Happy Birthday Bro!

Happy Birthday to a very special brother of mine (not to mention my ONLY brother...) :0) When we were young, we fought as normal brothers and sisters do; and as we have gotten older we still don't agree on every little thing. But... your pretty special to me, and I don't want to forget to tell you that! :0) I love you!! Happy Birthday from your little sis... :0)

*The picture is of Jerry and his girlfriend Pam

Happy Birthday to a Special Lady

Today is my moms birthday and I just wanted to take the time to make her day special. Mom, you are the best mom anyone could ever have. You have ALWAYS been there for me, no matter what I needed. Even now that I am 8 hours away from you and many miles are between us, whenever I need you, I know that you are only a phone call away. I hope you have a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY today, and know that I would love to be with you...Happy Birthday Mommy!!!

Top 5 Winter Favorites

Here we are again, well into another season. So guess what that means? You're right! Time for the Top 5 favorites again! Remember the rules, I will post MY top five, and then it's YOUR turn... Post your top 5 in the comments box or email them to me...

1.) Decorating for Christmas
2.) Relaxing around the Christmas Tree
3.) Christmas Cookies (Baking & Eating) ;0)
4.) *Christmas*
5.) Being with family and friends around the holidays

I could post so many more things but these are probably my top five...

Christmas Reading Corner

At this time of year there doesn't seem to be enough time to THINK let alone to read...however, reading is one of the ways I relax and unwind, so it is an ESSENTIAL during this season! :0) So I thought I would share with you the Christmas novels that I have chosen to read. Some of them I have never read any of that particular author before so I wasn't sure if I would approve. However, so far I haven't come across anything objectionable. Right now I am reading "A Christmas Guest" by Anne Perry. I finished "A Christmas Visitor" (also by Anne Perry) already and have one more book to read of hers called "A Christmas Secret". These books incorporate the Christmas season with a little mystery and yes, murder... SO...if you're not keen on Murder Mystery style, you probably wouldn't care for those novels. I will also be reading "The Chocolate Snowman Murders" by Joanna Carl. I have never read any of her books before either, but any title with CHOCOLATE in it catches my attention! :0) I will let you know what I think of that after I have read it. Then, of course, I will be re-reading "The Christmas Sweater" by Glenn Beck. I enjoyed it the first time through, so why not read it again? Well, I'm sure I might add a few more books to this list before the Christmas season is through, and if I do I will let you know. In the mean time, however, I would love to hear some Christmas novel suggestions from YOU! :0) Please post any suggestions you might have to the comments box of this post, and it will be MUCH appreciated by all of us bookworms! :0) Happy Reading!

Christmas Decorations at the LaVans

I love decorating for Christmas, and my sweet husband tolerates it for my sake. :0) He is incredibly sweet, patient, and all around wonderful about lugging it all down from the attic and helping me put it all up. I couldn't ask for a better husband! Anyhow, so I have had my Christmas tree and other inside decorations up for a couple weeks now; but just got to decorate the outside today! Yay! However, it was sort of a bitter sweet experience because all of my outside decorations were given to us by the "Ladies" (Sis Barbara & Arlene) who most of you know, have moved up the Pennsylvania recently. A big thank you to them for sharing their decorations with us though! The sun was shining right into the camara, so some of the pictures of the outside are a little washed out... You can get the main idea though...

Thanksgiving With the Davises

This year was the year for Thanksgiving with my family. We got to spend wed afternoon through saturday morning with them. It was a special treat to get to attend wednesday night prayer meeting at my home church too! :0) Luke assisted dad in serving communion, and my mom and sister MADE me play the Kurzweil (The electric keyboard) with them. LOL Then on Thanksgiving day we ate ourselves silly. So...of course the next day we made Christmas cookies (about 21 dozen I think) because we won't be together before Christmas to do them. Boy was that interesting! LOL We made Peanut butter blossoms, mint crinkles, raspberry ribbons, and melt-in-your-mouth pumpkin cookies. I think we ate about half of them on that day. LOL No, not really... We also tried to take a group picture of all of us, but we had to prop the camara up on the lamp shade to take them so... LOL Still, they turned out pretty decent. :0)

This was at church on wednesday night--me and my brother's girlfriend, Pam.

Thanksgiving With the LaVans

We spent monday through wednesday with mom and dad LaVan this year for Thanksgiving. Grandma LaVan came over to eat supper with us and we enjoyed seeing her, as always! :0) Then on Wednesday we travelled up to Salem and met at Lori's apartment for our family picture. We just set the camara on a tripod and took them ourselves this year. Didn't turn out too bad with what we had to work with! Just kidding! :0)


Grandma LaVan