Busily Crafting, craftily busy.

We already know she is going to cause a lot of boys a lot of heartache. We wouldn't have it any other way.

This week is always one of the busiest of the year for me as a photographer. The week has been full of print orders and last minute cards, phone calls and a few last minute sessions this weekend. I love my job. It has been a really fulfilling year.

I am really looking forward to a few weeks off to breathe and be with my family and enjoy this Christmas season. I have been very crafty this last weekend, since I had a few moments to breathe. I made Memms a Christmas dress. I can't wait to take her and Jobs downtown and shoot a few quick photos of them in their duds. They are just too fun.

Also, I have made a few other goodies, some for Christmas and some for fun. I am currently sewing a patchwork quilt, just because I can and I am excited to finish it so, as Jobby says, "The whole family can cuddle with it!" Indeed. My goal this coming week is to edit all of our family pictures from the year for a special Christmas yumminess for my family. :)

We finally got our tree up tonight. I let the kids do it all by themselves and I really don't care to rearrange the ornaments like I do every other year. Who cares? Let them enjoy the fruits of their little labors.

Last but not least I saw that commercial for Toys for Tots...you know the one with the little boy who walks up to the Marine and asks him if he is Santa Claus? Ya, I totally started bawling. Christmas is officially in the air, and I hope it doesn't come too quickly. Love basking in the glow, the magic, the lights. Christmas is my favorite time of year.

T'was the night before Thanksgiving...

...and what else do you do but paint the pumpkins that have been sitting on your porch since mid-October. The same pumpkins your children have begged and asked and begged some more to carve into "Jack o Lanterns". No exaggerations here, we painted our pumpkins on Thanksgiving Eve. I just couldn't talk myself into scraping out pumpkin goo...especially pumpkins that have been sitting on the porch for a month and a half.













As for Thanksgiving? It was the bomb dot com. I am not sure how fond my step-mom (I hate the term step-mom...but for clarification sake) would be about me talking about her innards on my blog...but I have to say how Thankful I am that she is okay. She had a cancer scare last week and had to have an emergency hysterectomy because they found a tumor...the size of a baseball! Hello! Poor thing. We all went up to see her last Saturday after her surgery, and just hugged her and was so thankful that she was okay and that it was NOT cancerous! Thankful indeed. Lorraine is an amazing woman. I put my arms around her and cried and realized how much I am not ready to lose any of my parents. On the bright side, Lorraine and I are certain she lost AT LEAST a pound. She is amazing.

With the events that transpired...my little brothers and Lorraine needed a Thanksgiving feast, since she couldn't do it...I did it for her! I have never made Thanksgiving dinner.

I woke at 4 a.m. to roast the turkey. In my sleep deprived state, I was unprepared for what awaited me inside the turkey carcass. Have you ever? Seriously? The neck? The "giblets". As if calling them "giblets" makes it all better? I started dry heaving and had to breathe through my mouth just to make it through the rinsing. Then there was the whole, "massaging of the butter into the turkey" and the "removing of the quills". I just sent an e-mail to my aunt, whose home I have invaded every Thanksgiving since my birth...and thanked her abundantly for making me dinner all of my life...how I have taken the last 25+ years for granted. Anyway, I have decided that rolls, and turkey, and gravy, and deviled eggs made by ones own hand taste much worse than those made by auntie and mom. I am forever grateful to the people in my life who cook for me.

Dinner was a hit. Thanks to my brother for hooking us up with the turkey to roast, and to his beautiful wife for her pumpkin roll. Have you ever had pumpkin roll? It is TDF. My SIL is the bomb diggs too, she made 9...NINE pumpkin rolls for Thanksgiving. Her family is big...and she said my brother needed 3 for himself. Hopefully if she loves all of us she will post the recipe on her blog.

Anyway, thankful dinner is over...thankful my step-mom does not have cancer, thankful she is recovering well. I am thankful for my family, for the sweetness this year has brought us, and for the continued and renewed appreciation of all that we have been given!

Budget, Fudget, Mo Mudget...

Oh how I hate thee...let me count the ways. Oh wait, this post isn't about that. It is suppose to be about the "freedom" I am feeling with my budget. (Cough, cough, lie, lie.)

But 'fer realz' people let me educate you on the ways of my last month of budgeting.

It all started when the economy started going all crazy like. My husband, well, you know he helps people find and sell houses. He loves his job. He is THE best at it. With the economy the way it is, and with all of the mortgage lenders going kaput and struggling, it has really hurt the housing industry hard. That goes for all the little people involved too, from plumbers to electricians, etc. So, so, so sad really. :( Frowny face.

So, Hubbs and I sad down and had THE. TALK. The talk we have had for eight years. The one that inevitably tells me that I can no longer visit Target. The one that I know means I can no longer "wander" aimlessly through Wal-mart for hours while "grocery shopping". Ug. It came down to this: "Do you want our kids to have a roof over their heads?"

