Photo of the Day

We are getting ready to leave for Kansas to spend Christmas with the

Stratton side of the family. We are looking forward to having everyone together for the first time in the three years. Ryleigh is looking forward to seeing "Gwama" & "Gwapa"

& to seeing her cousins, Kaitlyn, Carson & Kristin.

Photo of the Day

It has been so nice to have Alicia here for the weekend. Ryleigh has been so excited to have her here & I have been so thankful for her help during a particularly stressful weekend! We'll be sad (& more than a little envious!) to see her leave for Texas tomorrow to be with my parents for Christmas.

Photo of the Day + a scandalous picture

Sunday night was the first night of our church Christmas drama. It went very well, with no major glitches. The drama will also be held on Monday & Tuesday nights. For good pictures, check out Jon Plank's blog.

This our pastor's wife... but this is NOT our pastor! ;-)

Truthfully, this photo really isn't as bad as it looks. Doug Rine, one of the actors in this year's Christmas drama, had to wear a "fat suit" in order to properly portray his character. However, he was... umm... having some issues with getting things adjusted & so Marie (his cousin) was helping him.

Photo of the Day

Photo of the Day

Photo of the Day

I decided to try this new twist on the whole "plate of Christmas cookies" thing.

Photo of the Day

"Caroling, caroling..."

Photo of the Day + Fruit & Candy Packing

Every year, our church hands out treat bags of candy, as well as fruit baskets for the shut-ins & older people. We always have volunteers come to our basement to help assemble everything. Here are just a few photos from this year's fruit & candy packing event.

Photo of the Day

Ryleigh's First Christmas Program

Ryleigh participated in her very first Christmas Program this morning. She was dressed up as a little sheep. Unfortunately, she decided to "steal the show" by refusing to stay in one place & even walking back behind the curtain at one point. I was embarassed, but it was pretty funny!

Photo of the Day

The Little Wandering Sheep

Photo of the Day

This is a little sneak peak of my Christmas cards for this year. I am woefully behind schedule in getting them done, so I'm frantically working on them during every spare moment!

Photo of the Day

We spent the day doing Christmas shopping & organizing the costumes for the Christmas play.

This is my little system: tagging each item with a tag that has the actor's name on it. The paper tagger that I bought not too long ago really simplified this job! Below is a picture of the ladies' table. Notice that they have far more accessories to keep track of than the guys!

Loving it!

This album has become our all-time favorite this year. It gets played far more often than any of our other Christmas cd's. I think that my favorite songs are: "Little Drummer Boy," "I'll be Home for Christmas" (listening to the clips of Christmas greetings from soldiers overseas always brings tears to my eyes) & "Thankful". Jeff's favorites songs are: "Ave Maria," "Petit Papa Noel," & "Panis Angelicus". Funny how our tastes can be SO different at times! ;-) You can listen to samples from this album here. If you don't already have this album, I highly recommend adding it to your Christmas collection!

Photo of the Day

Photo of the Day

Our first good snow of the season - Ryleigh is fascinated!

More Holiday Projects

I saw these little blocks in a catalog & decided that they wouldn't be very hard to make. I was right - they were super easy!

A cute card from last year that I framed & added a few touches of my own.

Ryleigh really enjoyed helping Jennifer pass out candy canes to everybody at the Christmas banquet! You can see more pics of our church gathering here.

Photo of the Day

The BEST Christmas cookies ever - Candy Cane Cookies!

Photo of the Day

Handing out candy canes at the church Christmas banquet.

Photo of the Day

Holiday Projects

Throughout the past week, I have been in full-fledge getting-ready-for-Christmas mode. The biggest project has been getting the house decorated, but I have also been working on some other holiday projects.

This is truly my favorite time of year! I love everything about the season (Well, almost everything - I hate the "something-happening-every-night-of-the-week" schedule that we end up keeping. I guess I'm becoming more of a homebody than I ever was before.) The past couple of years, I have discovered something about myself. That is the fact that I really enjoy making things throughout the season - fancy Christmas cookies & goodies, Christmas gifts for friends & family, & even things to decorate our home for the holidays. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that this is my personal way of celebrating the season. Christmas just wouldn't be the same if I didn't/couldn't celebrate this way. I guess I could compare it to the enjoyment that a lot of people get when they take time to shop for the "perfect" gifts for the people on their list. Now, I do enjoy shopping for Christmas presents, but I'm not really the type to search & search for the "perfect" thing for each person. Besides, a lot of the gifts that I give are handmade - I get SO much more enjoyment out of that than I do out of shopping for a gift.

Anyway... last year I branched out from just making some of my Christmas gifts to some other "creative" projects. Here are just a few of the projects I did last year.

Handmade (but mass-produced) Christmas cards

A framed collage - made with just a few of my scrapping supplies.

Plates of Christmas cookies for the neighbors. This was a family tradition that we had as I was growing up. I have decided to keep it alive, but I couldn't help adding my own little twist to it.

Christmas ornaments

While I have yet to buy the first Christmas present, I have been working on my list of projects for this year.

Hair clips that I will be using as stocking stuffers for the little girls in my life. Ryleigh has been using hers already & I really like how they turned out!

Plain glass ornaments that I altered, using rub-ons, ribbon & some buttons. I got the inspiration here.

A small canvas that I altered, as well as a super fun to make button tree. The button tree inspiration came from here & here. More holiday projects to come in future posts....