Birthday party

...for my BIL at my sister's house last night. A lot of people were there, since he is one of 11 kids (although not all of them were there). It was a fiesta theme and my sis made lots of awesome food (southwestern egg rolls, salad with yummy Cafe Rio-type dressing, green tortilla soup, lime rice) and people brought yummy stuff, too (shrimp burritos, tortilla chips with salsa and cheese dip). Plus, my sister made a yummy rum pudding/strawberry cake and flan for dessert! MMMMMMMMM!

I took some videos of my niece singing--SOOOO CUTE! Here's one of her singing "Jingle Bells":


And here are a few pics from last night:

Carma enjoying the birthday cake


Jared really enjoying the flan


Judson and his cousin

And here are a couple of new LOs:



I may not post until after Christmas, so I truly wish everyone a wonderful, blessed Christmas with your families!

Christmas get-together

Since this year is Christmas with the IL's, we had a Christmas dinner last night at our house with my sisters. Dinner was yummy--I made creamy chicken in the crockpot and my sisters brought mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, homemade bread, salad, and banana crepes w/ chocolate sauce. Here are some pics:

My sister gave me this beautiful plaque and holder, which I LOVE!


Me and my niece--not the best picture but it makes me smile 'cause she is saing "CHEESE!"


Ny nephew, loving the Bionicle we gave to him


DH and Carma, showing off the outfit we gave to her (she already LOVES clothes, for real!)


Our furbaby, Praia, being a good sport about wearing antlers, hee hee!

I babysat Judson and Carma a couple days ago and Judson took this video of Carma and I singing "I am a Child of God" at the piano--Carma is SO cute!!!

And here are some new LOs:

My nephew


My nieces

Well, I'm off to do some shopping, then I have Bunco tonight. Should be fun!

Winter Wonderland!

Yay! We got some snow last night! After helping to clean our church this morning, I went to the park just a couple blocks away and took some pics (these are SOC, except for resizing them--oh, and the dog is mine, taken in our backyard):







And here are some new LOs (the first two I did a week or two ago but couldn't download them until yesterday for a DT assignment, the last one I did today):

My nephew, eating my birthday cake on my birthday last year.


My niece on Thanksgiving Day last year


Some of my family members on Christmas Eve last year

Jared and I went shopping for four hours this evening (well, part of that time was taken up eating at Fuddruckers). We got almost all of our Christmas shopping done. Yay!

Well, I'm off to do a winter LO of the pics I took this morning!

Last two weeks

I've just been getting into the swing of being home again. It's amazing what being gone for only 2 weeks can do to ya'! It took me amost a week to fully unpack my suitcases and get caught up on the house and church stuff. Christmas also started in full gear as soon as I returned. We trimmed our tree and put up all our decorations in the house, with the help of my SIL, on 12/2. Afterwards, I read "The Cajun Night Before Christmas" to them (in a REALLY bad Cajun accent):


We had a Christmas party at church on 12/8, in which the kids put on a singing Nativity--it was so cute and they did so well! I played the piano for one song but, other than that, my chorister did all the work--just look at those costumes and props!


On 12/9, we went to Jared's extended family's Christmas party--lots of food, hanging out, and Bingo. After the party, we went to his dad's house, his mom's house, his great-aunt's house, his grandpa's house, then back to his mom's house for visits. We left the house at 10am that morning and didn't get home until 1am!

This week, I haven't done much except sing in a Christmas choir concert Sunday night and take Christmas pics for my sis. Here are some of my favorites (we got started late, so there was no natural light left, which means I had to use the flash):







I have so much to do before Christmas! I did make a BUNCH of Christmas cards this week but now I have to buy envelopes and stamps to mail them out. I still need to go shopping for a bunch of people, too! Aaaah! I love and hate this time of year!

Here are my latest LOs from the last two weeks (all pics taken by me):

Nephew, DH's side

Nephew, DH's side

Nephew, DH's side

Christmas with my family

DH's family

DH and his brother

DH and his siblings

DH's mom and sisters

DH's sisters

DH and his dad and brother

My nephew

My niece

My nephew

My sis and her kids

My niece and BIL

OH! And, before I forget...it has come to my attention that some people don't know some of the abbreviations I use (heard some pretty interesting things of what DH could stand for, HA HA HA!), so I am adding a legend of various abbreviations on the left side of the blog for all you non-scrappers and non-messageboarders. Hope that helps! Happy Holiday!!!