Merry Christmas Ya'll!

This was Christmas Day last year. We spent Christmas in Gatlinburg, TN the last few years. Last year we had a terrible snowstorm and we ended up being stranded for several days until we could dig our way out of the condo complex we were staying in.  Because of this we decided to stay home this year.

That decision seemed like a good idea back in September. Now that Christmas is a week away we are both regretting staying home.  At the time we were trying to decide what to do, I forgot the main reason I like to get away every year..the fact that we can just spend quality time together as a family and we are away from the hustle and bustle and frantic behaviors of people who get so stressed out!

Gee whiz folks why do you put so much emphasis on going into debt to get your little ones so many gifts they are only going to play with for as long as their holiday break lasts?  I have never understood that mentality! 
 Matthew 2:11 "And when they had come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down and worshiped Him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to Him: gold, frankincense, and myrrh."

Please remember the reason for the season...Jesus Christ.  Take this time of year to spend REAL quality time with your families/children. Put the kids in their PJ's and grab some cookies and hot chocolate and drive around town looking at the Christmas lights.  Snuggle up together with some popcorn and watch a classic Christmas movie.  Your children will remember these things more than they will remember that gift you searched high and low for.

Christmas in Pictures

We had a WONDERFUL Christmas around here...here's a recap of our week -

• Greg took the week of Christmas off from work
• My brother came in from Michigan - haven't seen him in over a year - when he drove down in his truck last Monday he brought a truckbed load of snow with him and it just happened to be freezing here in FL (on THAT day only!) so the snow lasted until Monday evening when we saw him...Bailee and I climbed in the bed of the truck and played in the snow while the guys made snowballs and threw them at each other.
  
• Dakota spent 3 days with his grandparents (including Christmas Eve so he could hang out with my brother) which was strange to be alone with Greg all week but really, really nice and relaxing too!

Here's pictures of our Christmas festivities -
Our fun began the Saturday before Christmas when my daughter, Tina and her family came over for dinner and to exchange gifts. We also invited Tina's aunt & cousins (from her dad's side) over to eat dinner with us too.

I gave Bailee an outfit that had straps and she put it on like a backpack...


Bailee is helping me and Pops open our gifts...
The boys hanging out playing Xbox 360


Maddy was our fondue queen - it was delicious!


Bailee kept begging for more marshmallows dipped in chocolate (I gave her the mini ones - about 20 of them before her mommy made me quit! LOL)




Christmas Eve we went to my mom's house and exchanged gifts with my brother, mom & stepdad....

My goofy brother (on the left) kept making fun of my flash on my camera - it was hard to get a "normal" picture of him!


Pete and mom


Me and Dakota


Christmas Day Greg and I were alone until around 10:30 when my brother brought Dakota back home to us and then we went over to my inlaws house to celebrate with them for the day. That morning Greg and I went to Waffle House and enjoyed a leisurely breakfast together before the madness of the day began...


Greg and his kids...


Me and Justin and my mother-in-law in the background (she's a gem!)


A gift from my mother-in-law...she always puts such thought into what she buys for everybody. She won't give gift cards to anyone. She likes to handpick everyone's gifts. She amazes me how well she picks out sizes for people and other little details!


Brothers...


Later that afternoon when we got back home the three of us exchanged gifts with one another...


Dakota kept telling us he had the BEST Christmas ever! He's hugging his daddy and telling him thank you for his awesome gifts (xbox games)....


Dakota wanted this picture with Raven...our puppy is growing!


Tonight we went to my dad & stepmom's house to have dinner and exchange gifts with them. My camera batteries died right after I took this picture so unfortunately I only got one picture from the evening! Bummer! But we had a great time this evening and this wrapped up our Christmas festivities....

In case you are wondering...yes, Dakota is wearing shorts (as am I) because it has been in the high 70's here all week!! UGH! We are SO READY FOR COLD WEATHER!

Praise God for His Blessings

Image by mbgrigby via FlickrThe last couple of years for Christmas we have spent less and less. We have a large extended family and we have been trying to gradually quit exchanging presents all together - preferring to concentrate on creating memories and "doing things" rather than how much we can spend on one another.

I started back in November looking for deals and specials for the few gifts we were going to purchase. Greg asked me Monday morning what gifts I have for who and what do we have left to buy. I was so thrilled to be able to tell him I was pretty much done and I had spent very little money. I feel blessed beyond words by God's provisions this year.

