Riley and Avary

Riley and Avary are super cute and so much fun to be around. We had a great time taking pictures yesterday. Theses girls should be models. They would pick the place and just beg me to take a picture. I love my job!

Brandi is Riley and Avary's mom. Brandi was in charge of our bedroom decorations. She picked out everything that went in there. If you need someone to help you decorate a room, she is your woman. She does amazing things! I can't wait for her to do another room in our house, just don't tell Jaime.

Riley for her half birthday wants a really big picture of herself for her room. She kept asking Brandi how big will it be. So cute!

Thanks girls for letting me hang out and just have some good 'ole girl time.

Murphy Family

This is one of my favorite families. They were some of the first people we meet when we moved to San Antonio and have become some of our closest friends. This is a wonderful family!!! They adopt me often when Jaime is out of town and feed me dinner.

David did our landscaping when we moved in and we love it. If you need any landscaping call him and he will take care of everything! Check out his website.

I have really wanted to take the Murphy's pictures since I started my business. We have tried to schedule a time, but something has always come up. The Murphy's are busy people. Yesterday it finally worked out. The sun hasn't been out here in days, but yesterday afternoon it decided to come out and greet us. It was beautiful.

I really didn't have to do much work to get great pictures. David did all the posing for me. I just stood back and took pictures. He is hired as my assistant anytime he wants. This family is so photogenic that it was hard to narrow down my favorites. After much consideration I have narrowed it down to these. What do you think?

Love you guys tons!!! Thanks for letting me take your pictures. I had a fabulous time.

Christmas Shopping

All the Christmas shopping is done! I don't think I have ever finished my Christmas shopping this early. This internet shopping is pretty great. I haven't had to go out and fight all the crowds and crazy people. Instead I sit at home on my comfy couch and order all the stuff online.

I kind of feel like I haven't done anything to get ready for Christmas. Usually by this time I am all stressed out and tired from all the running around. This year I have only been out to Dillard's. Just to let you know Dillard's has a London Fog trench coat on sale for $79.99. It comes in red, pink, purple, green, orange, black, brown and khaki. It is super cute! I purchased the red one for myself. I purchased the purple one for Ann. I am her personal shopper and felt she needed to add a trench to her wardrobe.

Dillard's was the only store I couldn't get free shipping so I went Friday morning. There were not many people there and I was on a mission. I was in and out in 30 minutes and purchased 6 gifts. It was well worth my time!

My least favorite store this Christmas season is Target. I am a loyal Target shopper and usually love them. Not so much this year. I am sure the store is still great, but online is not my friend. I tried to order seven Christmas presents online. I did my shopping and had everything in my cart. When I got ready to check out I noticed that two items were no longer in my cart. I went back and tried to find them to put in my cart again. I could not find the two items anymore. After searching the site for about 30 minutes I finally figured out that the two items were out of stock. At some point during my shopping process the two items sold out and disappeared from my cart. Target didn't mention this they just took the items out of my cart.

I went ahead and placed my order for six items from Target. I got free shipping on all the items so I was still semi-excited. They were suppose to mail all the items in as few shipments as possible. Guess how many shipments I am receiving from Target? You are correct, six. This really shouldn't bother me since I didn't pay for shipping, but for some reason it does. This is where my big problem with Target comes. I received an email from them on Saturday telling me that the Keurig coffee maker I ordered for James would not ship till January 12 or 14. Great! I went to the Keurig website and they had the coffee maker for the same price and free shipping. I went ahead and ordered it from there. You will be glad to know that I ordered it on Saturday and they shipped it on Saturday. So much easier. I canceled the order with Target. Target you are dead to me for a few days!

Now that all the Christmas presents are purchased I need to start wrapping. I am afraid wrapping is going to be the hard part. That might take a lot of energy. Maybe I will just wrap a few a day. Jaime offered to wrap the presents, but Caroline could do a better job wrapping. He is not good at the wrapping. I have tried to teach him many times and it never works out.

Maybe this year everyone will get their present in a sack.

The Rest of the House

Mostly everything stayed the same as far as Christmas decorations go. Same stuff different place. I usually look at the pictures from the previous year and then put the stuff in the same place. Not so much this year. That was the last thing on my mind. My goal was to get it up and I really didn't care where it went.

Last year I added these ornaments to our dining room chandelier. I love them, but think I need a few more. It dresses the dining room up and gives it a Christmas feeling. I did the same thing in the breakfast area.

I love my nativity scene. This was the most important thing for me to have out this year. It is usually the first thing I put up and the last thing I take down.

This sign is new this year. I forgot to mention it on Friday, but I have a good excuse. It is actually reversible. The other side says "Give Thanks," so it has been up for awhile now. I love a decoration that can be used for two holidays.

We have many stockings. Mom still has our stockings that Grandma made for us. I love those stockings and am sad I will not get to see them hanging over the fireplace this year. Maybe Ann will take a picture of my mom's fireplace and email it to me or blog it. Wouldn't that be sweet? My guess if she doesn't that the stockings still look like this.

We also have our stockings that hang on our fireplace. I got those stockings from Hobby Lobby and think they are cute, but nothing special. I am sure once we have kids I will get some that I love for our fireplace. I do love our other stocking that we have hung in the living room.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

All the Christmas decorations are up and I am loving it. I love laying on the couch with the Christmas tree next to me all lit up. Jaime and I buy an ornament in every city we visit. It is fun to look at all the ornaments we have collected over the years. I forget all the places we have been. Thank goodness I have the ornaments to remind me.

