Santa's Cookies

Just wanted to add a pic of Santa's cookies.

Reindeer Food

My friend Jan sent Emily a baggie of reindeer food. Emily loved this idea and had a blast sprinkling it all over the driveway.









Thanks Jan!! Great idea!!!! :)

Christmas Eve at Our House

Mom's side of the family came over tonight for Christmas. I think Emily was well pleased with all her gifts! Here are just a few shots of what she got from everyone.

Cookies For Santa

Emily saw the commercial where the dad and son make sugar cookies for Santa. Emily had to make some, too. When we bought the cookie mix, we picked up chocolate chip. "NO!!" She said. "Not that one." So, we tried oatmeal raisin. Nope, that wasn't it either. It HAD to be SUGAR COOKIES! Not just plain sugar cookies but with SPRINKLES!









Isn't she talented? :) Well, she did have SOME help! Ok, a LOT of help. We have four cookies saved for Santa. I'm not sure how much longer the others will make it!

Merry Christmas!

A Rite of Passage

A mother's instinct is to know when it is too quiet then you need to check on them. You find either a sleeping babe or a child in trouble. This time it was trouble.

Well, Emily did it. She cut her own hair. Thank goodness it isn't that bad or noticeable. She got her bangs a little bit it can be brushed over and hidden. Then there is a place on top of her head that really isn't that badly noticeable either. Looks sorta like her hair is just broken off by ponytail holders or something.

I don't know where she found the scissors. They were small and black handled. No CLUE! The others are accounted for. So, it blew my mind to see her with a pair in her hands and hear that sound of cutting hair as I yelled "NO!!!!!!!!! STOP!!!!!!!!!!!" I think I scared the crap out of her.

Here is the place in her bangs.



Now, THIS is what you want to find when they get quiet.

We can Disco, too!!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

The Bush Family Elves

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

We were elfed!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Animoto Christmas

Santa Slide Show

Christmas is in the Air

We've been picking pecans and I've been baking!

I have a wonderful pecan pie recipe I got from a friend who is no longer with us. I did a little tweaking to Barbara's recipe. It it yummy!

1/2 c. melted butter or marg.
1 c. pecans chopped
1 c. light brown sugar
1/2 c. sugar or Splenda
1 heaping Tbsp flour
2 eggs
1/8 c. syrup (Log Cabin Sugar Free does well!)
1 tsp. vanilla
1 unbaked pie crust

Combine all ingredients well and pour into pie crust. Cover crust edge with foil to keep from burning. Bake for 35 minutes at 350. Decrease temp to 250, take foil of the edges and bake for 30 more minutes. YUM!

I've also been making Toast Rosemary Pecans

4 c. pecan halves
4 Tbsp. butter melted
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 teaspoon dried rosemary lightly crushed
1/2 teaspoon sugar or splenda

Preheat oven to 250. Bake for 15 minutes on a cookie sheet with edges. Stir them up and back for 15 minutes more. Transfer to papertowel and let cool. YUM!

Oh Nascar Tree, Oh Nascar Tree...

Norm got his NASCAR/Jeff Gordon tree put up with some help from Emily.

Elmo Christmas Collage

We got Elmo put on the front porch today. I took some pics of Emily with Elmo and she had to take a picture of me and Elmo, too. Yes, the pic of Elmo and me was taken by Emily! I put the camera on a short column I have on the porch. All she had to do was keep the camera on me and shoot. I think she did a pretty good job for a 2 1/2 year old!
This is a collage I made for my siggy on a few message boards I am on.



Just a flashback to last Christmas with Emily and Elmo.

My Tree

I finally got around to putting my tree up. I just realized I didn't put my pink silk roses on it. Oh well. Here's a pic of it.



Merry Christmas!

Alphabet Adventure

Here are some of the items that I will be getting with the grant money I won. I know the students will LOVE all of this. I know I will! All of the items are coming from LAKESHORE LEARNING. I LOVE that company!!!!

Literacy Chest - this is being bought with the extra money from winning the bigger grant.


Here are the original items I wrote the grant for.










In the last pic I'm not getting all of those games. I'm just getting two of them. They didn't have pics of just the two.

Christmas Village

I put my Christmas Village up this evening. Emily had a fit over it! "It like Walmart!"

This gave me a chance to work with low light shots and non-moving objects. I really do need a tri-pod. I used a book to raise my camera up and keep it steady. If I tried to hold it on my own, the pics were blurring, the lights streaming along.

Photo Challenge - WEATHER

How's the weather in your neck of the woods? Today, it is rainy, dreary, blah! The sky was just gray and blah... not good for a photo if you ask me. Nothing interesting about that. So, I thought I would add a little color to my blah weather pic. Here are some nandena berries from my front yard with raindrops on them. I'm not sure if nandena is spelled right, but you get the idea.



Thanks for lookin'!

I WON!!! I WON!!!

Back in September I wrote a grant for my classroom. The Blount County Education Foundation gives them out yearly to our county teachers. Up to $750 can be requested. My project was titled "Alphabet Adventure" and was for $746. (I try my best to make the most of my money.) They announced the winners this morning and I won my grant!! Not only did I win my grant, I won a "signature" grant worth $1000!!!!! So, I have extra money to spend on my project! YIPPEEEEEE!!! Wooooooohooooo!!!!

My items are coming from Lakeshore Learning. They have some of the neatest education items in there. My grant items from last year came from Lakeshore.

Anyway!! I thought I would post something other than photo challenge pics!

Photo Challenge - LOW LIGHT

I had to go back into the archives again. Christmas time seems to be the best time for low light pics but right now, I don't have any of my Christmas stuff out.

Here are some pics from last year at Noccolula Falls on the train ride around the grounds. The first one is my entry into the challenge. We are going through a covered bridge on the train.



Here is what the bridge looks like when we were standing near it.


Here is one of the light displays taken while on the moving train.


Maybe next week I will have new stuff for the challenge. :)