25 Days of Christmas Ornaments - Julia's First Christmas

Welcome to day 2 of the 25 Days of Christmas Ornaments Carnival! It's 3am and I'm taking a quick break from my last day of work before Christmas vacation to share Julia's first Christmas ornament.

The first couple of years the kids ornaments included a picture - it wasn't planned but I'm glad it worked out that way - especially because for both of my kids, their picture is of them wrapped in daddy's baby blanket as baby Jesus in the live Nativity. My MIL bought this ornament and I love it! It's not breakable, it's not heavy, and it holds a picture....

What ornament have you chosen to share today?

25 Days of Christmas Ornaments - Day 1

If this is your first time visiting BearCountry, welcome! I'm glad you stopped by! For the first 25 days of December I'm going to be hosting a fun and easy carnival about Christmas ornaments. Once a day I will post a MckLinky for everyone to share a photo of an ornament and the story behind it. Want to know more? I suggest you click here to read the official introduction to the carnival or leave your questions in the comment section. There are no right or wrong ornaments to share - homemade or store bought. If it's special to you, we want to hear about it!



I chose this angel ornament for the first day because it is one of my most precious ones. It was purchased in honor of a little boy I won't meet this side of Heaven, but has impacted my family none the less. Noah is celebrating his third Christmas as an angel in Heaven and I bet he and my dad are best buds by now.









Thanks to my friend Susan, who understands code way better than I do, there's even a handy dandy 'grab the code' box if you'd like to add the button to your blog.

<center><a href="http://thisfamilyof4.blogspot.com/"><a href="http://s291.photobucket.com/albums/ll285/mom2three-2008/?action=view&current=Christmasornamentbutton3-1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll285/mom2three-2008/Christmasornamentbutton3-1.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" /></a></center>
One thing to note as your planning out which ornaments to feature on which days, I plan to feature homemade ornaments the second week in December. My kids make ornaments each year and I'm hoping that we'll be able to share some fun ornament projects with each other.

Sharon!

We're sending hugs right back at ya Sharon!


















Hope you had a fun and relaxing birthday (weekend)!




Love,
us.

Introducing....25 Days of {Christmas} Ornaments

Let's face it. No matter how early we finish our Christmas shopping there are always things that keep us hopping most of the 25 days in December. There isn't much time for blogging and personally, after the November I just {barely} survived, I don't want to spend very much time on the computer period.

I plan to spend December decorating, making gifts, wrapping gifts, addressing Christmas cards, listening to music, reading to my kids, and doing as many advent activities as we can.

Each year my little elves help decorate our tree and in true sibling fashion, they do it as fast as they can so they can be the one to put the good ornaments on.
They are 3 and 5. I wouldn't expect anything less.

They don't want to sit and listen to me explain where each ornament came from. They see an angel ornament, but I see the ornament I brought back from Hawaii when I was 18 so I could add it to my angel collection. Some day they might want to know the stories behind the ornaments we'll hand down to them.

Some day they will be decorating a tree with their children and they will be the ones sharing the significance of why we bought them the ornaments they received during their childhood.

If you are a regular visitor to BearCountry you've probably noticed that blogging has taken a back seat many times this year because I'm the breadwinner in the family right now, but I am determined that Christmas won't pass us by without recording some special memories for my family.

Isn't that why most of us blog in the first place? If you'd like to record the story behind 25 of your Christmas ornaments on your blog and share each post with others, I will be posting a Mcklinky daily starting December 1st.

Will you join me?

Yesterday

I finished four different Christmas card designs.

I went to a birthday party.

I went to Target with PapaBear and the kids to pick out Lego's (using birthday money - thanks Mom!)

I sat in the Target cafe so I could but the final touches on the 4th card.

I went to Sam's Club to print 4 batches of cards.

I corrected a mistake on one of the cards. (Thank goodness for laptop's a good batteries so I could do it in the car!)

I went back into Sam's Club to reprint a batch of cards.

I met a client to go over the layout for her blog book.

I went to the mall to grab a bite to eat and grab some names of potential book publishers in hopes of getting a generic version of Alphabitty Moments published.

I delivered a batch of Christmas cards to a client.

