The true reason we celebrate Christmas

By now you've eaten too much and have probably given AND received a lot of gifts. If you haven't already, take a few minutes to remember our Savior's birth and reflect on the true meaning of Christmas. 

From Luke chapter 1
"And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God.
And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.
He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest:
and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David:
And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end."

Here's a video from our church that provides a little light hearted humor and shares the story of Jesus' birth in a unique way. 
Watch for me in the choir - I'm wearing my specs though ;-) 
Long Hollow Christmas video 2012

From us to you, we wish you a merry Christmas. 

And thanks for stopping by my blog. 

MY very own birthday

Today is my birthday. Take a tour with me. 

This morning I opened my package that came from Florida, from my sweet friend Renee. She's the attorney I used to work for that I love dearly. Even though we haven't worked together for the last 8 or 9 years, we've remained friends. 

 She knows I love Mickey Mouse. And she works for the mouse himself... hehehe

Isn't this bag adorbs?!

And a girl can never have enough bags.

Renee also gave me the cutest card that is sorta polka dotted.... which makes me :-)

As I was about to rush off to work, I noticed an envelope and gifty from the hub...

The CD is awesome sauce btw.

And since he doesn't read my blog I'm gonna tell you what that card said. Cuz it made me teary eyed. And that's not an easy task.

   You're not only my wife - you're my best, most trusted and most special friend. 

   And for me, your birthday isn't only a day for celebrating a moment in time - 

   It's also a day for celebrating how beautiful and precious love can be. 

   Happy birthday with all my love

Then he signed it in cursive luv you Anthony

In printing, he wrote Yes, I forgot how to make a cursive "v" which made me giggle

He also tweeted me a happy birthday message that called me super cool and included this: I know turning 28 has been fun for ya ha 

He's such a cool dude. And I'm such a lucky girl. 

Movin on.

When I got to work, a package from my sweet friend Jan awaited me. A handmade (crocheted) infinity scarf. It's so soft and pretty. I know I'll just love wearing it. When it decides to be winter. lol 

My friend Brandi (also at work) is one of those thoughtful friends who hears every word ya say and gets you the gift you haven't asked for but you want. Yeah, so she gave me some things that I had mentioned liking and that was a super nice surprise.  Then she and the other gals - they carted me off to lunch, to the place of my choosing....

On the way, Juvonda had put several songs in her tablet to play in the car that had happy birthday in em... it was such a hoot! We sang along and danced on the way to the restaurant... 

where I had a delicious cheeseburger and this big hunka cake... 

 I think I liked it.. 

So it turns out they asked the restaurant to sing Happy Birthday to me, but instead they brought out this complimentary delicious chocolate cake. Suits me. 

Well, little did I know, the gals had a little cake for me back at the office... so yeah, I had two birthday cakes ... 

This one here was lemon - my fave! And somebody (probably Brandi) remembered that purple is my fave color. 

These gals rock! And I love em.

And yes, I'm wearing a tiara. Because I can. And it was my birthday. So there. 

It's an office thing... 

Tonight we went to watch Cullen play basketball. He's my nephew whose birthday was yesterday. And he and I have a lot of similarities... 

Little birthday rewind here. 

My sister-in-law bestie gave me a super cool ACS shirt Saturday to show my team spirit at the basketball games - no pic doggone it, but I'll get one soon because I'll be rockin that shirt a whole lot. One of those ya know... it has polka dots on it. What what?! 

My little momma gave me some smelly gifties. She knows I love Love Spell at Victoria's Secret. I don't think she thinks I stink. Lol She gave me some other great stuff, too. Cuz she loves me.

My sweet mother-in-law gave me a gifty Saturday night. Oh how I like these early birds! 

Now I just need some stuff to cut up and a craving for a chocolate chip cookie... I'm sure that will come very soon :-)

On Sunday Anthony took me to J Alexander's for my birthday meal. 

It looked like this - - 

 Fyi - their mac n cheese is out of boundssss

it's called "not your ordinary mac n cheese" and they are NOT kidding! 

