Lifesong

Random

Our printer's broken, which aggravates me, because I can't work  on the things I need to work on. So instead, I'm sorting all my photos from December into the "just keep" file, or the "to be developed" file. I came across this one, and just loved it (it's going in the "to be developed" file). I love how she has a cute, almost-smile on her face, yet you can see her eyes filling with tears. I love that I was able to capture that. That is quintessential Ansley - happy one minute, world falling apart the next. What, you might wonder, could possibly have happened to fill those baby blues with tears? Must be something pretty awful.  Not necessarily so - in this case, she just wasn't getting the milk she requested fast enough. But Uncle JonJon was at least somewhat amusing at the moment to cause that half-smile. All in all, I really won't complain, she is (thankfully!) most often happy, funny, silly Ansley!

Harriet Potter

This picture just cracks me up. So I thought I'd share. :) (It was in the morning, so excuse the wild hair! :))

John has been off this past week, so we have been busy doing projects, getting Christmas decorations down, getting the house cleaned, playing with Ansley and all of her new toys, and a little shopping. :) So, that's why the little break in the blogs. I'm out of my routine. But I hear ya - so I'll try and be more consistent. Glad to know you are enjoying them so much. :)

But, just in case, Happy New Year! :)

 

Happy Birthday, Jesus!

On this most holiest of days, we are so very thankful for the amazing gift from God, His one and only Son, Jesus Christ. We are humbled as we remember He who gave so much for us, and we are forever thankful for this most amazing gift of all. We are thankful for our family, and thankful that Jonathan and Missy can spend Christmas with us, and for our sweet little girl. This Christmas has been one of wonder, of seeing Ansley in awe of the season, and watching her enjoy this wonderful Christmas time. Here are a few images from our morning....overwhelming happiness....overwhelming joy.....overwhelming love.

More to come....

Below are the following pictures:

Ansley enjoying her new art easel and drawing and coloring (her new train table is in front of it)

Ansley playing with Charlie, her new Cabbage Patch Kid, from Mimi and PopPop. A big hit!

Having fun with one of her Little People play sets, given to her by Jonathan and Missy. Another big hit! And last, this evening blowing out the candles on Jesus' birthday cake. We made a star shaped cake in honor of Him, and we all sang Happy Birthday Jesus and enjoyed cake. Ansley loved this part (and quite often throughout the day would announce Happy Birthday Jesus!)

We hope you all have had a blessed Christmas Day!

The Pink Pig!

Today Jonathan and Missy (my brother and sister-in-law) arrived. Ansley was very excited to see them! We all went to the Pink Pig at Lenox Square shortly after they arrived. We went last year, too, and Ansley enjoyed it until close to the end, where she started crying. This year, however, she loved it! She was so excited as we were waiting in line and loved watching the Pink Pig come around the tracks. Here are some pictures from our day, and a video. It's so fun to create traditions for Ansley, and see how much fun she has. We bought a Pink Pig 2005 ornament, and a pink pig stuffed animal for Ansley (that she had to have, of course!). You can see her holding it in the pictures.

We hope you are all having a wonderful day-before-Christmas-Eve! :)

 

Preparing for Christmas

As Christmas Day is quickly approaching, we are preparing our home and our hearts for the celebration of Jesus. Ansley is understanding, as much as her two year old mind can comprehend, about all the traditions surrounding Christmas - giving presents, receiving presents, preparing food, singing songs - all in celebration of Jesus' birth. This morning I told her we were going to work on a special project for Jesus, but I needed her help.  She puts on her best manners, like she always does when she's excited about something, and responds "yes m'am, yes m'am" and follows me around to see what's in store for her. Here she is working on our special project. (Yes, still in pajamas - it was a laid back, stay-in-your-pjs kind of morning for us.) Scroll down to see the finished project. And, let me say, she was so excited about this - we had to go outside many, many times to look at it! We hope you all are preparing your homes and hearts as well!

Did you know? Back in the 7th century a monk from Crediton, Devonshire, traveled to Germany to spread the Word of God.  Legend has it that he used the triangular shape of the Fir Tree to describe the Holy Trinity of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit to the German people. The German people started to revere the Fir Tree as "God's Tree". In the next 5 centuries, the tree became a symbol of Christianity, and was being hung upside-down from the ceiling as a sign of Christianity.

Here's to Canon!

