It's Christmastime!

We have had such a great Christmas season so far. Lily has loved everything...She is in love with Christmas lights and singing Christmas songs. I am so behind on posts and really, really need to catch up! Here are some pics to summarize our Christmas season this year!

Lily is loving Nativity scenes this year and the whole Christmas story. Here she is at a local Christmas lights display all in the manger scene, haha..
She smiled with Santa...this was a Christmas miracle in itself..
Checking out the lights ...
Waiting on our hometown Christmas parade
At her dance Christmas party...

Posing by our Tree - she is such a poser!
Our angel - in her first Christmas program at church..She did sooo good!
Making our gingerbread house..
Posing again...
My fav pic of the year! It's shows the joy of Christmas..

A Stroller Full?

Lily came out of her room the other day with her stroller ready to go shopping. Do you think she could fit just one more baby? She looked like the "Duggars." (On a serious note: Please pray for their newborn 1 pound baby by the way.)

She's so cute and such a good mommy to her babies.

O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree!

Kelly's Korner Blog is doing "Show us your Christmas Tree!" this week, so I thought this would be a good time to show you some of Christmas decorations inside my house. I still haven't taken pictures of everything but this is most of it.

I just want to stop December and let it last longer because it always seems it goes by too fast for me and then it's over..On Christmas Day, I always have a bittersweet feeling because we can't wait until Christmas but when it's here, I'm sad because it's here...

First off, this is a table in our small dining room. I love the plates on the bottom. I got them at Walmart and thought they were so cute!


This is my dining room table. I'm not completely satisfied with it. I have the hardest time with my table. Any ideas?There is definitely too much red going on. I'm looking for a different table cloth/or runner.


Top of my frig..just a bit of Christmas cheer up there..


Kitchen window - snowmen collection


Our Tree - I use red and green throughout my house, except for Lily's room. She has a white tree with bright colored ornaments. (I will add a pic soon)


Fireplace mantel (Sorry for the dark pic, It's hard to capture lights in their true glory.)


Entrance to the dining room/kitchen


My carport door - (Sorry it's sideways)



That's a good bit of our inside decorations. It's a lot of work, but I love doing it.

I also want to give a "shout-out" to Jamie - who is in the process of creating a blog design company and she is offering "free templates" for a couple of days so be watching for my new blog design. You can visit her site by clicking the button below. Great blog designs!

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Hard to Believe She's 3..

Saturday was Lily's actual 3rd birthday even though we celebrated with her party two weeks ago.

This year, I cannot believe more than ever that my precious baby is already 3! The time has flown by so fast. There is nothing she can't do or say. She is so smart and talented, and I am more proud every day that she's mine.

To think that her next party, she will be 4, makes me sad :( Four is old, but don't get me wrong, I enjoy every day with our sweetheart. She is the best blessing that God could ever give BJ and I.

I cherish every moment with her, and at this time of year, especially, I am thankful for my wonderful family - my husband, and our princess, Lily!

Lily's 50's Elvis Birthday Party

This past Saturday, Lily had her 3rd birthday party (she turns 3 November 28.) I always start planning in July every year and this year when we asked her what she wanted, she always said an Elvis party. (My mom got her to loving Elvis and she loves Jailhouse Rock.) An Elvis party with a 50's theme was our plan and it turned out wonderfully.

We couldn't have asked for a prettier day and it was so easy to have a fifties party, so many ideas out there to help me out.

Here is Lily all dressed up in her poodle skirt from Ebay. She was so pretty and so grown up.


Here is some of the decorations and Lily's cake. The lady that made her first bday cake made this one and it turned out perfect. Very yummy too!


Here is Lily with her cousins, Erin and Jayla before the party.


Lily posing with her cake.


Closeup of the cake


We had a hula hoop contest and the kids were so funny! Lily loved it!


BJ and I in our 50's attire

The birthday tent before everyone arrived.


We had a very special guest at the party - Elvis himself dropped by! I found his outfit at a local discount store (Dirt Cheap) for $7!!

Elvis and his mom



Our family pic with Elvis


Elvis and his favorite little girl. Elvis was a hit and everyone thought he was so funny. We had a fun time watching him dance and entertain everyone.

