Happy birthday to my children....

The best day of my life...ever was the day I gave birthday to my beautiful twins. An unexpected blessing from above since I didn't find out we had two babies until I was in the delivery room. I would not trade that experience for anything in the word. They are so much alike in so many ways and totally different in others. Even their looks are not the same.

One light hair and one dark hair. Both absolutely the most beautiful babies ever.

Both with quirky little personality traits that made watching them grow up a life full of lots of fun and laughter. 

There is still lots of fun and laughter every time we get together.

They continued the great joy they give me when they provided me with a wonderful daughter-in-law and son-in-law. But my proudest moments have been when they have provided me with 5 grandchildren to love. 

So happy birthday to my first born, my daughter, Diana.

And to my youngest, my son Chris (who will always be my baby no matter how old he gets.)

Happy birthday to two of the absolute best children a mother could ever ask for. I hope you both have a very blessed day.

Wordless Wednesday

Just some pretty pics to get us in the Christmas spirit....

Top 10 Tuesday - Beach Decorating Ideas

My master bath is decorated in a beach theme. Awhile back I purchased a new bedspread and pillow shams to match that color scheme. I am not changing them until after the holidays. But I decided that I am going to incorporate the beach theme in my master bedroom as well. The colors are blues, tans, whites and yellows. So I did what I do best....I went to Pinterest and started pinning ideas. Here are my top 10 that I really like.

#1. A sign like this. I don't think I could find the wood to do it like this, but you could also buy some premade wood plaque, paint it and stencil it.

#2. Super simple pillows that you could stencil on.

#3. I love the thought of doing a mirror or even a picture frame with a beach theme. But I would paint it more blue than turquoise. 

#4. A few cute frames, some burlap and some of my favorite big seashells. I could do this one myself very easy. 

#5. I need to find me an old trunk and do it up with beach colors for the foot of my bed. I have a wicker trunk right now sitting there. But the lid is coming lose and it is dark wicker.

#6. I would love to do this over the doorway into the my master bathroom. It would be so easy once I found the right doors. 

#7. I am on the search for some Nantucket baskets. This will be one of those gotta get it 2nd hand because new ones don't come cheap. 

#8. And oh my gosh! Do you love this or what. Paint stirrers and some pretty beachy paint with some little star fish. A must do on my list. 

#9. Now to find someone who will do me an afghan in white, blue's and greens the colors of the ocean. I am in love with this. What is a good price to pay for someone to make something like this? I can't crochet so I will buy the yarn and farm out the labor. But this has the exact colors in my new quilt.

#10. And finally, I want to find a cute frame for the wall. I have a picture of me and Allen at Panama City that I want to blow up and frame like this. But I am going to paint mine blue. 

Looks like I have some craft projects to keep me busy in the cold month of January.

Catch up time...

Last week, I had so much going on I think I just dropped into bed every night when I got home. Monday evening, I went to the store and ran some errands after work so it wasn't bad.

Tuesday, I pulled all my Christmas boxes out of the storage area so I could start doing some of my decorating. About all I got done was moving things out of the living room so I would have a place to put the things I wanted to decorate with. Then I stopped for the night. 

Wednesday was play practice for the Children's program. 

Thursday I had to decorate the set for the program. One section of the stage was a tree lot. This is just the beginning of it, but the tall tree was a fake tree from our storage at church. Check out the 3 little trees in the front. Those are tomato cages with garland wrapped around them. Thank you Pinterest for the idea. I think they turned out just fine. 

Friday was the last rehearsal and I had to go back to watch it to see if I needed any more props or to move anything and make changes. 

Saturday, I just about wore myself out. My day by me getting up and making 4 dozen cookies. Don't worry, I did the break apart and bake kind. Then at 9:00, I left to go to a movie theater in Knoxville where I attended the Spring Premier for Thirty-One. 

Immediately after that, we met up at a local restaurant and had our Thirty-One local group Christmas party and gift exchange. 

I hurried home when that was over so I could make the other 2 dozen cookies. We were supposed to take 5-6 dozen. I got those done, wrapped another gift and then headed out at 6:30 to a cookie exchange/gift exchange gathering with some of the women from my church. I didn't get home until almost 10:30. 

Sunday, I got up and prepared the craft for Children's church and printed off the lesson. Then headed out to Sunday School and church. 

I came home from church, had lunch and started to set out a few of my Christmas decorations and threw in a load of laundry. Then I had to leave so I could be back at the church for choir practice for the adult Christmas program which is next Sunday. After it was over, we had to move the choir chairs back out of the way and I had to finish putting the decor up for the children's program. Since I was already there, I just hung out till the Children's program started. 

I got home a little before 8:00 and I didn't do a single thing but eat a bite of supper and lay on the couch till time to go to bed. I am so thankful that I don't have any commitments this week and that the family will be coming over here Friday night to celebrate our December birthdays. Now to get my decorating done tonight so I can enjoy the week.

Christmas songs

Friday Foto Friends

So glad to hook up with Ms. Debbie at Jeremiah-2911 for Friday Foto Friends. 

I haven't finished decorating yet, but I wanted to share a Christmas picture. This one is from a couple of years ago, but this is my favorite display I do in my kitchen every year. I love the aqua and red together for Christmas. especially since some of it is Pyrex! 

Hope everyone has a great day. 

Joy

Joy to the World has always been my favorite Christmas song. 

Everything I do in my life, I try to find the joy in doing it. 

One of my favorite bible verses is about being content in whatever situation you find yourself. I think personally for me, that is the true key to joy. 

Then this morning there was one of those "let me analyze you" things on Facebook. This one was to let Facebook read your posts and determine what your life motto is and I thought it would be fine to see what Facebook thinks my motto should be. So I did it and this is what popped up....

It was definitely one of those God things. Then on top of that, I have something I am expecting that I needed pretty soon. I was told two days ago that it will take 7 - 10 days to get here and the lady said probably closer to 10 days. Well, last night after my prayers, I was drifting off to sleep and just said a quick little prayer. All I did was say, God if that could arrive tomorrow or Friday it would be great. I woke up to find an email that it is arriving today. Now tell me that He doesn't answer even the simplest prayer. It reminded me of Allen's favorite road sign he saw many years ago and we would use this quote all the time.

I love it when a plan comes together....especially when it is God's plan.