Liz 2.0

Wow when I stop and think about all the ways God blesses me each day I’m so edified and uplifted. And most of all THANKFUL. So very very very THANKFUL.
Here are a few things I’m super thankful for today. Last night the kiddo and I got home to find 2 large boxes sitting on the front steps.  Oh yeah my friend P. said she was sending some things. Jack was excited because getting mail and surprises are soo much fun. Okay I was excited too!!
We pulled them into the front hallway and opened them right there.  First we found a bag of dinos! Then he saw bags of cars and found a lightening mcqueen and  a couple other car movie cars and he opened those bags pretty quickly.

I kept looking and found lots of BOOKS on CD and Books on tapes. I remember having books on tapes records when I was a kid and it brought back some memories. I hadn’t even thought of looking into audio books for the kid. DUH! 
There was even a Thomas book on tape YAY!!! You KNOW we were SUPER EXCITED about that one!!!

I am just so blessed and excited to read and listen to every one of these with the kid. Quality time for sure!
Wait there was one more box. REALLY?? How could we get even more blessed???
The second box had a couple more books and some DVD’s and videos!! It also had a leap pad system I tucked away to wrap and put under the tree. (YAY another present for under the tree!) There was even a bible on tape set that I’m excited to use in the car to and from work.

Wow when God says:
Malachi 3:10
Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
He MEANS it!!! Seriously what a tremendous blessing to our house hold it was to be though of by P and her kids! We very grateful and excited.  One day we will get to bless another household with these goodies :D
After we explored all the treats in the boxes we just had to get the tape player out and listen to the Thomas book on tape. That was FUN!!!  Jack enjoyed it and so did I we had time for one more and started the magic school bus book and boy did I learn ALOT! Hmm I’m going to have to finish that one it was really interesting.

So how has God blessed you today?

We got the tree up just in time for Ken’s parents to arrive.  They got here midway on Friday and I was still at work, the kiddo called me on my way home asking me when I’d get here. I had told him that when papaw & grandmacoy got here they’d have presents for him. He could hardly wait :P We opened the presents right when I got home Friday.

He got lots and lots of Thomas stuff and he was BEYOND excited about it all!!

After presents we went over to my parents house for a yummy steak dinner. Ken’s parents were celebrating their 40th anniversary and we all had yummy filets! (shopping was part of the reason I was running late).

The rest of the night & weekend we all had a blast hanging out and playing in the playroom. The kiddo was so blessed (ken and me too) that he got to spend so much quality time with Papaw & Grandmacoy.

Playing Uno Moo:

Reading his new books:

Playing in the playroom:

Next morning we had a HUGE breakfast at mom & dad’s house and we played Thomas BINGO what a fun game!!!

The rest of Saturday was just casual and relaxed. Ken and his parents did end up looking through old photos and remembering times when the kids were young. SO FUN!

Sunday we had our branch holiday party, a pancake breakfast! YUMMY (more on that later).

Here are some special shots I was glad to get:

So that was the first Christmas celebration we had it was a tremendous weekend so glad to have gotten the time with our family.

This past weekend I got a cute little package in the mail it was from my friend Meg.

How cute is this wrapping???

And lookie what was inside:

A BEAUTIFUL camera strap!!!! OOOH what a treat to brighten my day, weekend, week!!!  I put it on my camera strap yesterday when we went to visit santa!

Thanks so much Meg!  Hey you really must visit Meg’s blog she’s a tremendous Momtog and an awesome mom of 2 beautiful kids!! She’s super crafty too!

We had attempted to go see Santa the day before, but the line was way too long. So tonight we went back. He got a bit nervous once he was at the front of the line and said he had to go pee. We’ve come to find out that when he gets nervous about new stuff he says he has to go potty :P.  We had practiced over and over what he was going to say to Santa. He was very cute!!

Despite his nervousness he did great no crying. I’m not sure he even spoke to Santa but I sure was proud he did it all by himself!!

By the way the Bass Pro Santa is pretty awesome! The set up is amazing and sooo detailed and the Santa is very real.  What is really great is that they guarantee your child 2 minutes with Santa so they can tell him all they want to say and not feel rushed. OH and the picture was free and we could take our OWN picture too!!!  Overall a tremendous experience!

This was a busy day!

Grandma & Grandpa B bought a really cool holiday inflatable to surprise the kiddo. He was super excited to see Thomas in their front yard. We took some pictures like a mini day out with thomas :)

We took some silly photos of the kiddo wearing all his warm stuff.

Then all of us went down to the dock to put up the lighted tree.

Jack sat on a block and said he didn’t want to talk because he was watching the lake LOL I guess he wanted some time to think LOL.

While the others were putting up the tree the kiddo and I went over in the grass by the lake and took more funny pictures and then he took the camera and started taking his own pictures.  It was cute he’d give us instructions like dad kneel down like this, and smile he was a good little photographer. He actually got one of the best shots of Ken ever!! Too bad I look like a hobo :P but we’ll take it!

Here are my favorite shots:

Then he got to try on his new snow boots grandma got him for our NYC trip. I think he likes them!

After all this we attempted to run over to Bass Pro Shop to see santa. The wait was much to long but we did get to play around a bit with all the fun toys they had to play with.

So that was the end of our busy busy day! Certainly a fun day!

Last Saturday mom and I planned a Handmade Holiday Workshop and we invited lots of our friends.  Well it was just us two of my sisters and one of our friends who wanted to make some things for his parents. We were a little disappointed but not really most everyone was out of town for the holiday.  I had a LONG list of craft projects I wanted to work on. I only got two 3 I think (out of 8).
We set out a bunch of craft supplies and projects to share:

And idea books for inspiration:

Mom got a Cricut on Black Friday so we were all excited to use it during our craft-a-thon. 

Rosie is our family expert but we all quickly learned how to use the machine it is super easy. 

After this day I was totally sold on the Cricut I want one soooo bad!!  It’s easy to use and Ken made this card:

Here’s another project completed with the Cricut (the top part). Assembly and composition

This was my all cricut project it’s an ornament for the ornament exchange.

Jessie painted a wooden train to look like Thomas and Jack watched her very closely giving her instructions on what color to paint each part.

Jack painted a box for me:

Even the husband got into things he did this box all by himself.

I also made bath salts for all the ladies at work (and one for myself).

My main project I spent most of the day on was making cargo for Jack’s Thomas trains.  If you’re not familiar with Thomas trains there are cranes and engines with magnetic arms to pick up cargo and move it around.

I took some blocks from the kiddo’s toy room and painted them:

I decided to make some into luggage and others into crates and barrels. For the luggage I googled images of luggage stickers and cut them out and decoupaged them onto the blocks.

I then took wood glue put a dot of glue on top and hammered a thumb tack into the top for the magnet to connect to and pick up the cargo.

I’m really pleased with how they turned out and I sure do hope the kiddo loves them just as much!

So over all a really fun crafting day! Are you doing any crafting this holiday season???

My my have you checked out my favorite digital scrapbooking site?  There is tons going on over at DSP come join the fun.

Come join the Countdown to Christmas at DSP! Open a new door every day to get a new freebie and find a fun event!

OOOOH be sure to check out my door for your freebie on December 4th at noon EST. YAY hope your December is full of FUN!