Before Our Professional Christmas Pics ...

Well Thursday we went off to do our yearly family Christmas pictures for our Christmas cards and I took some pics of Jade at home before heading out.











Most of you that are used to seeing our Christmas pics, know Jade usually wears a little red Santa dress or something very Christmassy but last year my brother made a remark that our pics look the same every year so this time I swapped out everything and Gavin you will be happy to know, none of us are wearing red at all ... now I hope you are happy :-)

I still got her a Santa dress but that she will wear for her breakfast with Santa and her end of year school program so that will be enough I am sure ... also we have a bunch of Christmas stuff coming up that she can wear it too so I am sure we will get good wear out of it before the season is over.

Friday night we went and did our traditional yearly trip to McAddenville, which is Christmas Town USA but I still need to sort through all those pics so more on that later, I will maybe update the blog with those in the week :-)

More Frosty Pics

Just more pictures of Jades favorite Christmas person next to Santa of course :-)






She was actually sad since this Frosty coz a little squashed in the attic and now he doesn't work as well as he used to but maybe after Christmas when we have the sales again Mom will find another one that works better ... we'll see :-)

Having Fun With Frosty

Two Quick Pics

Just two quick pics that I took this morning before Jade left for school, it's really cold here today but it's funny how you get used to the cold and then the coldest days don't seem quite that cold, very weird.





Anyway I am losing it, today is not Jades gymnastics observation day as I told some people it was, that is next week so I won't be posting those pics till next week.

Also it sounds like my mom in law made it out of surgery fine, thank Heavens and now we just wish her a speedy recovery from here on out :-)

Till next time.

Our Outside Lights Are Up And Dave Survived !!!

Thought I would quickly paste two pics, one of Dave taking his life in his own hands on our roof putting the icicle lights up and then the next one with the finished product. He obviously this year knew a little more what he was doing and in my opinion did a very good job in a very short space of time ... good going Dave !!! And thank God his is safely on the ground now.

I have a bunch of other light too but can't figure out what to do with them all, I am still learning to be a creative American (hehehe) !!! Maybe next year !!!

Next time I post I will take a picture of one of the houses in our neighborhood that to me is amazing, I know we will never get our house to be anything like that but I am happy with it as it is right now, every year we add a little more, this year you can't really tell since the add ons were done inside. Many of our neighbors are still putting their lights and trees up so as I said, next time I will post some pics of houses around here :-) I love Christmas time and thankfully with Jade being so wowed but it too, she and I just drive around at night to look at all the pretty houses :-) It of course bores Dave half to death ... what can I say ... MEN !!!

Last but certainly not least, I wanted to wish my mother in law good luck for her surgery this week, she is having a knee operation and she will be in the hospital for a good couple of days so we hope all goes well and that she recovers quickly and painlessly. You will be in our thoughts and prayers and I am sure Dave will be in touch during the week.

Our Christmas Decorations Are Up ...

Ok this update probably won't interest most of you but I am pretty much doing it for my mother which has been over here during the Christmas festivities and loved all the decorations and how big Americans do Christmas, getting started the day after Thanksgiving with putting up decorations and all ... so I thought I would show y'all what I have been up to.

This first one is of our house, well some of you would have seen last years pics and will be saying well she didn't do anything different and you would be right, the only thing I changed was the door hanger ... but still I thought it looked pretty. We should have put up the icicle lights on the outside this past weekend but it rained and it just didn't happen, those are really pretty and I do hope they will go up this coming weekend but if not, maybe we will just give it a skip this year although really they make the house at night. They take so long to put up and of course that is all Dave's job since you have to be on the roof or up high on the ladder which I so do not do ... so I am sure he will try his best to get out of it this year but maybe his daughter can twist his arm since she loves it. If they go up I will try and take a night picture but I can't promise anything since those usually don't come out too well.

There's my door hanger, you might have seen the Fall update with the Fall flowers, I am so excited about my silly door hanger because it doesn't take much creativity on my part, you just swap out flowers every new season. It is a piece from the Southern Living show I went to, I find their pieces quiet pricey but so worth it.

