anything" before Obama was elected President?? I know TONS of extremely successful African Americans who actually saw this article and laughed. How stupid! I hate CNN!

Still loving Autumn!

So, this past weekend was a LOT of fun!
I went with Alex's girl scout troop to Carter's Mountain in Charlottesville to pick apples. I havent picked apples since I was about Alex's age, so it was SO much fun! I had no idea this place existed! Carter's Mountain is HUGE! They have acres and acres of every kind of apple you can think of and they also have a gigantic vineyard. They make their own apple cider, apple cider donuts, apple pie, apple butter...well, you get the idea. Apple everything! I am SO going to come here every year to go apple picking!




Check out those Red Delicious!!!


But the favorite of the day was Golden Delicious!


I also have another dilemma. My little Aron.
Problem #1 - He has grown out of his bouncy seat (obviously), but isn't 100% sitting up on his own, yet. He will fall over after a while of just sitting there.

Problem #2 - His hair. It is out of control! Should I cut it? Alex was two years old when she got her first hair cut! I just feel so bad cutting it while he is so small :(


His hair reminds me of something....oh yea....THIS:


There are some people in our neighborhood that go ALL OUT for Halloween. Take a look at this house.....check out the eyes in the window!