A recap of 2007

In our church service this evening, we were asked to draw a picture as a family depicting our past year and where we saw God's fingerprint in our lives.

That one took me a little bit to think about. Our year wasn't overly exciting. Not a lot of ups and downs like some families shared. I wasn't quite sure what to draw.

But then I thought about what God has shown me this past year. And what stood out to me was this: faith at home. How I was going to lead my children spiritually in our home. And for us, this meant incorporating family devotion times, praying together, sharing high/lows of the day/week and blessing my kids every night before bed.

And then I thought about my word for 2007, which was joy.

And I'm not sure if I became a more joyful person in 2007, but I do know that I've found a lot of joy in spending time with my kids in doing the above-- sharing my faith with them.

So I think that's something pretty cool about 2007.

Here's a photo collage of our past year-- we've truly been blessed:

Happy New Year!

Holiday Wrap Up

I can't believe the holidays passed by so quickly! Here 's what we did...

For Advent, a friend of mine from church lent us a book called Jotham's Journey, which is a book designed to read one chapter a day until Christmas. Austin especially enjoyed it. We finished it up Christmas eve.



For the first time ever, we let the kids open their gifts from us on Christmas eve after our church service. The kids all loved their presents (so good!), especialy Jonah, who got some more cars from the movie Cars for his collection.



On Christmas day, we drove to Winnipeg in the morning for gift opening and brunch at my mom's. Both of my brothers and their families were there this year, which was great!

Living in Nanaimo, my SIL Cheryl doesn't get to enjoy snow like we do, so we went outside and sledded with the kids.





And indoors, we enjoyed a puzzle, a game of cards and each other's company.



On Boxing Day, we went to my MIL's for Christmas with Cam's family. The highlights there were listening to the kids perform...

and the snowball fight outside later.

My twin brother Chris, his wife Cheryl and my mom drove out to Morden to visit us on Thursday. It was nice to spend more time with them. (Was sorry that it ended on such a sour note, though!)

We had friends over Thursday and Friday evenings. I just love having people over during the holidays!

Yesterday, Cameron and I took the kids to the outdoor rink to go skating.

We sure had fun over the holidays. How about you?

Merry Christmas!

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. I got a bit of the flu last week and didn't feel like doing anything except lie on the couch and watch Kim Possible with my kids.

I'm feeling better now, though, and am very thankful!

We're not doing too much today. I took the kids to run a few errands in town and we ended up going to Walmart and Superstore to try to find some black tights for Sage. Unfortunately, we were unsuccessful. The stores were crazy!

A little last minute cleaning & stuff this afternoon, then we'll go out for supper before attending our church's Christmas eve service. After the service, we told the kids that they can open their gifts from us.

Then tomorrow morning, we'll drive to my mom's in Winnipeg (about 1 1/2 hours away) and spend the day there. I'm reallly excited, because both of my brothers are out, with my SIL and nephew. We haven't all been together since Xmas 2005, so it'll be good.

On Boxing Day, we'll go to the farm and spend the day with Cam's mom, sister, brother in law, nephew and nieces. That should also be a great day.

Then my twin brother and his wife are coming to visit on Thursday.

What a week-- should be good!

I'd like to wish you all a very merry Christmas and a 2008 filled with joy & peace!

J.A.M. Christmas program

Yesterday morning, in church, our preschool kids, J.A.M. (which stands for Jesus And Me) put on their Christmas program at the front of the church. Both Sage and Jonah participated. They were so cute! Sage loved singing on stage and Jonah did a super job of playing Joseph (except for the few large yawns he had-- mental note: put them to bed earlier next year the night before the concert!) and he delivered his solo line perfectly!

The Christmas Dress

Last year, I looked for a Christmas dress for Sage to wear to church and to our Christmas gatherings. I pictured black velvet on the top with a full taffeta skirt in a rich shade of red or burgandy. But, all I could find were sleeveless dresses (in Southern Manitoba-- I don't think so!) So, I settled for a black and red plaid jumper.

Then, this year, after Halloween, Sage and I went to Walmart to check out the leftover costumes. I didn't find anything I liked, so we walked around the store a little.

And there, in the girl's department, I saw it...

The perfect Christmas dress!

So, I bought it for Sage and she LOVES it! :)

Isn't it beautiful?

Explanation for how to make the stars

I had a request for instructions on how to make the Christmas star ornaments that I posted earlier this week. I should tell you that I got the instructions originally from Marcy at My Scrap Shoppe, but I couldn’t find her post to link to here.

That said…

You will need:

A 6x6 inch piece of patterned paper
A ruler, bone-folder, stapler, scissors, hot glue gun and hole punch
Some string or embroidery thread

Instructions:

1. Place the piece of pp on a table (I use my measured-off self-healing mat.) At one inch intervals, use the bone folder to score lines on the patterned paper. (You’ll make five lines.)

2. Accordion-fold the patterned paper along the scored lines.

3. Then fold it in half and staple it in place.

4. At each end of the folded patterned paper, cut at a sharp angle, with the tip being on the outside fold.

5. Open up the star.

6. Hot glue the sides in place.

7. Punch a hole in the top and tie a string and voilà!

Good use for scraps

I went through my box of scrap paper and made a pile of these:





They're fairly quick & easy to make. Austin and Jonah brought one for each of the kids in their classes to school and I gave one (attached to a box of chocolates) to each of our R.O.X. volunteers. So I probably made just over one hundred of them.