Below that is the other piece I got from that show, you would have seen that too in the update with Fall flowers and in front of my fireplace, just a little change come Christmas time :-)

This year we bought a new Christmas tree, I loved our old one but the lights pretty much gave up the ghost, now of course we could have strung our own lights on there but I really wanted another prelit tree so Jade and I went hunting, she was good as gold considering mom took her to a million stores to look at trees but as long as I walked the Christmas isles with her too at each store she was ok. Anyway we got this one, it's slightly bigger than our old one, this one is 7 1/2 feet tall. Unfortunately I can't get at really good picture of it with the lights on but you are going to have to do with this one ... Now I need more Christmas decorations for the tree, I buy a few more every year but I need a lot more, it's funny because I decorate the front of the tree the most but having a mirror just behind the tree doesn't help because you see all the blank spaces in the mirror, I need to work on that :-) My Snow Babies collection is coming along, Jade just bought me a new piece which we hung this weekend, I love Snow Babies, I took one or two pics of them to show those of you that don't know what they are, they are just one of the million collectible Christmas items over here, anyway I couldn't get them clear clear since I am still working out how to use this new camera of ours but I think you can make out what I am talking about.

Then this is Jades little tree which for the first time we have allowed her to put in her room, it's a 3 foot prelit tree, the one she used to decorate every year just seemed too little for her this year so Dave said I should go buy her a bigger one which of course I loved to do since I love Christmas shopping, anyway all the decorations are shatterproof and she decorated the entire tree by herself, I didn't touch it, didn't hang not one decoration and here's why ... when I was doing my tree although there was a lot to keep her busy she obviously wanted to do my tree too but me being the fusspot that I am, told her it was mommy's tree and that it was full of decorations that would break and when she was older she could help me but for now it would be better for her to do her own ... this is of course true to a certain extent, most of the ornaments are breakable and I didn't want her to drop any since I don't have a lot to start off with but of course I wanted everything in it's place to so ... when it came time for her to decorate her tree, I told here it was all hers and that she could do whatever she wanted, well when I saw she was putting all the pink stuff together and well every color clustered together I tried to tell her to spread them out and her reply was and I have no idea where she got this word from but she said 'mom this is my tree remember so why are you directing me to put my decorations on my tree ?' Is that not priceless or what ???

I have also give her my old nativity set which I have grown out of, I got a new one which isn't quiet what I wanted but it was cheap and will do for now until I find that perfect one, they are so expensive here if only I could get a good after Christmas deal on one but they are the first to go, anyway, I helped her set it up under the tree and told her that the wise men should move closer to Mary and Joseph every day, tiny steps so that on Christmas Day they will be right there at the manger, well no sooner had I told her that and she has a few Care Bear ornaments which I got her last year, she had them lined up next to the three wise men and well they are doing the walk too ... apparently they also want to see Baby Jesus, I though that was too cute, this child of mine, she is so thoughtful, I love her to death.

Anyway the tree came with lots of rules but she is so at an age that I know I can trust her so I feel comfortable letting her have that in her room and it makes her feel super special and well isn't that what parenting is all about ?

Ok now the last three are just views of stuff in our lounge for you to see ... ok now I know I am boring you half to death but I did say this was for my mom right :-) and she just loves all this stuff. I am sure you will be getting lots of December updates since there will be so much happening, in order let me see if I can list a few, I think is coming weekend we are going to drive to McAddenville which is Christmas Town USA, it's a entire small town which is lit up for the holidays, it's hard to explain but I will try and take a few pics, Jade loves it.

Then the following weekend on the Saturday Jade has breakfast with Santa which we do in our neighborhood every year. The Sunday we will take her to the Hickory Grove Baptist Church for their annual Christmas festivities including plays, rides for the kids, lot of Christmas crafts and ice skating, not of real ice but still it's fun :-)

The 11th Jade has her parents observation day at Gymnastics which should be fun and the 12th is her birthday. This year she is having a Tinkerbell party and it will be at the new Space Kidets Party Jump Zone which is another one of those inflatable play zones which she loves, we are inviting a whole bunch of kids, her entire school class since this is her last year with them, that's 20 odd kids and of course all the little ones in the road and some other good friends of ours so it's going to be a big event. We will also do cake for the kids at lunch time at school that day so it should be a very special day for her.

