Hodgepodge of Recent Pictures and a Special Announcement!

My little man loved running around outside at Mema and Grandad's house last month!

Sunrise and 100 year old Pecan tree at my parents' house.

I love this picture of my sweet boys. Toby had gotten too close to the water and Eli went after him, turned him around and walked him back to safety.

Eli kept his clothes on until my camera died. After which, he shed his sweater, shoes and socks and rolled up his pants and had a blast playing in the chilly water.

A couple weeks after we got back from Florida it snowed!

Cheese!

Toby feels bad for Eli when he gets sent to time-out.

My boys doing what they do best. Playing hard and making messes. Eli likes to build Toby "rocket ships" on his bed.

BJ is going back to school! He was accepted into the Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy program at Liberty University! He starts online in a couple weeks. He will also take some of their intensive classes (which are a week long) on campus which is 2 hours away in Virginia. We are so excited! Please pray for our family as BJ begins this journey.

Vicks Vapo Rub-A Family Heirloom

BJ's mom G.G. flew down from Michigan to see us this week! On Thursday morning Eli started to run a temperature. The poor guy was feeling pretty miserable. That night he was up coughing quite a bit at all hours. He asked if he could sleep on the couch (he likes to sleep there sometimes) so I moved him there. Well, G.G. heard the coughing and commotion and God love her, decided to come downstairs to see if she could help. She brought down a jar of Vick's Vapo Rub that she'd brought with her and I rubbed some on Eli's chest and he finally went to sleep.

I went back to bed and told BJ that his mom had brought down her Vicks Vapo Rub, which tickled him because, according to him, she used to slather him with it all the time when he was sick as a kid. Maybe you remember the commercials for Vicks Rapo Rub...

Or if you're older this one, which is especially sweet and reminds me of Toby!

Well, G.G. had to leave on Saturday, but she forgot her Vicks Vapo Rub. That night Eli was up again coughing and having a rough time so I got up and grabbed G.G.'s Vicks. This timeI noticed something a little funny about it.

Enter exhibit A:

Upon further examination I saw this:

Exhibit B:

(Expiration: NOV 97. I don't think that's 2097. No, folks, we're talking 1997. As in last century.)

That sweet G.G.! Not only did she have just the thing that Eli needed to feel better! She had blessed us with the very same jar of Vicks that she probably used on his daddy so many years ago! It's like a family heirloom! And after putting it to my nose again, you know what? It smelled fine. Hadn't lost one bit of its potency!

(We love you G.G. I hope you don't mind us sharing this story, but it sure gave us a good chuckle! We hope you are laughing too!)

Some Pictures from Christmas

GG has informed me that I have fallen behind on updating my blog. Well, there is a reason for that. Besides staying busy keeping up with my little men (and big one), I have filled up BJ's Mac with photos! Oops! Please don't tell his place of employment (they actually own the thing). While I save my pennies for an external hard drive (or my own Mac *sigh*) GG and Mema and any other lovely followers of this thing will have to bear with me.

In the meantime, here are a few shots from Christmas in Florida!

Following family tradition of baking and cutting out Christmas sugar cookies. They are wearing aprons that were made for me and my brother by Great grandma Speers who is 90 years old!

Mema helps Eli with the cookie cutter.

The finished product. I ate way too many of them!

Toby and his feast! This was dinner when we arrived after the 10 hour journey!

Giving a concert and wearing Grandad's glasses!

Eli with an allen wrench.

This is what happened the other day when Eli found an allen wrench in the laundry room. He tried to act all inconspicuous with it but I knew he had it and was in the middle of doing some laundry. I had planned on taking it away from him, but got busy doing something else and before I knew it he had completely disassembled one of his chairs! I find it funny that he knew exactly what he was going to do with that allen wrench. I don't think I even knew the function of an allen wrench until I was in college! But that's a boy for you!

Decking Our Halls

Scrawny little tree, I know. But it is so nice to be able to put it up out of reach once it's decorated.

Eli and Toby both LOVE egg nog!

Rudolph was on T.V.

Eli really liked Rudolph. It was his first time seeing it.

Shutterfly and their Rockin' Christmas Cards

I absolutely love Shutterfly for their photo greeting cards, photo books, calendars, online photo storage and more. I’ve used them to make my boys’ birth announcements, Toby’s First Year photo book, and our 2010 Calendar with all our favorite family photos.

This year their site is exploding with gorgeous Christmas cards to choose from!

They have cards for that perfect photo of the entire family:

And they have cards for people like me who can’t decide on just one picture:

I never thought to mix black and white with color for a card, but I think this looks awesome!

I love this one for its simple design:

You can browse their gorgeous selection of Christmas Cards HERE.

You can also order personalized gift tags and address labels for that extra touch! Check it out HERE and HERE.

They also have new calendar designs! We have enjoyed our 2010 calendar, which I made with pictures from each month of 2009. It hangs in our kitchen and we love to look at the pictures from the prior year and remember the special memories we’ve made. You can also personalize your calendar by adding in all those special dates you don’t want to forget!

Here are the pictures on our current calendar for the month of November:

Check out their awesome calendar designs HERE.

I am already getting excited about the possibilities for Eli's birthday invitation because they have so many cute birthday invitations to choose from as well!

Check out their cute birthday card designs HERE.

Have fun designing your family's perfect Christmas card at SHUTTERFLY!

And if you are interested in doing a blogpost for Shutterfly and recieving 50 free holiday cards, sign up HERE.

More Fallish Fun