Cry. Cry. Cry. Commence me FREAKING...and realizing that something had to be done. (I didn't have the best spending habits, if I saw something I wanted or THOUGHT I needed, well heck I bought it. This included luxuries large and small.) This also brought up the fact that my business was in fact helping our family in little ways, and that for us to be able to stay in our home, I would have to stop giving such great deals to everyone. Which is SO hard for me because I photograph for the love, but now I MUST photograph for the need. I feel SO blessed at this time to have this gift, that it is blessing my family enough to put food on the table while hubby scraps up enough to pay our house payment. (You all know how this is though, because WE ARE ALL FEELING THE CRUNCH!)



Anyway, back to the positive of my budgeting.

For a little over a month, I have been on THE strictest budget EVER. I won't go into details as I believe finances are very personal, and each family is different, and no one can truly understand how someone gets from point a to point b. I just hope to inspire someone else out there who had my same PROBLEM of over-spending and 'retail therapy'. Oh how many days did I walk the isles of Target to soothe my fat butt and aching heart?

BUT GUESS WHAT?!!! In the past month I have been able to:

• Not walk into a store unless I know exactly why I am walking in, what I am going to buy and if I even need to buy anything.
• I have discovered how amazingly and totally awesome the Salvation Army store by my house is. Dood, guys, it is AWESOME!
• I have probably saved my family $1000.00. I am not joking. Not.
• Shot 10 sessions before the month is through.
• Without realizing it, I haven't taken my anti-depressant for TWO WEEKS.
• And best of all, remember this? I finally saw that EXACT same number again this week. It has been FOUR months. I am proud.
• We got a FRONT YARD. (Post to come...post to come.)

Coincidence? I think not. I think there is something truly powerful to be said about being in control of one's life. I am happy. Striving to live my religion has blessed us tremendously as well. Tithing has always been SUPER important to us, and now I feel we are seeing a blessing in our lives for having always paid it.

There are times when of course I feel like a slave to my pocketbook. I am sad when I can't just join my friends out to eat all the time. But, I am happier, my kids are happier. And of course, HUBBS is happier. :)

S'ghetti

Why on EARTH do I take better pictures of other people's kids and not MINE? Anyway...it all has to do with my DUNGEON of a house...dood it was like 6:00 at night...anywho...

This is Memms. We had a loverly supper of "Skinny Noodles" with sauce and "yellow cheese" the other night. It was delish.

WELL! As Jay and I are enjoying our delicious meal, I hadn't noticed that Memms was being awfully quiet. I look over and she was eating:

1: With her hands and not with the fork I gave her.

2: She was shoving the food into her mouth and subsequently the food was going ALL over the FLOOR, the countertop, and herself.

3: Her face...well that pretty much explains itself.

So, I sweetly ask her, "Memms, what the heck?" To which she smartly replies,

"I a baby!"

Nuff said?

Nuff said.

Except: I don't know what is more disturbing...her orange face, or the fact that her hands were all "raisiny" and "wrinkled" from the moisture of it all.

I get the heebie geebies just thinking about it.

A Christmas Tradition

Christmas, like for many of you, is my favorite time of the year. It is a time of tradition, a time to reflect on family and friends and of Christmas past and present and those yet to come. One of my favorite traditions is to make my Great Grandmother Crawford's sugar cookies. I remember eating them since I was a little girl. Although my grandma died shortly after my birth, this recipe has always had special meaning for me and for my family. When I was a teenager, I perfected the recipe, from the exact "pinch of salt" to the way the dough feels, to the exact moment they can come out of the oven, these cookies are near to perfection as anything I can bake, and I am not a big baker either! This year, my gift to you is to share this recipe. Don't be discouraged if they don't turn out on your first try, they are definitely something to be practiced. Yum. Merry Christmas everyone!

Great Grandma Crawford’s Sugar Cookies

1 cup sugar
½ cup shortening
½ cup milk
3 cups flour
1 egg
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon vanilla
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon baking soda

Cream sugar and shortening in a large bowl. Add egg, milk, vanilla, and mix. Combine dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Add flour, soda, powder, and salt to the sugar mixture, adding more flour as needed to form a firm ball of dough. Roll dough out to ¼ inch thick and cut into desired shape. Bake at 375 degree oven for 8-10 minutes or until the edges of cookies are slightly golden brown. Frost and decorate.

Sugar Cookie Icing

¼ cup shortening
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla
¼ cup milk
¼ teaspoon desired flavoring-we like to add cinnamon oil
3 cups powdered sugar

Mix shortening, salt, vanilla, and sugar adding more sugar until desired consistency. Mix in flavoring and color as desired.