2011 in review

2011 has been my first full year of blogging!! I think the reason I'm addicted is because it's pretty much a picture journal and I'll take pictures over words any day!!

Based on this year's blog posts here's what happened in my neck of the woods during 2011:

I got new glasses,

a new haircut,

and my ears pierced.

Kevin grew some extra hair, cut it all off and then ended up back where he started :)

Kevin also turned the b i g 3 - 0 this year! Woot Woot! We celebrated with friends, fun & cupcakes!

Mia started the year off with knee surgery and is doing great now!

I'm am learning to cut both doggies hair

We shared with our friends & family the blessings of first children:

Ella

Joshua

Katie

and Owen

We celebrated the marriages of

Mike & Stevie

Candice & Nick

and Paul & Krysten

There was more celebrating for my sister's high school graduation

We were able to visit some great places like

St. Louis

Colorado Springs

and Pittsburg

We watched our beloved Cards win another World Series!!

We also kept plenty busy around the house with:

Our first big bathroom remodel

canning grape juice

cooking

decorating with crafts

my first ever furniture redo

and just enjoing life!!!

and that's just a recap! What a great year! God has so richly blessed my life and I can't wait for all the exciting times  2012 will bring!!!

Happy New Year!!!

gifts as a love language

Since "gifts" is one of my primary love languages and shopping is one of my favorite activities...

I love Christmas!!

I've been seeing some really fun wrapping ideas on pinterest lately so I browsed the scrapbooking isle at Hobby Lobby and this is how some of my gifts turned out this year:

this one is to Kevin from Mia & Callie :)

My dad loves starbucks!

My sister, Marsha, loves all things that glitter and sparkle!

These nut crackers & santa were just 3D scrapbooking stickers!

Hopefully, there will be as much joy in opening these gifts as I had wrapping them!

Christmas definately make me refelct on how Jesus is the ultimate gift and he continues to shower me with many good gifts and how grateful I am to be able to also give to those I love.

MERRY CHRISTMAS !!!

christmas photo shoot with owen

I got to take some family Christmas pictures for friends and they let me spend extra time taking photos of Owen... who's my main photo model these days :)

I love these two sleeping shots

Abby's little helper for sure!

Soooo sweet!

Merry Christmas!

Ahhh! Christmas just makes me feel like a kid again!

christmas light sightings

I love driving around looking at Christmas lights and Kevin is so good to be my chauffeur every year! This year the Pantagraph website had a nifty map of "bright" houses worth seeing. See here for the map.

I even snapped some pictures in case you might feel like you're too old to go driving around yourself, but still want to see all the pretty lights!

pretty sparkly lights!

this house make great use of rope lighting and spot lights!

this is my favorite huse that hass lights programmed to music - so much fun!

this house had lot of blow ups!

This tree is in our neck of the woods and it is huge! I can't believe they can get lights all the way ont he top!

I love Christmas time!

o christmas tree

We got a new Christmas tree this year! I've been wanting one for a long time now and this one is about 4x as big as the $12 Walmart one I've owned for the last 6 years. It still has lots of room for new ornaments, but the budget says we have to wait till next year :)

Here's a sweet little bird ornament

And a classy looking reindeer

I made the ruffle tree skirt (which is why I didn't post tree pics sooner).

I saw several tutorials online for hotgluing a ruffle skirt, but I decided to sew mine.

I used 8 yards of fabric for all the ruffles and I love how it turned out!

Kevin always does a good job decorating the house with lights too!

Hope you and your loved ones are having a wonderful Christmas season!