One Thousand Blessings 500 and Counting!

#496-505

496. A manger filled with love long long ago

497. Baking snicker doodle cookies to take to the school

498. Watching Lillian take her first few steps, all by herself, on Christmas Eve

499. Spending time with family during the holidays

500.Reading out of our bibles before opening up Christmas presents

501. Spending our 'first' Christmas in our new house

502. The living room a mess of wrapping paper and cardboard

503. Starting new Christmas traditions this year

504. Seeing Jacob's face light up when we gave him a new pedal tractor

505. Driving to see Christmas lights and eating Christmas cookies in the car

To learn more about One Thousand Gifts visit Ann's blog, A Holy Experience, and take the dare to count as many blessings in which the Lord has given you!!!!

Christmas 2011!

Once again Christmas is here and gone! This year I really enjoyed myself as we celebrated Christmas in our new house! We spent Christmas Eve with family, all 17 cousins together! For me when we all get together it doesn't seem like their are 17 kids, it seems more like half that! They all get along so well and I know they will have these memories of being together to cherish when they get older. On Christmas day we spent the morning at home opening presents then went to see Chad's grandparents and then his other grandpa. After all that we came home to play all the new things the kids got! This picture was from Christmas Eve when Lillian took some of her first steps all by herself!

Here is three generations, Chad, his dad and Jacob!

Here are 15 of the 17 kids in the family, next Christmas we will have 18! (Who knows maybe even 19!)

Here are some pictures of the kids opening up their presents!

Lindsey being silly with her new American Girl puppy! (Which Lillian loves to play with!)

Jacob finally got his own story bible, he wanted a big kid bible like Kyle and Lindsey but he is still to little for one like theirs.

Lillian enjoys playing with the Nerf gun bullets and even tries to put them in the gun! Look out boys!

Of course Barbie had to make her way home!

And of course more Lego's, we can never have too many Lego's at our house!

After all that excitement Chad went out to the garage and brought this in the house!

And boy was he excited!

This tractor didn't stay long in my house! (One of the tires were wet and got my rug wet a bit!)

Lillian could not wait to get on herself!

She knew just what to do on it, I think she has watched the boys a little too much!

Oh how she loved riding on the tractor, next summer will be fun with this in the yard.

After supper went on a trip which required golden tickets that the kids got! We baked cookies then loaded up in the van to leave on our excursion to see Christmas lights! The kids had to get their tickets punched in order to go on our trip and then once we got back home. Oh dear this post just reminded me that I forgot to wrap and give the boys another Lego thing that I got for each of them! Yikes! I guess they will have a surprise waiting for them tomorrow. We had a wonderful Christmas and really enjoyed ourselves! Merry Christmas, from our family to yours!!!!!! Blessings, Lisa

One Thousand Blessings

#486-495

486. Really big white snow flakes

487. Getting over the stomach bug that we had

488. Getting a really good start on my Christmas shopping

489. Finding what I wanted to buy the boys on sale Target

490. Listening to all the children sing beautifully at Kyle and Lindsey's school Christmas program

491. Kyle and Lindsey go to a school that still sing Silent Night and read the story of Jesus being born

492. Lindsey's solo and Kyle's really cute song during the program

493. Having some presents wrapped

494. Being almost finished with my Christmas shopping

495. Knowing that I have almost five hundred blessings to be so thankful for

To learn more about One Thousand Gifts visit Ann's blog, A Holy Experience, and take the dare to count as many blessings in which the Lord has blessed you with!!!!

Christmas Program 2011!

Kyle and Lindsey had their school Christmas program the Last week and they both did great! Lindsey was super excited about a solo that she had with a few of her classmates, it was short and sweet. Lindsey loves that kind of attention, if it has anything to do with singing and being in front of an audience she is all for it! Kyle on the other hand could really do with out performing in a Christmas program, which I can completely relate to I don't like to be in front of a crowd either. Here is Lindsey singing her part of the solo she with her classmates, they all did a great job!

Oh how she loves to sing!

Kyle's class did the cutest song ever! Really it was soooo cute, I loved every bit of it, the song was 'Santa's Getting Fit For Christmas' and the with the words and motions it was Adorable!Even though Kyle doesn't normally like that sort of thing, I could tell he did have fun with it! Of course maybe being in the front row he felt he had to do it really well, either way he did a great job and looked so cute! At the end of the program Kyle's class sang 'Silent Night' in the dark with just their candles lit and of course I didn't take picture of that because I had a brain fart! (I think it was that I was all alone, nobody came with me not even Jacob or Lillian, they had a stomach thing going on. I guess I can't function well being out all by myself.) So I just sat their and watched my little boy and his classmates sing and didn't even think to get a picture of them with their candles lit! This of course was his last elementary school Christmas program too! When it was over and the lights came back on I kicked myself for not getting a picture of him! Lesson learned!

I also wanted to share a few picture of the kids when they went to our local fire station to see Santa on Saturday. Of course Kyle thinks he is to old and too cool for Santa! (I think Kyle may know something!)

Jacob likes him because he gives you presents if your good, and I remind him of that daily!

Lindsey likes him because she has a long list of things she wants him to bring!

Lillian on the other hand didn't want anything to with that crazy looking man presents or no presents!

