Celebrating the Advent Season

The Advent Season has come. How does your family celebrate the coming of Jesus? Do you have special traditions you return to year after year at this time? My family enjoys the daily Advent readings and the lighting of the Advent candles. This year we hope to add a Jesse Tree to our family's traditions.

Of course, we enjoy the other aspects of the Christmas season: the gifts, the parties, the caroling, Santa Claus, etc. But we try to keep our focus on Jesus throughout the month.

I hope and pray that you and yours enjoy a blessed Christmas season full of the wonder of the first Christmas that happened so very long ago!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I hope you all enjoyed a lovely Thanksgiving Day with family and friends! We enjoyed an amazing meal and great company! I am blessed and have so much for which to be thankful.

Got a chance to scrapbook earlier in the week and finished this layout, inspired by my new favorite iPod game, Words with Friends! The stuff I used all came from Scrap Orchard and the links are following the picture:

New Year's Papers

Boardgames

Scramble Alpha

All by Faith True Originals

Fuss Free: Set 8 by Fiddle Dee Dee Designs

Time for the Advent season to begin! I love this time of year!

Gratitude

Jennifer Labre has a gorgeous new kit out today at OScraps. You can see the kit here! Gratitude has so many yummy elements and gorgeous colors. Jenn's talent in designing is amazing! Her elements make me want to reach out and touch them! I used it to scrap some pictures that make me smile!

It's coming on Thanksgiving! We're getting excited about our Thanksgiving Day celebrating with friends here. But it's made me homesick, too. Sigh. It's not easy being away from those we love. It helps to have good friends and friends who feel like family. Still miss my family and Na-na's pecan pie!

Tell a Tale

Cheryl from Fiddle Dee Dee Designs has got this amazing set of templates out this week at Scrap Orchard! Fuss Free: Tell a Tale lets your jouranling shine. I chose to write about Thomas' stay in the NICU way back in 1999. I've never written the story down, but it wasn't hard to remember the emotions that overwhelmed us at that time. It was good to write it down. The pictures we have on the computer are low quality scans (pre-digital!), so the journaling really tells the story. If you like to feature your journaling, you MUST have these templates! You can grab them HERE!

I coupled this template with an adorable new kit by Elise's Pieces, Just Friends. She's guesting at The Digichick this month!

It was good for me to think about how blessed we are, to thank God that Thomas' stay in the NICU was short and that he is a healthy, growing boy these days. It was good to think about how very much I love him. And maybe that's my thankful post for the day! I'm thankful for Thomas, for his endless energy, for his sweet smile, for his loving affection. I'm thankful that he is healthy and well-adjusted and that he loves people, just like his Mama. <3 So, here's that layout:

Jennifer Labre's got something gorgeous out this week, too! This mini-kit is Fall Splendor, and it's full of digital yumminess! I used another Fiddle Dee Dee template, Fuss Free: Artisana 4. And I got to remember fondly the times we spent with Papa Joe. He's been gone for 2 1/2 years, and I still miss him so very much. Oh, how he loved his little Farmer! <3

Today I am thankful for...

Good friends. Kind and generous friends. Those people who bless our lives by just being who God created them to be! I hope you all have people like that in your lives. I am blessed to have many! This week we got to visit with some of them! Lebib and Carolyn and their kids moved from Jerusalem this past summer to Amman. We all miss them desperately, and it was so great to be with them again for a few days!

But my "bless me by just being you" friend list is long! to name a few...Mara, Regina, Mom, Judy, Chris, Nisreen, Im Omar, Babs, Joanie, Stacy, Dawn, Ann, Sharie...the list goes on and on. I can't possibly mention you all! I am blessed with dear, dear friends and I am so thankful for each and every one of them today!

Back from Jordan with layouts to share!

No, I didn't create any layouts while we were on our mini-vacation in

Jordan, visiting friends, but I did have a few ready to share before we left! I just ran out of time! I know you're all sitting on the edge of your seats, so
here is one I created using Faith True Originals I'd Fall For You Again kit and word art! Love the earthy tones in this kit! The template was for a b
log train freebie by Fiddle Dee Dee Designs. Such a cute template!

The next one features a kit by Elise's Pieces, Time Well Spent, as well as a Brushed Alpha by Faith True Originals. It also features what I consider a pretty amazing picture I took of our cat nose to nose with a pigeon! Loved this picture and so glad I had my camera handy!

And for good measure, a few shots from our trip to Amman, Jordan! These were all taken at the ruins in Jerash...pretty cool! See you all again soon!!!

And the winner is...

Amy (turtle15)!!!!! Congrats! You won the $7 coupon to Jennifer Labre Designs' OScraps store! Thanks to all who played along! Hope you had a great DSD weekend!

We're in Jordan visiting friends! It's been awesome! Today we saw the ruins at Jerash for the first time! It's always better with good friends, too!

Happy scrapping! :D

Thankful...today

Today I am thankful for my Dad. I grew up in a secure home with a father who adored me and told me so often. Today a friend called because her father had hit her. She needed somewhere to go and she came to us. There's a lot going on in this situation, including cultural factors which do not always make sense to me. But I stepped back and thought about my father. And I thank God for him today. We don't always see eye to eye, but I know he loves me. And I am thankful for the life he provided for me.

Love you, Daddy!

Want to win a $7 coupon for digital goodness?

The wOrd is Out! Jennifer Labre Designs has joined the awesome team at OScraps! And I've got a $7 coupon to give away!

Just visit Jenn's new OScraps store by clicking the image below and come back and leave a comment, telling me your favorite Jennifer Labre Design kit and why! I'll choose a winner before I go to sleep tonight (7 hours ahead of EST)! Have FUN!!!! And don't miss the 40% off sale!

(Having trouble with the link, so just click here to go to Jenn's store:

http://www.oscraps.com/shop/home.php?cat=420&treem=1)

Thanksgiving Today

Today I am thankful for scrapbooking! I love it! It's my stress relief and my fun time! And now that I've discovered digital scrapbooking, it's even MORE fun! I love capturing my family's ordinary and extraordinary happenings! I love looking at my pages after they've been created and printed! I love knowing that my hobby is a gift to my family and friends for years to come! Scrapbooking makes me happy, plain and simple! And I like to think my scrapbooking makes other people happy, too! I know my kids LOVE seeing themselves featured in my layouts! Yep, today I am thankful for scrapbooking! And here's a shout out to all my scrapbooking friends!

And now I'll share some of my favorite layouts just for funzies!