Wordless Wednesday

Family Fun

We are having such a great time in MN. We made it here despite a crazy snowstorm, thinking we were going to miss our connecting flight, and terrible roads. We had a great time with MJ's family on Christmas Day, took our nephews shopping yesterday, and are spending the night at a local hotel with everyone tonight. We'll have pics and the full story when we get home - typing on the Ito.uch is a bit tedious!

Happy Birthday!!!

A Special Happy Birthday goes out to MJ's brother Jim today!!

Here he is with his wife Annette a couple of years ago.















So, Happy Birthday, Jim! We LOVE you!!

Treat Swap

We enjoyed a fantastic treat swap at work last week. It's one of my favorite activities of the Holiday Season.















The best part was, at the very end, we played games and had prizes. I won the grand prize:

SWEET!!!

Merry Christmas!

Here's to wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas. May you have a day filled with good food, family fun, and memories to last until next year .

Homemade Christmas

As many of you know, we LOVE to be crafty. We make many of our own Christmas gifts and decorations. Here are a few of the things we made this year:

Candy treat holders that we made for the staff at the two schools that we work at. Plus we made some for MJ's students!

We made 30 sets of these blocks for various friends and family members.

We made a ribbon chain for our tree this year:

And some glass ornaments for the tree as well:

Wordless Wednesday

Our New Toy

A few weeks ago, we got our new camera. We settled on the NIk0n D.5ooo. Let me just say we LOVE it!! It is definitely a step up from the measley point and shoot that we had. I can't wait to take Christmas pictures with it this year. The clarity is just amazing. I'm also excited to learn how to really use all of the features that it has on it!

Can't wait to share some of those pics when we get back from our trip to visit MJ's family in MN. There is a HUGE storm brewing there, so we are hoping that we make it tomorrow night before the worst part hits. Fingers and toes crossed that we do!

2009 Christmas Card

We think everyone has received their cards we sent, so for our blog friends, here is our 2009 Christmas Card.

We made 160 of these babies with my Mom. We thought they were going to be a piece of cake and I have to say they were the most time consuming cards we have ever made!

And the fun picture collage of our 2009 adventures:

Happy Holidays everyone!

More Christmas

On Saturday night, I just had to try out my new snowshoes! So, I headed to the backyard and had a great time playing with them. I can't wait until the new year when we can really head out into the woods and enjoy finding adventure with our snowshoes. I have already found some great places with trails that we can go and check out. We also have great trails in the woods right in our own backyard!

Today we had a wonderful time celebrating more Christmas with my family.  We went out to eat and enjoyed opening more presents. 

Now we just have to survive the next 2 1/2 days at school and we are off to celebrate with MJ's family in Minnesota!

Our Christmas

With all of the Holiday craziness, we decided to celebrate our Christmas together last night.  We are celebrating with my family on Sunday, and then it's off to MN to celebrate with MJ's family through the New Year.  We had a wonderfully relaxing evening - made a nice dinner and enjoyed some cocktails while opening presents.

Our stockings:

Opening presents:

MJ has been saying for a couple of months now that she wants a Kind.le.  So, I got her one for Christmas, but she never expected that I would get it for her.  Here she is getting ready to open it:

And here is the best face of surprise and excitement that I caught when she realized what was in that little brown box!

Here is the wonderful little device that MJ has had tons of fun playing with already!

And here I am opening a fun/surprise gift as well.

Now, there is a bit of a story that goes with this one - When I was a kid, I wanted a Snoopy Snow Cone Machine in the worst way.  I can remember asking for it from Santa for a number of years.  Well, for whatever reason I never got one.

Well, Santa finally delivered!

MJ also got me snowshoes (among other things) that I am really excited to try out!

We had a great evening - Next stop - celebrating with my family tomorrow!