Christmas Card Photos

We had a power photo session at my parent's house yesterday! It was so cold but I am not a big fan of the indoor photo! The kids didnt mind. They were busy running around having fun!
Esp that little one. We had to coral them to the deck steps and three of us went crazy with "cheese!", "smile!," "Alexander!," "Maggie!", "Andrew!", "Look here!" and variations of all for about 3 minutes. Oh- and there were a couple "Don't choke him!'s too!"

Amazing how many pictures you can take in 3 minutes with this awesome freakin camera! I realize, that all of you with the D300, D60 and more technical Canon SLRs may laugh at me, but seriously, it's fabulous!

Had to have one with Pappaw!

Yes, it was very hilarious! At least I'm sure the neighbors thought so!

So this is what I came up with thanks to Photoshop! Luvin Photoshop! Thank you Graphic Design degree!

Happy Holidays!

Maggie's Birthday!

I am sooo late in posting! My apologies! I think I was wiped out after the election and had no interest in blogging! One of my friends at work cracked me up the other day when we were reading the Daily News Record together. On the front page was an article about how much of a raise the University Presidents were getting in this area. The Pres. Of JMU was getting a HUGE raise and Bill said, "Now you've got something to blog about!"
Anyway, this post is for my precious daughter, Maggie and her crazy birthday weekend! (We were all exhausted)
Thursday was her real birthday and Andrew and I took cupcakes

we had made the night before, to Maggie's nursery school class.

They had a ton of fun eating them!
We had been talking to Maggie about giving up her "fratti" which in another language is "Pacifier" and so to replace it we had to take her to Wal-mart (where else?) and get her a baby doll to sleep with. We did this after we picked Alexander up from school. Then we met Shawna and her girls at CiCi's Pizza! After we got home she opened her presents! She received a play kitchen with some accessories! It took me most of the night to put the thing together! Woohoo! It was a full but fun day. Maggie was pretty mixed up though. She didnt really want to open any presents and by the time 3p rolled around she thought her birthday was over! I kept thinking to myself, 'Did I really get off this easy? Why did I plan a whole weekend's worth of stuff to do?'

The next day Bob came home and we had a family birthday dinner for Maggie (which she ate none of). Bob had made her requests- buffalo burgers, mashed potatoes and green beans. Saturday morning she had gymnastics and when straight from there to her big party at "You're A Star" in the Mall. What a fun time! It was great for me, too! You just pay this place a bunch of money and they take care of EVERYTHING for you! So worth it and Maggie and her friends had so much fun! She had a fairy party
so all the girls got to dress up like fairies and they got to make their very own fairy dust and play games, get their hair, makeup and nails done (huge hit),


and eat chocolate cupcakes!

Yippee! The girls were amazing for being just 3 and 4 years old. They took turns and waited and were so well-behaved and mannerly. Maggie decided after much debating that she would invite her friends from school because she had to keep the invitees under 6. Luckily for her there are lots more boys than girls in her class! We did miss our friends that we see often and wish we could have invited them, too!
Afterwards Bob, Alexander, and Andrew met us and I took Andrew and Maggie which me and Alexander and Bob went to see the new Madagascar movie. They both loved it! They came home and Maggie and I went back to the mall and "You're a Star" to get some coveted items there, compliments of Mammaw and Pappaw!
Sunday evening we went to my parents for another birthday dinner for Maggie! Maggie and I were definitely pooped after the 4 days of festivities, that's for sure! We had a blast though!
Happy 4th Birthday Maggie!

TWILIGHT!!!

I can't believe today finally came! We've had our tickets for weeks and, like tween and teenage girls, giggled before, during, and after the show! It was a lot of fun! I was so excited to finally see the movie! But what did I actually think of it?

Def one of the BEST scenes!

It was entertaining-definitely funny and a little cheesy. Edward was incredibly hot, Bella was very beautiful but her acting was not all that great, I thought.

