From Us to You ~ Merry Christmas!

I had high hopes of blogging about various things this week, but it just didn't happen. Life has been busy ~ full and blessed. It's a busy time of year with lots going on here, there and everywhere. You know how it is! We will be loading up our sleigh and leaving town this afternoon...making the trek to central Arkansas to spend Christmas with John's family. We will come back home Monday morning. We are looking forward to a few days off and spending time with family. It'll be lots of fun and there will be an abundance of yummy stuff to eat!

Nevertheless, I did want to post our Christmas card! We mailed our cards out on December 1st. I think we mailed out about 125 - whew. We love getting Christmas cards. Due to the fact that John works from home, all through the Christmas season he will check the mail during the day, but save the Christmas cards and we open them and look at them together when I get home. It's one of our little traditions.

Our Christmas card photos represent a few highlights from the year...

Upper Left Corner ~ Our favorite picture from the year. It was taken in our living room before we left on a “Date Night”. Whether it be going on date nights, playing board games, watching sports and movies, doing weekly devotionals, traveling, buying groceries, shopping, working on projects around the house (basically anything), spending time together is our favorite thing to do.

Upper Right Corner ~ Taken before dinner on our anniversary. On February 8^th, we celebrated 7 amazing years together and we look forward to celebrating anniversary #8 in about two months.

Lower Left Corner ~ Ready for a Texas Rangers game. We watched just about every game this year and were lucky enough to go to the ballpark for six of them. We even had the opportunity to go to Game 1 of the ALCS and sit behind home plate. It was such a fun and exciting season that ended with a trip to the World Series. We are already excited about next year!

Lower Right Corner ~ Our Calvin! This picture was taken in our backyard over the summer. He will turn 8 in January. Calvin is our faithful friend and a very special part of our little family.

The frame below is a craft project I made the first week of December. I took a plain wooden frame (that I bought at Michaels for a whole $2.00), painted the edges red and decoupaged wrapping paper on the front. I trimmed and filed around the edge to remove access wrapping paper and then added ribbon, glitter paint and a bow. The only thing I bought was the frame - a super cheap and fun craft project. Finally, where the picture goes I typed a message in Microsoft Word, printed it out on card stock, cut it to size and put it in the frame. I could probably do it a little better if I made it again, but I am pretty pleased with the result and it's something we can put out year after year as a greeting to any guests we may have.

I'm not sure how much blogging I will be able to do over the next two weeks. We will be back home on Monday and have to work three days, but then we have some fun plans over the long New Year's weekend and will have "our" Christmas together. The following weekend, we will drive to West Texas to celebrate a late Christmas with all of my family there. We will take lots of pictures though and have updates coming soon enough.

John and I wish you a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR! May your time with those you love be happy and blessed. Don't forget to count your blessings and remember our greatest blessing - the reason for this glorious season, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior!

Until we meet again...
Riley