Greg and I just finished our Christmas shopping this afternoon. We went out yesterday and today. We saved our hardest two people for last. Before I went out yesterday I prayed asking God to lead us in the right direction. I needed a couple of frames for pictures I had gotten (free from Walgreen's last week - thank you Jesus!) and I found a store that was going out of business and their frames were 90% off!!! Wow! Then I had heard about a sale at another store, but I wasn't sure if it was still going on or not. We went there and it was. I can't be more specific because that would give it away on here and I am not sure if certain family member reads this or not. But let's just say.....it was an amazing, awesome deal and we are done and I am feeling tremendously blessed and bottom line....we bought gifts for 25 people this year and spent right at $400.00!! Thank you Lord!

The Season of Gift Cards?

Image by robinsonsmay via FlickrDo you like to give Gift cards for Christmas presents? What about receiving them as gifts - are you happy when you get a gift card? I keep hearing that every year gift card sales continue to climb.

It's true that they are an easy gift...no thought needed to shell out a few bucks in exchange for the plastic "money" to the recipient's favorite store, restaurant, gas station, or entertainment complex. I am amazed at all the places you can get a Gift Card for!

I found this Gift Card site online where you can actually go and put in filters as to who you are buying for

• Gift Cards for Him
• Gift Cards for Her
• Gift Cards for kids/Teens
• Gift Cards for Sports Lovers

There are HUNDREDS of gift cards to choose from! You can even design your own by adding a photo, art or logo to the gift card. What a neat idea!

I personally LIKE to give (and receive) gift cards because I am a cheapskate and there are some GREAT deals to be had AFTER Christmas. That way we can take advantage of the sales with our "plastic" money we received for Christmas.

Video Games - need help finding the BEST prices?

My 12-yr-old is a gaming fanatic. He absolutely loves playing games on his Xbox 360 and his Wii. He goes through the games so quickly though that the rule around here is he has to support his own habit - we don't buy his games. Except at Christmastime! That's when this wonderful searchable shopping site comes in real handy!
One of the games Dakota wants this year is Prince of Persia for his Xbox. I just typed it in to the Video Games Search Bar and I got hundreds of results telling me where I can purchase this game. I was amazed to see the varying prices from one store to the next. As I scrolled down the list when my cursor landed on one of the titles a little screen would pop up telling me how many stores this game was available at, list the stores and the prices.

I clicked on one of the Prince of Persia choices and it opened up the page showing me the video game I wanted, all the stores that are currently selling this game, the price they are selling it for and store reviews by consumers. There is a link where I can then click to go to the store to purchase the game if I so choose.

I searched for a few other items (non-video games) on this site and was very pleased with the results I received. This is a great website for finding the lowest prices on products!

Toon-ful Tuesday

Slideshow of our time in Gatlinburg

Greg & I (along with our black lab) arrived in Gatlinburg, Monday 12/17 around 5:00 pm. We invited my mom and step-dad to join us for the week so Dakota rode with them in their van - they have the DVD player that he can hook up his xbox to and play games the whole trip up so makes for a great trip for him! They didn't arrive until about 1:00 a.m. Tuesday! Greg & I had an evening to ourselves - very nice!!

Most of the day Tuesday everyone rested from the 8-10 hour car rides the day before. I played games on my computer, got in the hot tub, took a nap, read a book and was just plain lazy all day long.

On Wednesday we went to the Arts & Crafts Loop which is an 8-mile drive through this community of arts & crafts stores/vendors. We saw about 1/8th of what there was to see!! We are going back in February for a Marriage Retreat with our church and I am scheduling this activity for one of the days! LOL

On Thursday we decided to go into the Smokey Mountain National Park and drive up to Newfound Gap and on over to Cherokee, NC where we ate lunch and did some shopping.

One of our favorite places to visit everytime we go to Gatlinburg is The Donut Friar.
It is a tiny little shop that has the absolute best donuts anywhere!! (Even better than Krispy Kreme!) My sweetheart got up around 6:00 am the first morning after we arrived and drove down the mountain into town and got some fresh donuts from this store....awwwww, these are just heavenly. After this, my mom and dad were hooked! We showed them where the store was and they went back themselves 2-3 times! LOL

We did a lot of walking around and shopping in the little stores around Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge the week before Christmas. We were not really exchanging gifts with anybody this year except my dad/step-mom and my in-laws so we had to find gifts for them while we were out of town.