Time to open presents. She got so much and was so sweet and thanked everyone individually.



Excited over her iron crowns that she got from Aunt Sue and Uncle Jackie. She thought they went on her head.


Posing with some of her friends


Some of her best friends - Lily, Jancie, Aimree, and Allie Jewel


Everyone posed behind this car stand-up that my handy dad built.


It was a great party. Everything turned out perfect and it was a beautiful day.

Vacation

We are enjoying a week of vacation this week, mostly at home, and its been great so far. We are getting ready for the big 3 year old Elvis-50's party this weekend. Lily is so excited and so are we!

Look for lots of pics and details coming soon!

Now back to enjoying a week devoted to spending time with my family and just catching up on some things around the house.

Our Little Mermaid - Halloween 2009

So far, we have had a great week celebrating Halloween 2009. We definitely have been busy but it's been worth every minute.

Here is Lily below wishing everyone a safe and Happy Halloween. She completely chose her costume this year on her own. From the beginning, she has told me she wanted to be "mermaid" so we made a special trip to the Disney store where she had her selection of whatever character she wanted to be. I convinced her to try on Minnie Mouse but she wouldn't hear of it. She wanted to be mermaid and as you can see, a mermaid she is...She looks so grown up in her costume. It makes me sad that we are getting ready for her 3rd birthday party in 2 weeks - it's going to be a great one. I can't wait to share pics from this week and more party details soon!

Friends

Lily's sweet friend from daycare, Aimree just celebrated her 3rd birthday. She had a Strawberry Shortcake party, and it was so cute. Lily had the best time!

Lily and Aimree have been to daycare with each other since they were around 3 months old so they have grown up together.

Even though the weather was cool, Lily had the best time with Aimree. She's still talking about going to Aimree's party.

Wasn't the cake so cute?


I love this pic!


About to cut into the cake. They kept sneaking icing off the cake.


I just loved this pic. I am going to get it framed for Lily's room.

Meow!

Lily is now the proud owner of two new baby kittens. They are both precious and constantly tormented by a sweet almost three year old little girl. She loves them to death though. She is such a good little mommy to them.

We got them from BJ's uncle - Lily's great Uncle and Lily's request was to get a pink kitten and a purple kitten. He didn't exactly have those colors, but these worked out fine.

After going through all kinds of names, including "pink" and "purple" Right now, their names seem to be "Tootsie" and "Reesie" after Lily's two favorite chocolate candies.

Warning! Their names are prone to change at any time, lol..

Here is Lily with Reesie.


Tootsie up close.


Reesie again!


Tootsie


I am so careful so far with these kittens because Lily is in love and I don't want to have to tell her that another pet has gone to heaven. We are going to try our best to keep Tootsie and Reesie far far from the road.

Finally - Fall!

I am finally getting around to posting my fall post. This fall has been incredibly busy for us, and it seems to already be slipping by much too fast.

I have lots of fun decorating around my house for fall. I also love taking Lily to a nearby pumpkin patch and just basically doing everything fall we can find.

Here is BJ and Lily at the Pumpkin Patch. They were looking for their way out of the hay maze.


Lily and I on the train. It was made of barrels and pulled by a 4-wheeler that was made to look like a train, lol...


lily and her poppy on the hay ride to the pumpkin patch


In the pumpkin patch, searching for the perfect pumpkin. It was such a beautiful day in the 60's. We enjoyed it so much.


Lily has started just posing for me. She will just sit down and be ready for pics..So funny, I guess I have done this to her after taking so many pics of her.


Another pose.


I think this was her favorite spot at the Pumpkin patch - the corn box. Tons of loose corn for the kids to play in. She loved it.


Here is the Fall wreath on my front door. It's nothing fancy but I thought it turned ok pretty good.


Fall display in our front yard (as I am looking at this pic, i have noticed that several of my items are looking misplaced. I think the weather has gotten ahold of my display. The display has been up for over 3 weeks so I guess that explains it.)


We finally finished our fountain and flower bed on the end of our house. I thought it turned out nice.


I have these flower beds on each side of our driveway. Each one has a small display in it.


That's it for my fall decorations! Not anything fancy, but I have lots of fun with it!