These are just a few of my favorite ornaments.

I love this little frog we got from Puerto Rico. We went to San Juan for our 5th wedding anniversary. Jaime had work in the Dominican Republic so I tagged along. I stayed in Puerto Rico while Jaime went to the Dominican for a day to work. It was a fun trip.

Guess where this one is from? We went to New York with my family for Christmas 3 years ago. None of us had ever been and it was so much fun. The Statue of Liberty was not so much fun. The line was 2 hours long and the security was worse than the airport.

I love this ornament. This is my first Christmas ornament. It says "Baby's First Christmas 1980" on one side and the other side has my birth weight and length. My birth weight and length are in stickers. I am sure they have something really fancy these days, but in 1980 you bought the ornament and personalized it with number stickers.

This is the St. Louis arch. We went to St. Louis for the 4th of July in 2008. The St. Louis arch was great on the outside, but crowded on the inside. I don't think I have ever been more claustrophobic in my life. We were in there about 2 minutes and I was done.

The Liberty Bell from Philadelphia. The best part is it is a working bell. Mily had a great time ringing the bell before putting it on the tree. I was a little worried about the crack and the ringing of the bell, but all is well with the bell.

Our cute ornament from Seattle with Santa climbing the Space Needle.

I think this turtle is super cute. It came from Washington D.C. We were visiting the Capital and this cute thing was for sale at the gift shop. I had to have it. The ornament next to it is from our trip to the Bahamas.

This is the other ornament we got from the Bahamas. It is clear and has sand in it with sea shells and a bucket. It is really cute, but if it ever breaks while on the tree I will be pissed. I do not like sand at all and the thought of sand all over my tile floor makes me cringe.

This crazy fish came from an ornament exchange. At first I thought it was ugly, but each year it grows on me.

This is the White House in case you can't read it. We got it on our second trip to D.C.

This little bell is so special. My great-grandmother on my dad's side made it. I love it and think of her every time I look at it.

This is another special one. Grandma and Aunt Anita made it for me. They always did ceramics when I was growing up. I love this ornament!

You can't really tell, but on top of this slug-bug is a Canadian flag. One day during our Seattle trip we went to Canada. I think the car is so cute.

You shouldn't be surprised that I have several Tech ornaments. I have no idea where I got the first one, but I love it because it is plain and simple. The second one I won at a raffle. It has the Masked Rider on the other side and says Texas Tech.

This is probably my favorite ornament. Jesus is the Reason for the Season!!! I always hang this ornament right next to the couch. It is my daily reminder why we celebrate Christmas.

I only have one new Christmas decoration this year. I did such a good job of not going over board. I am very proud of myself.

The first Christmas Jaime and I were married I bought a wreath for our front door from

Wal-Mart. It was a tiny little thing and not very pretty, but it worked. Over the past 8 years I had never found anything I liked better. I take that back, I found plenty, but I wasn't paying what they were asking.

I found a wreath I liked at Hobby Lobby back in September. It was originally $100, but half off. I took it! I was in love with it till I found another one at a Christmas store. It looked a lot like mine, but had tons of ribbon hanging down, but it was $300. That is CRAZY to me. I decided I would spruce mine up. This is how it came out. I love it and it was nowhere close to $300

The Christmas tree turned out great again this year. Our next door neighbor Mily came over to help with the tree. Her and Jaime did a great job, while I layed on the couch. Mily was in charge of the bottom of the tree and Jaime was in charge of the top. They are a great team.

Hot and Cold

Yesterday we had some issues with the electricity. Something happened and the entire neighborhood lost electricity yesterday morning for about 2 hours. No big deal to me, I slept through it. I decided there was no reason to get up because the T.V. and the internet wouldn't work. Jaime was worried about me being home with no electricity when he left for work. It was 28 degrees here yesterday morning and he was concerned I would get cold with no heater. I was concerned because the ceiling fan in the bedroom was off. I was toasty and asked that he open a window. He declined.

There were about 10 trucks in the neighborhood working on the problem all day. There were wires and piping everywhere. About 5:30 last night we got word that we would be losing power again for about an hour.

My great friend Jacqui was sweet enough to bring us dinner yesterday. Dinner is kind of hard around here these days. By 6pm I am done and Jaime has been really busy with work stuff and hasn't had time to cook. It is also hard for him to cook dinner when there is nothing in the refrigerator. Jacqui made chicken enchiladas and beans and mashed potatoes.

I was not very happy with the whole power thing. I had just put Jacqui's dinner in the oven and needed 30 minutes for it to be ready. The power ended up not going off for another 20 minutes. We ended up eating semi-warm chicken enchiladas by candlelight. The beans and mashed potatoes were still cold. Our dinner was delicious, but I have no idea what it looked like because I couldn't see a thing. I am pretty sure that is the first time we have ever had a candlelight dinner. Thanks Jacqui for driving all the way out here and bringing us the best dinner we have had in awhile. I need that recipe for sure!

I never realized how dark it is with NO LIGHTS AT ALL. People, it is dark in case you were wondering. Lara next door saved us. It started getting a little cold in here and was super dark. Lara had some extra wood for us. Jaime started us a fire and the electricity was back on with in 30 minutes.

I forgot how nice a fire in the fireplace can be. It was nice to have all the Christmas lights on and a fire going. I could have handled the air conditioning being on as well. It was a little toasty with the fire, but Jaime told me I couldn't turn the air conditioner on. Poor thing has been walking around the house with a jacket on for the past week. He is freezing and I am sweating.