A great way to use up some of my scraps!

7 random things about me

I've seen this on a few blogs lately, including my friend Heather, so I thought I'd play along. So here are seven random things about me:

1. When it comes to doing the laundry, I actually like the sorting part of it. I enjoy putting all the colours together, the darks together, the whites together, etc. However, I dislike the folding and putting away. I can put off these tasks for hours (or even days!)

2. I don’t like coffee, tea, or hot apple cider. The only hot beverage that I’ll drink is hot chocolate.

3. If I could buy a brand-new vehicle for me (& only me), I would buy a mini-cooper.

4. I love to read. I try to read everyday. Mostly fiction.

5. I’m usually cold. At night, I sleep in flannel jammies and socks, with three or four blankets covering me. And even then, my back still feels cold. But I wake up warm.

6. I love being bilingual and being able to think in English and French. Sometimes I’ll know the word in French first and then have to translate it into English.

7. My dream job would be to be the voice of an animated character.

So, if you're reading this, feel free to play along, too. :)

Christmas decorating

So, I think I have all of my decorating done for Christmas.



I added these decorations to my front door and God added the snow!

Our tree:



The blue ornaments I bought blend into our tree a little (I didn't think about the fact that we have a blue spruce!), but I love how the red ornaments just pop! Here's the tree skirt I made:



And the stockings:



Cameron thought that they weren't very Christmas-y (i.e. they aren't red and green) but I love how they match my decor. I painted chipboard letters with MM acrylic paint and then stamped with white ink on them:



More decorating in the living/dining room:






And, my advent calendar:



I'm actually a little tired of it. I made it probably nine or ten years ago, before kids. I'd love to make a new one, but they kids love the pocket idea.

I saw this idea online and LOVED it, but I don't have anywhere to put it. So I was thinking of somehow combining the beautiful tag idea with pockets, maybe clear ones, and using small envelopes to tuck the notes into. Oh well, it won't be for this year, that's for sure, so I have a while to work on it before Advent 2008.

There are some things that I've done in the past, like put garland with lights above my kitchen cabinets, but I don't think I'll do this year. I am such a less is more decorator!

Scrapbooking stuff

#1: The December kit from My Scrap Shoppe is available to purchase tomorrow. It is a gorgeous kit, with lots of my favourite colour (lately)-- chocolate brown!

Here are the layouts that I created with the kit:
















#2: I got an email today from Scenic Route Paper Company, telling me that I won their November product challenge, which was to use their chipboard circles on a layout. This is the layout that they picked:


which you can see here on their site.


#3: Tomorrow is Super Scrap Day (SSD) at My Scrap Shoppe. My sister-in-law, Sally, and her family have agreed to watch my kids for most of the day, with my mother-in-law watching the kids for the evening. Which means I'll get to scrapbook for roughly 8 hours tomorrow, before going to Cameron's Christmas banquet in the evening. A day of scrapbooking followed by a meal that I don't have to cook-- sounds good to me!

Volunteer choir

Austin has such a great singing voice. And in grade three, he can join the volunteer choir at school. They practice on Tuesdays at lunch hour.

Last week, the choir, comprised of 92 third and fourth graders, went to Winnipeg to participate in ChoralFest. And I got to go along as a parent volunteer. (I love going along as a parent volunteer!)

Austin has such a great class. All of the kids are so nice and friendly and if you'd ask them, they would say that they are all friends. And they are!

The snow...

has arrived. We woke up this morning to a yard covered with fluffy white snow. The kids were thrilled, to say the least. After weeks of asking for snow, God finally answered Austin's prayer.

It would have been nice to have had it for the Morden Tree Lighting a few weekends ago. We had the cold, but no snow.






I was tagged, by Marcy by reading her blog.

1.If you could have $100 worth of scrapbook paper or assorted embellishments, which would you choose? Embellishments.

2. If you had to choose between using only stamps or rub-ons which would you choose? Rub-ons.

3. If you knew how to do both awesome cards and layouts, but could only do one for a year which would you do? Layouts.

4. Would you rather own a scrapbooking store or have your own scrapping room at home (can't have both, lol) ? My own room. (But I'm good with the space I have.)

5. And then last but not least, what is your current cardmaking or scrapping style? Not sure. I use to say clean & simple with straight lines. Now I find I'm still straight ( ;) ), but I like adding more embellishments in clusters & more stuff.

Well, thanks for reading. Happy Wednesday!

Slow but steady

I decided that this year I didn't have to do all of my Christmas decorating in one day.

Normally, I set up the tree and decorate the house all at once, sometime in one day, sometimes in two.

But this year, I thought I'd spread it out a little more.

So, on Friday, the kids and I put up the tree and put on the lights. A strand was out, so we put up the remaining lights that worked. And ended there with a little photo shoot:

Friday night, we watched Shrek the Third by our tree lit with 2/3 of its lights.

On Saturday, I added another string of lights. And Austin added four balls.

On Sunday, I made some new ornaments and added them to the tree:

(I still have a few more to finish up.)

But I'm enjoying having a more relaxed attitude about it this year, that's for sure.