almost Wordless Wednesday - My husbands "gift" was MY gift!

My husband is a gifted artist, and for Christmas, he gave me the gift of illustrated portraits of our children.

I posted these framed HERE.

sledding

There have been about 3 Christmas' now where we've visited my mom's house and there's been snow. Two of those were when my oldest brother was alive to enjoy this with his kids. During our visit this year, his kids (daughter photo below - and then one of her with her brother down below all of these) were super excited to see the snow and just decided for old times sake to go sledding in grandma's yard!! 'H' couldn't get enough of it, even though it was about 10-12 degree's there!!

Big E took a couple of turns as well and had fun, then ended up with some battle wounds on his hand and took a break from the fun. Little J and I went down the hill a couple of times and he LOVED it!! Broke my heart that Mike wasn't around to see these kids do this. It's the little things in life that I think about, because the little things were the BIG things to him.

N & H are discussing this next race. There were a couple of times they went down sortof tandem. Either way, they both went down that hill laughing and having such a blast! Over and over and over!!!

There is no description for the windchill. It was BITTER. Big E came in with red hands, little J came in with a red face, and N&H had red faces too!

Christmas 09

Big E was so tickled, he received a Nintendo DS Lite with two games!!

Little J was just as excited to find out that he received STAR WARS LEGO'S!!!!!

"I wish we could put up some of the Christmas spirit in jars and open a jar of it every month."
~Harlan Miller

Christmas 2009 - Scrapblog'd

what a surprise it was...

Please do click to enlarge each photo... it's worth it

My husband is an artist. Do you see this???? This is what he does for a living. He took OUR best creations (well, ours along with the man upstairs, of course) and turned them into works of art.
And I may be biased.... but I believe that these are by far HIS best art creations yet.

My children. How gorgeous are our children. These portraits are absolutely the likeness of each boy.

Their simple expressions, and beautiful eyes. That says it all.

I had the best Christmas gifts EVER!!

the night before Christmas....

....and all through my mind, was flashes of past holidays and memories of that kind.
I thought of our Christmas nights from when I was a just a kid, and appreciate now more then ever - all that our parents did.
It wasn't about the gifts, I won't lie, that was great. But the best memories are of baking cookies, writing letters to Santa, and staying up late.
Christmas specials on TV with my mom, and game (or three) of parcheesi with my dad.. and then off to bed we'd go with nothing but the next day's excitement to be had.
Waking up early, crawling down the hall. We snuck together as siblings, and we had a ball!
Our parents were wide awake, even though we thought they were otherwise. They were laying in their beds, probably so happy that we snuck to the tree to see our surprises.
Those days are forever going to live in my mind, as moments with family - unlike any other kind.
It's our turn now, to start this 'night before Christmas' fun, we baked and had cookies, and we watched a family show and had fun.
Our kids have no clue, what's under the tree. They didn't really make a "list", they'd seem content to wait and see...
The holidays are so precious, and moments are such bliss. I wish I could stop time, for weekends like this.
So... twas the night before Christmas, and all through this house, not a kid was complaining, not even a spouse.
The stockings were laid, under the tree with care (that's just what we do), and gifts were scattered around for the kids, the hubs, and me too!
The kids are all snuggled, warm and safe in their beds. And we'll peek in later, and plant sneaky kisses on their heads.
The morning will come, and coffee will brew. The kids will wake up and sneak a peek at a gift or two.
Christmas (for us) will be spent making memories, and sharing love. All because of our blessings from above.

The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other. ~Burton Hillis

a Christmas gathering

A little bokeh effect (WackyMummy, that's for you) with the Cypress tree we gave our in-laws as part of their gift tonight. The lights in the background with the bokeh effect are from our big tree.

This cute little Cypress will be transplanted into my in-laws back yard and will grow up to 15 feet! It was such an adorable centerpiece for our Christmas dinner tonight

goodies for the celebration

Gifts for and from the family. We enjoyed our time with Mimi and Papaw tonight. To say the least, we had a BLAST!

a very decorative family gathering

Yesterday we went to my Aunt and Uncle's house in Snow Camp, NC. My Aunt is ABSOLUTELY the Martha Stewart of NC. Her house had 7 full size trees, 4 of them represented seasons. The tree in her master bedroom was GORGEOUS and represented fall, it was also on a spinning stand which made it magical! There were gorgeous draped garlands filled with floral inserts, ornaments and lights. Enough to make Martha Stewarts head SPIN, and my Aunt - made it ALL!!. Every ounce of her home screamed holidays, and it was such a cozy gathering. The snow outdoors just topped it off.

I was bummed that I took the wrong lens, I took our zoom lens and not the 18-55mm that takes wide angle pics. So, I made a little collage of the photos instead. I have the full size ones saved and they're gorgeous to look at, but the only tree I was able to get from top to bottom in the lens I took was the living room tree (green tree)...oh well! The day was wonderfully spent!

a memorial ornament

this was sent to our family, in honor of the donation of the gift of sight made by my brother.... Losing him has been one of the hardest things I've ever faced or dealt with. Yet, him being a donor means that even in his passing he has given to others something they may have NEVER received. So this ornament is proudly on the very front of our tree for everyone to SEE.

and we decorated the tree...

click to enlarge photos

started out just as a regular tree with lights...

added in a few floral sticks, and some basic ornaments

some ribbons and flowers, and we have ourselves a tree!

getting with the program

Earlier this week I started decorating. Normally I'd have done that the week of Thanksgiving, but if I'm being honest - I just haven't had it in me! When we went to big E's orchestra concert we were able to see alot of houses that had outdoor decorations up and the kids really started getting in the spirit. So that was my cue to get with the program. Our tree is the last thing to get out, we're going to drag that beast out tonight and try to decorate it tomorrow night.