Rob Pattinson, who plays Edward, should work on his American accent a little. It is definitely different from the book. I guess they have to change it when it goes to the big screen. Just so we aren't sitting there forever. I need to see it again. The vibe was there. You could feel the excitement in the theatre. When we walked out girls, women were EVERYWHERE waiting to get into the theatre. I'll see it again, and probably buy it on DVD when it comes out. Not the greatest movie. But I just loved seeing it. The movie, like the books, are addicting. Can't wait for New Moon!
*** out of ***** stars

A great talk

http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=85

Post election words

History was made last night! I'm glad that we have a new President elect! I hope that he does well for our country. I feel that he has sparked a fresh, new energy in Americans that we didnt have before with Bush's downward spiraling policies. People want to do good for our country and are excited about our future!
I'm sorry for those that wanted McCain to win. I remember being extremely upset in 2000 when Bush won over Gore. I felt that Bush was an idiot and would ruin our country. I was pretty close to right! However, the Church has told us to support our leaders, whoever they might be. And on that note, I say, the election is over! Why am I still getting emails about how bad Obama is? And I have received more than one! I realize this has been a heated election, but geez! It's over! I'm not sure what's true or not but I certainly dont need the stress of thinking we as a country made a horrible decision!
I may seem like I was totally gung ho Obama but I really would have been okay with the GOP being re-elected. The majority rules and if most Americans wanted them to win, I would have been okay with it. I'll admit I'm not always right, if I'm ever right, but I tried to educate myself about the issues that were important to me and pick the person who I felt would be the best on those issues. I hope I'm not wrong, but I might be. Who knows? Everyone thinks their party is right. Im not a Democrat but I picked Obama because I didnt think McCain had a plan any better than Bush did. I'm just thinking right now we need to drop the criticisms and try a little acceptance, and be a little less partisan as a people. Because that's what we expect out of our government. If we sit back and do nothing and expect our new President to fail, he will. If we give him our support and do what we can to make our country a better place to live and raise our children, he may not. We have to at least try!

Card Club Cards

I thought I would post my card club cards to lighten the mood of the next 24 hours or so!!! This time we did "Just Because cards", "Baby cards", and "Christmas cards".
Here is my contribution to each category.

Baby criss-cross card

Just Because card

Christmas card

Church and Politics

I realize that as the election winds up this week, it could get really ugly. I have already seen some REALLY ugly commercials the McCain campaign has put out. I am sure there are some from the Obama campain-I just havent seen them. There were a couple of things that bothered me recently.
Today in Fast and Testimony meeting someone stood up and said we should all realize that one of our presidential candidates received over a million dollars in contributions from overseas. I wonder which one he was talking about? I looked it up on Snopes.com. I wish people would get their facts straight before, well, I dont know how to say this nicely, but maybe I shouldnt say anything.
Anyway, I am also a little concerned about this new email circulating about why Sarah Palin would make a great Vice President. For starters, she is a woman (whoa- maybe I should run) and she doesnt believe in killing babies (another point for me but none of our candidates support abortion so that's really not that unique). She likes to hunt and she has a pregnant teenage daughter. She fired someone for divorcing her sister which was deemed an unduly use of power in office and she had a baby with Downs Syndrome.
I read through this whole thing and I didnt see one reason why she should be vice president of the United States over my next door neighbor! Where is the law degree (yes, it helps when you are dealing with the law), where are the great ideas for fixing our ecomony, establishing better foreign policy and providing better healthcare?? Yes, she has been governor of Alaska for 2 years. I think she likes the attack. She is going to support Israeli aggression towards Palestinians and say it's God's will. McCain is a little less as aggressive but she likes to say she has talked him into things, so maybe she'll try her best on this issue.
Why is she always attacking her opponents? Because she doesnt know what else to say? And to actually think of running for president? Let's vote for the issues and not gender. Because she talks about God every other sentence doesn't mean she is going to be the best for the country or even do God's will. McCain has admitted he doesnt even have a testimony of God and/or Jesus Christ. I still think McCain would have been so much better to have picked Mitt.
So getting back to the FAT meeting, our wonderful Branch President stood up and reminded us that the Church does not endorse either candidate or party and that we are to educate ourselves and pray about these things. Then, once elected we need to support whoever our leaders are and pray for them that they will do their best for our country. But, of course this is also not the reason we go to church. President Jensen is da bomb!
And my last comment here is just that. No matter who our President becomes, we should give them our support and do what we can do to make our country better.