I begged my way past three Sam's Club's employees so I could pick up the final batch of cards a minute after closing time.

I was given a free Italian Cream Cake (YUM!) because it was going to expire the next day.

I drove home and collapsed on the couch for a few hours before today....

Today we decorated our church for Christmas - 40 foot Christmas tree. 3 foot Moravian star. It's a tradition we really enjoy being a part of.

Julia had the meltdown of a lifetime when we got home because she was so tired, but once she was asleep I left for the office to prepare for a bookmaking class that I'm teaching tomorrow. Nothing like waiting until the last minute!

If you make books online and have any tips you'd like to share - please leave them in the comments. types of books, companies you recommend, digital scrapbook sites that you like, etc.....

Thanks!

Alphabitty Moments - The letter K

Welcome to Alphabitty Moments! This project that started almost a year ago has turned into so much more than a blog carnival, but wasn't that the whole idea? I am too busy (aren't we all!) to not try to eek out the most from every project I take on. After months of posting layouts I had Sam's book printed just in time to enter it in Blurb's Best Book Contest. If you follow me on Twitter, you already know that yesterday my book was chosen as the grand prize winner in the family category. I burst into tears when I saw the results. I get teary just thinking about all wonderful people who made this possible for me. Thank you!

Sam's book will be under the tree for him this year, but Julia's is still in the works. I had really hoped to have it done in time to share with the class I'm teaching on Monday, but I had work things that needed my attention first. Most of her pages are done which is really nice come Thursday when it's time for me to write this post.

This isn't my favorite layout in the world, but it works for now. I'm a notorious tweeker.
I will go over back over projects again and again and again. Just ask PapaBear's cousin and Kristina who I've hired to assist me with my blog book design business! Thanks to their hard work we are on track to finish four books this month - on top of the three photography books I've designed!

The power is out at the park today so I'm posting this from the cutest little coffee shop in town. White lights are twinkling all around me and it makes me anxious to get my own house decked out for the holidays. I'm working on plans for a gingerbread house making party and I hope to be able to host (for the first time) a holiday gathering for my extended family. And here I thought December was going to be quiet.....Ha! Be sure to stop back after Thanksgiving for the unveiling of my Christmas Carnival! I might even be pursueded to post about it earlier....or at least share the name.

The Mad Dash

If you see a blur like this one....


It's just me, hustling to meet Monday's book deadline.



Five books to the printer by Monday and then I start editing a wedding, an engagement session, and two family sessions.

I'm not complaining. Really I'm not. These early Holiday deadlines mean I have to get things done early and that leaves me with more free time to enjoy the Christmas season. I have a fun carnival planned for the first 25 days of December and with most of my shopping done already, it should be a relatively stress free month.

I Heart Face - Autumn Edition

I haven't been participating in I Heart Faces weekly challenges lately but with the beautiful (but late) Fall weather we've been experiencing I thought I'd jump back in the game with one of the photographs I posted over the weekend.
This is a location in the park I haven't used before, but the cattails mixed with the leaves and red dogwood branches made for a perfect Fall background. For more entries click on the button below...

Sweet November

Photographing engaged couples is very quickly becoming my favorite kind of shoot. I've been blessed with sweet couples and sweet weather.



Does it get any sweeter than that?

With Gratitude

My hands are shaking as I sit on the floor in my office (don't ask) to write this post. If you follow me on twitter you already know that I worked until 2am on Friday morning so I could take the rest of the day off. We had a a wonderful time at the Christian Community Fair. Any time your kids can bounce in a bounce house (or six of them) without shelling out $5 per five minutes it's a good thing. They bounced for two hours - for FREE!

We got home late and after putting the kids to bed I didn't feel like being on the computer. Fourteen hours the day before was enough. So this morning as I was wading through my inbox it caught me off guard when I opened a message from Blurb about the contest. The winners are going to be announced on Wednesday so I figured it was a generic message saying thanks for participating. Imagine my surprise when I saw the words

Congratulations! You have qualified for the next round of judging in the Best Blurb Books Contest. The next round is a qualitative assessment by a panel of judges.

So with a huge smile on my face and gratitude in my heart I want to say thank you to everyone who put up with the emails, tweets, and posts supported my book during the contest.
A very very BIG thank you!