Then on the 18th is Jades last day at school till the new year, so that day she will do her Christmas program at school which is always fun, shame last year she had that awful ear infection and still stole the show in her class, we will have to see what happens this year :-) Then there is a few other Christmas things in the planning but I am not sure of them all so we will see and well it then won't be long and Christmas will be upon us and New Year too, I can't believe it. This is really a busy time of the year and I totally love it all, this is my absolute favorite time of the year. Can you tell ?

Anyway I am sure that is enough for now ... until next time, love to all and we miss y'all especially at these times of year :-)

Getting Ready For Christmas ...

Well this week is Thanksgiving and we are already getting ready for Christmas, December is the most fun time of my year what with not only Christmas but Jades birthday too.

We have been going through a rough time lately, nothing which I want to get into in here but those that know us well, know what we have been through, I want to thank y'all for being there for us and being the support we needed being so far away from family and all, we appreciate it more than you could possibly know. Thank you mostly to my best friend in the world, my cousin Karen in Canada which really is my rock ... and a close runner up, Tina I, you are amazing, I could never ask for a better friend than you, without the two of you, I don't know how I would have gotten through these past 4 odd weeks. Mom, thank you too, I know you knew what I was going through and to have someone that feels your pain like I know you did, meant the world to me, thank you for being there for me through every step of the way.

I haven't updated in here much lately and really there isn't too much more that I wanted to say other than it's getting cold ... really cold, Winter has arrived !!! I have added 4 pics, I treated Jade to the Christmas show this past Monday, I thought she would be more wow'd than she was but I think all the walking was too much for her, I will take her again when she is a little older. I went back Saturday to do my walk around since Monday was all about Jade. I love the Christmas show and this time of the year, Mom they are already playing the Christmas music on that chanel, do you remember :-)

This week is Thanksgiving and Black Friday which Dave as usual is looking forward to. We don't have anything big planned for Thanksgiving this year thank heavens, I think it will just be the three of us and our Honey Baked Ham, it will be a nice break to have a day off in the middle of the week. Friday I am thinking Dave might go out early but this I will only know once he goes through the paper on Thursay and sees all the good deals, this is his Christmas, he loves this day. Jade is off school Wednesday and Friday for the Thanksgiving holiday, she actually is having her Thanksgiving Feast at school tomorrow which I will be attending, that is always fun. Anyway she and I are on the hunt for a Christmas Tree, out beautiful one has given up the ghost, many of the rows of lights have gone out so we are looking for a new one, Jade is excited to help me hunt down one, I am sure she will get bored quickly with all the trees I have to look at but we will walk through all the Christmas isles too and that she will enjoy :-) Gavin I wish you were closer coz I would give you our old tree, I know you wouldn't mind stringing normal lights on it, we have just gotten too lazy being spoilt over here, I think we are going to go drop it off at Goodwill, that way someone that can't afford a tree will be able to have one, a beautiful one on us this year :-) I love this country, they are so giving here that it makes you want to be generous too.

Anyway I think Jade and I will also get an early start Friday since most stores open at 5am, Dave will be out before the crack of dawn but I think Jade and I will get out here by 7h30, 8 ish hopefully we will still get some good deals, I heard it's going to be really cold Friday so we will have to bundle up.

Then this weekend it will be Christmas decorations time, I can't wait, I love making the house all pretty for Christmas, after this last month, this family sure as hell needs some fun so I am really looking forward to throwing myself into it completly, can you tell ? I am sure Dave can wait till the weekend, since he will be on the roof putting up the Christmas isicle lights, not a fun job at all but it is all worth it when you turn the lights on at night and for every night in December Jade is wowed :-)

This weekend Dave and I booked Jades birthday party, we were going to do it at home this year but Dave didn't want to stress me out which I am very thankful for so we are having it at Space Kidets, which is similar to Pump It Up where we had her party last year. The party itself will be on her birthday from 6 - 8 that evening, it should be fun. We are still going with a Tinkerbell theme although I don't think I will have her wear her costume there, she will get too hot and it will get all messed up.