We attended one dinner show - Black Bear Jamboree. It was a fantastic show and the dinner was outstanding but I wasn't happy at all with the seating arrangments. I won't go back to that show again because of that!

The day before we had to leave - Greg, Dakota, Jet and I drove back into the Smokey's and over to Cades Cove for the day. Dakota wanted to go hiking but it was really too cold to hike to any of the waterfalls or anything so we figured he could get a look at all the old cabins and churches and be satisfied with what little bit of hiking we had to do to get to those places. He was pleased - he fell asleep on the way home! LOL

We drove home Christmas Eve...had an uneventful drive home, Praise God! I couldn't believe it was Christmas Eve and we were not out shopping (as was normally our custom!) It felt so odd to both Greg and I...like it wasn't really Christmas time, but we both agreed this was the best way to spend Christmas and we are definitely doing it again next year!!!

We are in Gatlinburg and it is so beautiful!

We arrived yesterday in Gatlinburg! It was 26 degrees last night! Wow, big difference from our home in FL - LOL. I researched cabins/chalets for 3 days before finally finding one that accepted large pets AND was within our price range. We had never rented a chalet before up here - we've always stayed in hotels - we weren't sure what to expect. When we got here we were THRILLED with the home!! Oh my goodness the view is AWESOME! There's a little bit of snow around the house but lots of snow on the mountains that we can see (our view). We are here for a week. Feels so good to just get away and relax.....

Christmas in FL

December 9, 2007
Pensacola Beach, FL
Temp was in the high 70's
Sun kept going in and out of clouds and it was a windy day but I would rather be here than anywhere on a day like this in December! We took these pictures at the beach today.

My Son Found His Christmas Spirit

This holiday season has been difficult. It has been the first holiday without my daughters around and I've realized how much I've truly missed them. We liked baking and shopping together; making gifts for people; doing charitable things throughout the season (Angel Tree, collecting coats for the homeless or blankets for nursing home patients)...we were always doing stuff together and it was great while it lasted - I praise God for the good times!
This picture of the girls was taken last Thanksgiving...in 2006.


Now it's just Dakota and I and my sweet little man is just that...a young boy growing away from his momma and NOT interested in the same stuff I'm in to. He hasn't been very much into Christmas this year. I've practically dragged him to the few "festive" things we have attended. I had decided I wasn't even going to decorate - if he didn't care, I didn't care and I wasn't going to bother with decorating (yeah, I know...real mature of me wasn't it?! LOL) We are leaving on the 17th to go to Gatlinburg, TN for the holidays anyway so I figured why bother?

That was until yesterday...
I had told Dakota Wednesday night on the way to church that after our Christmas party Thursday (with his homeschool group) I wanted he & I to go by the mall and pick a name off the Angel Tree and shop for the child whose name we choose. We had a lengthy discussion in the car because Dakota told me he didn't want to do that...I could do it by myself. To make a long story short - he didn't have a choice - and after our party yesterday we DID go to the mall and once he saw all those names on the tree I think something must have tugged his heart strings because he realized the "need" and wanted to help out then. He chose a boy the same age as himself and he had a great time shopping for the little boy!

While we were shopping, we were having such a good time and we came across these white Christmas trees - we both said "Oh, let's get one of these!!"

I let him pick out the decorations and much to my surprise - Dakota came home and pretty much put this tree up and decorated it by himself!! LOL I helped just a little - VERY little! After we were done, we ate pizza and watched two Christmas movies....what an awesome night we had!!

All time Favorite Christmas Movie

Thanks to a friend who found this video for me...I LOVE this movie!!

Charlie Brown Christmas

I remembered to watch this tonight! Actually I forgot until one of my very good friends called me to tell me it was coming on TV. I have Snoopy as my background on my myspace page and I love the Peanuts gang! Since I very rarely watch TV, I never remember to look for when this is going to come on. This is so sweet....

I love parties

At church, Greg and I attend a Sunday school class (called Group Life) which consists of people much older than ourselves. We like the spiritual maturity of this class and most of this class participates in mission trips - which is MY passion so I have a lot in common with many of the older people in my Group Life class. However, we also attend the Group Life fellowships of another class because these people are more our peers and the ladies I hang out with on a daily basis.

We went to this Class party Saturday night. It was so much fun!! We had a ton of food - everyone brought appetizers and desserts to eat - and we played the "Dirty Santa" game - we had male & female presents to pick from. This was the most fun of the entire evening. I just love going to parties!