Christmas

Christmas is the time of the year when loved ones try to get together to celebrate and rekindle bonds.  It is so easy when your loved ones are near, and can be so very difficult when loved ones live far away.  This year was spent with my eldest daughter, Amanda and her hubby Derek and their three small blessings, Michael, Ava and Henry.

Ava Lauren - Christmas Day 2013

TaDa! Henry Owen age 2

Henry with his super hero's shirt

Ava with her American Girl Look a Like Doll

Christmas 2013 Aren't they Adorable

They were so excited to see all the gifts under the tree and Ava quickly became the organizing child and started reading tags and sorting all the gifts into piles.  They took turns opening gifts and I never saw a disappointed look from anyone.   Whether a big expensive gift or a small trinket, everything was appreciated and oohed and aahed over.  It was well worth the 21 hours in the car to enjoy the week with my Maine grandchildren.

Great idea for gift!

 

 Aren't these the most adorable ornament gifts you've ever seen?
They can be made of a shinny smooth bulb or a textured glittery one.
I'm not sure what type of paints were used, but perhaps someone who reads this will know or I may be able to get my daughter to ask her day care provider who made these for her last year.

They came with this cute little poem.

With their names and dates on them they make an awesome memento to your little ones childhood, for as we all know they don't stay little forever.

SNOW! Did I say snow?

 Our first Christmas with the grand kids was a huge success.  We had pretty good weather for traveling, except for a short stretch in Canada and managed to sandwich two snow storms between the travel times.  Each time they received close to a foot of snow.  So I headed out with the big kids and Henry rode in his sled.  I bought Henry the sled when he was born, so this is his third year to get to use it and it looks like it will be his last, he's pretty stuffed in there.

Ava's turn to pull the sled.

Henners is stuffed in there, but loves it.



Michael now 9 and Ava 7.

The boys on a snow bank

Snow angels, anyone?

Henry now two, loved it as you can see by his face.

I'll be sure to post the actual Christmas morning soon, so stay tuned.

;

Where was I?

We were in Maine for Christmas and that's where I picked

up this incredibly unique advent calendar.

Each of those little numbered doors open up a small

pull out drawer to place a small surprise or treat for

the lucky person that is counting down the days 

until Christmas. 

 

 

I just love the pictures painted on the drawers.

I took a couple closer shots, so that you could

see the details that have gone into it.

 

My oldest daughter, who lives in Maine took me to her

favorite store that always has the best gifts.

Believe it or not it's a hardware store, called Schachts.

I made several purchases and at half price, they were

a real bargain.  I also like the idea that everyone else around

here doesn't have one just like it.

 

Now that they've gotten the bugs out of the new blog look so

I can once again post pictures, and I've had new

antivirus software installed on my computer; perhaps you'll

see me on it a bit more often.

 

Our Christmas trip was great, I'll be posting pictures of the

grand kids soon.  We had two snow storms while we were

there and I took some cool snow pictures.

A Post without photos, is just a so-so post

A very large time span has transpired since my last post.  Now I'm back from vacation and ready to share photos and Lo & Behold they've revamped Blogger and I can't figure out how to download my photos.  Ugh!!  The frustration of it all and I was so diligent and had all my pictures uploaded to Shutterfly in record time.  I was so proud of myself I ran the disk that came with my camera, because the camera was giving me issues dumping the pictures onto the computer and I solved that problem and now this new one has cropped up.

Please be patient I promise to keep trying to figure it out.