Anyway, that's all the news for now, one last thing, I wanted to also say, thank you to everyone that remembered our wedding anniversary, we appreciate it, thank you too to the Kropmans for the flowers, you know I love flowers, Jade does too so she and I really have appreciated them.

And last but not least, I love you Dave, thank you for our life together and our beautiful family which means more than the world to me. You guys are my world in fact and I love you both more with every beat of my heart.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American Family & Friends !!!

Jade As Tinkerbell - Halloween 2007

I am not in a blogging mood but wanted to add these 5 pics of Jade for those people that will land up nagging me to death if I don't post them now quickly.

As you can see Jade was Tinkerbell, which was the most popular costume for girls around here, not that I knew that would happen but anyway.

Fun was had by all and now we just have the pounds of candy to attend to !!!

Renaissance Festival

Well it's been a busy week with lot's of happenings, one of the most exiting being the Renaissance Festival that we went to on Saturday. I had a show Friday night and Dave went for a cycle Saturday morning so we got a slow start but eventually got to the festival at sometime after 12 which was fine since we would be there till it closed around 6ish, it would be a long day, a long hot day, golly was it hot !!! I felt bad for those people dressed up in costume, they must have been cooking !!!

I took millions of pics as you can well imagine, there is so much to see but I am only posting a few before I bore you all half to death. Jade had her usual fun at the petting zoo feeding the animals but I think the highlight of her day was riding the elephant. She actually did this last year too but we didn't get photos so thankfully we got some pics this year. I was also relieved to hear the elephant was from Asia, coz imagine come all the way from Africa to the USA to ride an African elephant here (hehehe) !!!

It's weird but we have been to this festival a couple of times and this was the first year that I actually realized that the rides that Jade was going on were manual rides, there was people power running all the rides (hehehe) must have been a blond moment for me :-)

Jade had such a ball drawing on this ladies skirt, I almost couldn't pull her away from there :-)

There was so much to see, much of course that we had seen before but still we enjoy it so much every year, I think next year though, I will get a babysitter and Dave and I can go by ourselves, there is so much adult stuff going on that we miss out on having Jade with us, actually I see so much more because Dave takes Jade on the rides and I walk around a bit more, it would be nice just for him and I to do it by ourselves one year.

We bought Jade this little bird whistle, it was quiet expensive but is well made and sounds amazing, I will have to video her so you can hear it, it really sounds like birds, now that I am thinking about it, we should have bought Sion one (hehehe) he might have appreciated that :-) Anyway everyone was enjoying the whistle but I think it's just a matter of time before we are tired of it, it has a great sound but too much is too much right ?

Then they had the usual jousting event which we all enjoy, I went and got us all lunch so we could eat while watching which worked out well, Dave had his usual huge turkey drumstick, Jade had chicken tenderloins and I had sausage on a stick which I hadn't had before but it was really yummy. I had the most amazing Italian Ice, a mango flavor, now that was the yummiest !!! I also did a video or two that I am going to post here but they aren't great since it's a new camera and I am still learning how this one works ... you will see what I mean :-)

Something that was new last year which still blew my mind this year, I must do one of these one day ... it's the hand wax moulds, they come out so cool, I think when Jade is a bit older we may try one with her :-)

This was another show which I watched, it was pretty cool but you can't get the complete effect, this guy was obviously up the ladder but he had fireworks strapped to his body which he eventually lit and then all the kids around the stage had water balloons that they had to throw at him since his chest would have been really hot from the fireworks, I am glad Jade didn't see this one. He also juggled using chain saws, scary !!! I also went to watch the hypnotist show but it wasn't as good as last years show.

Here are just some general pics :-) I could have pasted a lot as I said but Dave always tells me I am boring everyone and since no one seems to sign my guestbook anymore I am wondering if he isn't right !!!

Sunday was a pretty relaxing day, my neighbor had her daughter and son in law visit with their two kids and they play so well with Jade so pretty much most of yesterday afternoon we sat outside and chatted with them and let the kids play. Oh one funny thing happened, TD was up here chatting with us when all of a sudden he saw this big shaggy bunny run by and between him and Dave and Jade in toe of course, they chased it down and caught it. Obviously Jade wanted to keep it but there is no chance of that ... so TD has it now, so I am sure Jade will be visiting down there quite a bit :-)

That's me for this time, hopefully I will update again soon :-)

Oh golly I couldn't get the two video's loaded, I will try again later this afternoon when I have more time :-) In the meantime you can enjoy the pics :-) I hope.

