I hope when my girls are in college they will be this sweet

We have a sweet college intern working with the youth at church that I just love.  She is sweet, thoughtful and very, very good with the youth.
She asked me to take some pictures of her and her brother for her parents for Christmas.  She also brought along a little girl who is her "sister" since she is in Big Brothers/Big Sisters... what a fun time. 

She showed up with a sweet gift for me for doing this and it was then that I realized she was really supposed to be in my family...

It was beautifully wrapped box with this cross inside... and she wrote a sweet message on the back.

Of course before the day was over my friends at school and I were planning on when we would get together and copy the cross...

It took some twine, some hot glue and just a few burns.

See that center part, when you are pressing it into the right spot, that is when you'll get the burns...

I did this one for part of a wedding gift... see the little "cherish" tag? 

Fun, easy craft...

Thanks Kelsey for such thoughtful gift, it made my day and provided a new crafty thing for me to copy!

Thanksgiving

I am very thankful for a Thanksgiving week that was spent with some of my favorite people...

Jennifer came... Which made my sister a little mad... can't spell Thanksgiving without some family issues can you?

Jennifer and I spent Wed. running a few errands, cooking, eating, and cooking some more...

 

I invited a good friend and her family to join us for Thanksgiving. 

We had a discussion about the dressing last week. 

You know, the what do you put in your dressing kind of discussion you have before you commit to Thanksgiving at someone else's house.  We saw eye to eye on the dressing luckily.

But. 

Then I went to buy my cornbread mix.  I usually use one brand and there was none to be found so I substituted another name brand.  This is where the story goes horribly wrong.  It made very, very sand like, dry cornbread.  I did not realize this until I went to make the dressing.  I used enough chicken broth for the whole neighborhood and still couldn't get moist dressing.

Now, to a southern woman having friends over, serving bad dressing is the kiss of death.  We will be judged by our dressing on Thanksgiving after all....

I knew it was awful when Mike told me not to save any of the left overs.  He will eat left over dressing for a week under good dressing conditions.

We had tons of other good food and more importantly a group of friends and family that I love. 

We had football napping guys

and dogs tired from begging

shopping the ads

 and we even fit in a quick Thanksgiving day shopping trip.

Today, there is a fresh pan of dressing so I can keep the hubby happy, drizzling rain outside and relaxed crafty time in new soft PJ's inside.

I am Thankful.

Pictures can be very, very painful

My family came to town this weekend...
There is always some drama getting everyone here...
They don't travel easily...
There is always debate over how many cars they need to bring, etc...
But they all made it.  Even the youngest niece....

I planned a family picture and that caused a bit of grumbling from the men and my sister.  My sister who usually likes family pictures was not happy that I told everyone to wear black or black and jeans.... she only heard the black and jeans part and even when we told her to wear what ever she wanted she wore black and jeans "like she was told" and even sported some nice white tennis shoes....
I also wanted all the girls to wear different colored scarves.  I had a picture in my mind, everyone liked the idea except the sister...

The guys got a little happier while we were taking pictures on the Tech campus and they visited with some guys who were still there tailgating.... I believe there might have been beer involved.

Part of the group went to the "worse Tech game ever played".... "during a dust storm" Jennifer thought... nope, just a breezy West Texas day...
The sister and I skipped out on the game...

We celebrated Mike's 49th birthday.
The brother in law assured him this is the last good birthday. 
I'm a little concerned about him being 50 next year....I can't be married to someone who is 50 cause I think I'm only about 34...

Jennifer brought Mike's favorite dog in the whole world and it made Ellie very very jealous...

She just sat and pouted

In the end everyone was getting along and forgot what they had been grumpy about... We ate a lot of good food and fit a lot of good visiting into a few hours!