Christmas!

Santa was good to us again this year! It was a lot of fun watching the kids open their presents, esp Maggie who was so excited by each one! Once she was done opening presents, she went around and kissed them all which I thought was such a sweet gesture on her part!
Alexander woke up at 5:30 with a croupy cough. I told him he could go out and watch TV until Maggie woke up. He would come in to the bedroom every so often and update me on the gifts that were waiting for them under the tree. Maggie woke up about 7:15 and immediately hit the living room in warp speed! Andrew was awake too so we all got up and went out to see what treasures Santa had left us. Andrew usually wakes up starving so he was all too pleased to just sit in a corner and eat some treats Santa had left in his stocking!

Santa baby!

Alexander posing with one of his gifts

Maggie and Mommy

We spent most of the day playing with our new Nintendo Wii and eating junk! FUN! It was nice to just stay home and hang out together without any other responsibilities. I did manage to get outside and enjoy the beautiful weather by taking Maggie and Bella for a walk around the neighborhood. Our Christmas dinner consisted of a rarity at our house: a beef roast with carrots and potatoes, served with mushroom gravy. Yum, yum!The kids are enjoying their time off from school and are already preparing their Christmas list for next year!

We are grateful to celebrate Christ's birth and to know He is our Redeemer. I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

Mommy and Andrew in a rare shot together

Matthews Clan

I had the fortunate opportunity to take pictures of some great families recently! This is the Matthews family! What a good-looking group!

Gorgeous Sabrina

Beautiful Vivian!

Photo op

The Wright family

I learned a lot about light in these picts.
How could you go that wrong with such photogenic people, though!

Mom, when you were little...

Alexander: "Mom, when you were little, did you use leaves for toilet paper?"

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