Ok hopefully this one works ... I am still working on the other one.



Ok here's the other one ...

Been Pretty Quiet Lately ...

Hi There

I have been pretty busy lately so have been really quiet on here, sorry about that but in all honesty, there hasn't been much going on.

I have been subbing at Jades school quite a bit, not in her class but in the 2 year old class, it's been fun but they now found a permanent sub in that class so thankfully I won't need to go in as much as I was. I am still on their sub list so they will call me whenever they need me. Even though I wasn't in Jades class she has gotten a kick out of me being there, every time their class goes potty to to the playground or even to chapel, they pass my class and I hear her all the way down the passage 'did you see ... that's my mom' !!!

Other than that I have had a good amount of jewelry training on lately which has kept me busy, this past weekend they had a big roundup of over 700 people at the Cabarras Arena for a training session, our founders Andy and Joan were there too so that was a good treat. I was out from just after 8 Saturday morning till 5h30 the evening and well when I got home, I realized Dave had gotten a good dose of Jade and he was worn out !!! Welcome to my world :-)

October and November are going to be busy show months for me since we have a wonderful Christmas promotion on and I have a ton of booking, how exciting :-) it's going to be tiring though, one weekend I have a Thursday, Friday and Saturday party scheduled ... gosh !!!

Jade and I have both been battling the sniffles the past two weeks, it's just the season for that, too warm for sweaters and well the mornings are getting almost too cool for just T-shirts. I have packed all Jades shorts and Summer clothing away, hopefully some of it still fits her next year but most of it has been packed aways since for the most part she has already grown out of them. So with this weather that is so confusing right now, the sniffles had to happen, it's also a bad allergy season for me so I am hoping it won't be too bad.

With the weather being cooler the kids are all outside again which is great, I cannot believe that because Jade didn't ride her bike much in Summer since its way too hot, she has almost forgotten how to ride, hopefully with lots of practise she will be back on track again soon and will be having less falls.

On the cycling note, Dave has bought a mountain bike and has been cycling with some guys at work, not as much as I think he would like but it's too hard for him to cycle every night when we still need to do dinner and bath time etc. before bedtime for Jade at 7h30. Maybe he needs to get up earlier in the morning and go out but it's dark early in the morning now, so I don't know how much time he would really have, also I don't like him going out there on his own. He had a really bad fall the other day, thankfully he didn't break anything but he was well grazed up, poor guy so yeah, that's why I don't really like him going out there on his own, it's not like he is on the road that if he falls people will see him, he is on a trail but if no one takes that trail when he is out there, no one will know he is hurt if he is badly hurt. It was enough for me to get him to take his cellphone, what is it about men that they don't take their responsibilities in life that seriously, anything could happen, Heaven forbid of course.

This weekend we are going to the Renaissance Festival, I can't remember if we went last year, I think we did, yeah I definitely think we did, we have been a bunch of times and it's really a wonderful day so I am hoping the weather holds up and even though we need rain desperately, I hope it doesn't rain that day. I will as usual take lots of pics, ok now I know, we did go last year coz Jade rode the elephant and our camera battery died or something but we didn't get her on the elephant, maybe this time, we will see :-)

I guess that is me for now, oh yeah, I wanted to add three pics to show my Fall creativity which I have had fun putting together :-) The first one is for our front door, the second one is just outside our front door and the last one is a centre piece I put together but I have it in front of the fireplace right now, these are nice because I can swap out the flowers ever season to make it look different :-)

Oh and I almost forgot, we had another milestone birthday recently, Jessica, Dave's sisters child turned 13, wow, a teenager. Happy Birthday Jess !!! So this year we have had Dave's Mom and Dad turn 70, My Mom turn 60, David and his brother in law Sion turn 40 as well as my folks celebrating their 40th Wedding Anniversary, My Brother turned 30 and now Jessica turned 13. It's been a big year for us !!! Oh and Jade will be 5 soon too, not that that is a milestone but still :-)

That's all for me for now.