Christmas is almost here and I am finally done with my Christmas shopping, I even have some things wrapped! How crazy is that, this may be the first! I am super excited about Christmas this year because we get to spend it in our new home!!!! Blessings, Lisa

One Thousand Blessings

#476-485

476. The kids excited to see Santa

477. Watching Kyle and Lindsey at basketball practice

478. Watching Lillian push her baby doll stroller with her baby doll in it

479. Letting the kids stay up later than usual to watch a Christmas show

480. The orders I get from my online shop

481. The sweet comments I get from my customers

482. Watching Lindsey try on new Christmas dress for her program

483. Being able to park in our garage

484. Not having to wait in line at the fabric cutting counter

485. Finding the Christmas book in the store that I have had a hard time finding anywhere

To learn more about One Thousand Gifts visit Ann's blog, A Holy Experience and take the dare to count as many blessings in which the Lord has blessed you with!!!!

It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas at our house, we even have a little dusting of snow on the ground outside! Today I am linking up over at The Inspired Room's Holiday Christmas tour, thank you so much for stopping by! This will be the first real Christmas that we will celebrate in this home since we moved in this past year in May. Last year we did own this home but we weren't moved into it yet due to all the renovation we did. Our home was built in 1886 and is considered an Queen Victorian, we have a brand new kitchen, bathroom and laundry room. We also kept the original hardwood floors which look so pretty and not to mention the kids love to slide on the wood floors with there socks on! Alright enough talking here is my home!

This is our front door, the original door that the house was built.

Our foyer

I put up some lighted garland and I love the way the stairs looks at night!

I found our rather ugly tree that we have had for years and put it up in the loft area upstairs.

This is our larger tree that we have down stairs, the kids decorated it for me, maybe not the way I wanted it but the were so proud of themselves I didn't dare fix it for my liking!

I love the old Victorian Santa's, they look so much cuter!

I also love to decorating with lanterns, you can put so much in them!

I put this lantern on top of our refrigerator in the kitchen, along with the stars

On my kitchen counter I used some Christmas ornaments to decorate with.

Lillian insisted on helping with the ribbon, she is such a big helper!

Some people may have a fancy nativity set that nobody can touch or maybe even breath on, we have one that we can play with!

I bought this wreath last year after Christmas and I love how simple it is, and the fact that i probably only paid a few dollars for it!

I love little trees isn't this one cute!

Help yourself to some homemade chocolate banana bread!

I hope you enjoyed my home tour! With as busy as we have been this past month I am surprised at what Christmas I have had time to put up! I do have huge plans to hit the stores once they mark all their Christmas stuff down, I made a rather lengthy list of things I am on the hunt for! (More little trees is on that list too!) Thank you so much for stopping by! From my house to yours, we wish you a Very Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year!!!! Blessings, Lisa

One Thousand Blessings

#466-475

466. Being able to start working on Christmas crafts for Jacob's preschool time

467. Putting the tree up

468. Going through all the Hallmark ornaments we have recieved over the years

469. Seeing the kids' ornaments that they have made in years past

470. Buying myself a new winter jacket

471. The extra money I have made for babysitting

472. The way the stairs in foyer look with the lighted garland on it

473. Pumpkin spice instant pudding

474. Coloring Christmas pictures with the kids

475. Watching the kids play with the Little People Nativity set

To learn more about One Thousand Gifts visit Ann's blog, A Holy Experience and take the dare to count as many blessings in which the Lord has blessed you with!!!!

One Thousand Blessings

#456-466

456. The kids not having school the day before Thanksgiving

457. Getting together with family

458. Watching cousins play together

459. Going shopping on Black Friday during the afternoon time with my girls

460. Using coupons at the bookstore

461. Lindsey excited to pick out her own big girl bible at the bookstore

462. Trying on silly Christmas headbands at Target with my two girls

463. Watching Lindsey spend her own birthday money at the store

464. Celebrating Lindsey's 9th

465. Jacob and Lillian feeling so much better after having upset bellies

To learn more about One Thousand Gifts visit Ann's blog, A Holy Experience, and take the dare to count as many blessings in which the Lord has blessed you with!!!!

A Birthday Party!

On Saturday Lindsey had a birthday party with her friends. She was really excited to have her friends come over and see her pretty bedroom, she even cleaned it by herself! (Not there was much to clean!) Lindsey had a few friends from her school come over along with some out of town friends she was excited to see. The party was only two hours long, at first I thought that was plenty of time, but towards the end I felt really rushed! I had an agenda to follow, with lots to do a little time! I think the girls would have enjoyed playing upstairs in Lindsey's room, but there just wasn't time for that!

Here is what our agenda looked like, once the girls came we started a really cute farm craft, then it was time to play a few games. We also played pin the tail on the horse with a really funny looking horse that I had drawn out on poster board.Then we did a ring toss with some little ropes that I made into circles, then we played musical chairs. And finally we went outside and had a pony race! Then we went back inside for some cake and ice cream, yum yum! Lastly, we all got our coats on and went on a hay ride around town singing farming songs such as 'The Farmer in The Dell', 'BINGO' and 'Old Mc Donald Had a Farm' to name a few!We ran a little behind schedule with the tractor ride but thankfully the parents didn't mind. I think the girls had fun, I know I did and most importantly Lindsey did! Happy Birthday to my sweet little girl, Lindsey we love you so much!!!!