Soooo, did I mention that I got a new camera? Just checking. And I am loving it! It is so awesome. You know when you have that moment, that perfect moment in a picture that if you don't catch it right then, it will be gone? That's what this camera is able to capture - the everyday moments that I might miss, if I didn't have such a fast camera! No, only kidding, just the moments I might miss because I didn't think to capture them. I've been experimenting the past few days, and I'm going to post some photos I've been doing. Yesterday, I had three kids - can you believe it?! I watched McKane and Riese for Kelly so she could run some errands (perfect for some photos!) and then today she watched Ansley while I got some stuff done. It's quite a nice little arrangement. :) So anyway, yesterday I was able to coerce them (brownies, anyone?) into posing for me, and here's what I came up with. Hope you enjoy them!

Christmas is quickly approaching! Hope you all are enjoying this most-wonderful time of year!

A Christmas Video

Busy day today! But I thought I would share this video of Ansley and her Daddy hanging the ornament on our advent calendar this evening. Thought this was so cute! Hope you enjoy it as well!

Upload Video at DropShots.com

Pictures, you say?

Here come the pictures! Got them downloaded from my new camera. Still working on figuring out all the different settings on my new camera. But, here's the recap in photos of the weekend.

Since HTML (computer-speak to get all these pictures in order) eludes me, I'm going to write about what all the pictures are in order, and then you can scroll down to see the pics. So, here we go!(If they get jumbled up once I post, hopefully you can figure out what caption goes with the picture!)

Here is Ansley singing "Jingle Bell Rock" Friday AM in her jingle bell microphone. She's getting the words down pretty good! Afterwards, we saw Santa (see previous blog).

Friday night we got together for dinner with our good friends Chris and Kimberly. Here they are with Ansley.

Saturday morning we got together with our long-time friends Michael and Ashley and their daughter Olivia. We had a delicious breakfast together, and then hung out and chatted and the girls played and laughed. We met them when we were all first married, 8+ years ago in Corinth. Thanks for a fun morning, Michael and Ashley! The next picture is Michael, Olivia and Ansley.

Saturday evening we hosted a small Christmas party with our good friends. We had a great time. I wish I would have taken more pictures! I don't know what came over me, but I didn't get that many pictures of the fun evening. We all had dinner together, then went on a hayride in our trailer, complete with hay and blankets and Christmas music blaring, around the neighborhood to look at Christmas lights. It was a little chilly, but very fun, and all the kids (and adults!) enjoyed it. Then we came back home, had desserts, and the kids danced and we all laughed. It was a fun evening spent with friends that we are very blessed to know. We love all you guys! The pictures are of Ron and McKane (one of the best pictures I took of the night) and a not-so-good picture of Ansley laughing, but it just cracks me up every time I see that big grin on her face. :)

And finally, just a silly picture of Ansley this morning, relaxing after a busy, but joyful, weekend! We hope you all are enjoying this time of year, preparing to celebrate the birth of our wonderful Savior, and enjoying all the blessings of family and friends!

 

The Blog is Back!

As Ansley would say "Hoooo-Ray!" So glad to be up and running again. I had to show you all this fun video that our friends Patrick and Rachael did from the small group Christmas Party a few weeks back. Awesome, guys! I love it! These are the kids from our original small group when we first moved here. I thought you all would enjoy it, and check out all the cool effects:

Upload Video at DropShots.comI received my Christmas present early, my Canon 20D camera. Looooovvvveee it! I'm so excited! However, I'm in the process of figuring out how to upload the pictures to my computer, so it will take me a little bit to get pictures from our weekend to here. Stay tuned! Meanwhile, here is a picture of Ansley and Santa at our visit to Northpoint Mall on Friday. Looks pretty similar to last year, don't you think? :) I got her all pumped up, telling her we were going to see Santa Claus. She is ready, telling John when we meet him at the mall "I want to see Santa!" But as soon as she sees him, "No Santa! No Santa!" Ahh, well, maybe next year. :)Merry Christmas! More to come....

This is what we woke up to...

Icicles everywhere. It was very pretty, and Ansley thought the icicles were neat, but she decided they were "very cold." I hope this is just the beginning of some winter-like weather. I could go for a snowstorm....or at least some flakes. It's so cold and dreary out that we decided to stay indoors all day and not get out in it.

My friend Sara and her daughter Kaitlyn came over this morning, had lunch and hung out together. Kaitlyn is just over a year, so it was cute to see the interaction between them. Ansley wasn't quite sure what to think, since she is normally around kids a little bit older. They were definitely watching each other! But it won't be long before they will be happily playing together. It's so fun to watch Ansley and all our friends children grow up together! Thanks for a fun morning of hanging out, Sara!

We hope you are all having a wonderful Thursday - and staying warm! :)