 This pork tenderloin with Thai "bang bang" sauce was also off the chain

Had to get some carrot cake to go... 

after all, it was for my birthday

So that my friends, is a tour of my birthday today. 

It really was a great one. I'm so thankful to enjoy a birthday no matter the number I hafta claim... 

I have so many great friends and wonderful family members to enjoy it with... I surely can't complain. 

So blessed! <3 

Kerby's birthday party - -

Kerby 

15 year old hunk

If you know me or you've hopped on my blog this year, you know my nephew Kerby. And that he used to be in Haiti before he was adopted by my brother Jonathan and his wife Michelle (who already have a son and daughter both in their 20s).  

On December 7th, he turned 15. He doesn't really look or act like a typical American 15 year old though. And that's fine with me. ;-) He'll have plenty of time to be a typical teen soon enough.

Some cruel person in my family thought trick candles were appropriate. I assume it was my retarded brother. Kerby didn't seem to mind and he's a prankster anyway so...

On to the gifts... 

Kerby loves the Boston Celtics. More specifically, he likes Rajon Rondo. Probably because Rondo played for UK (Kentucky) in college. And my brother and most of my family is obsessed with some Wildcats. . .  

When Anthony and I were shopping for Kerby's birthday gift, we initially considered one thing, then Anthony found a Nerf basketball hoop that lights up in the dark. So I text my brother to ask if he had one first, and second to see if they would kill us for getting it. 

  

The text exchange went something like this -  - 

Me: Do you think Kerby would like putting a model car together?

My bro: Yeah maybe. He loves that sort of thing.

Me: We just found a cool Nerf bball goal that lights up at night.

My bro: Lol He already has a Nerf goal that he thoroughly drives us crazy with. But it has no lights. Thank God.

Me: So does that mean don't get it? Lol Anth thinks it's awesome!

My bro: Of course he does.

Me: We are the ones with no kids, remember? We like to get obnoxious toys!

My bro: Paybacks are rough you know.

Me: Ha

My bro: Let's think this through shall we? We want a kid with zero common sense to have a goal whose use is best used when it is dark and the subject is black. Hmm

Me: I'm laughin my head off. It's in the cart and being purchased shortly. Deal.

My bro: You are a but thread. You know that right. 

My bro (2 seconds later): Head. Butt head. 

So when Kerby opened said Nerf goal, he loved it and the other boys did, too... 

I love this candid pic of Anthony telling Kerby he was the one who picked out his gift. 

Michelle's uncle has a running joke with Kerby about liking Barbie dolls... so they wrapped one up as a joke... 
     It went like this - - 

Commence opening Nerf goal with lights !!! 

always a good sign when the recipient opens your gift and plays with it at the party he he he 

Cousins and the pup - so cute!

The grandkiddos on MY side of the fam 

so nice to have Caleb home !!

and the grandkiddos on Michelle's side of the fam

I hope Kerby and Kerlandy are as happy to be in our family as we are to have them in our family... 

A surprise birthday gathering for Anthony

Have you ever tried to surprise your hubby with a small gathering of friends for his birthday?

I hadn't. 
Until a couple weeks ago. 

Anthony's birthday was November 24th, which is always around Thanksgiving. Translation: everybody's reeeeal busy

About a week before his birthday I decided to try to throw together a low key gathering (not a party) at our house. I knew if we went to a restaurant we wouldn't get to have enough convo and we couldn't take our time visiting. So our house became the logical gathering place. 

But that meant I had a lot of stuff to do. And I had to keep on the DL down low because if I did too much, he'd get suspicious. 

Oh boy.

So I sent the email to some folks we used to church with. Some of the musicians and singers from our old church. We hadn't seen em all together at all since we left that church. It was a stretch, but amazingly they were all available to come celebrate with us. 

My next obstacle was the house. I had to get my Christmas stuff up AND clean AND get food stuffs for the folks.

Got the decorating and some of the cleaning done without making Anthony suspicious. But I gave up on the food piece - there was just no way to pull that off, so the night before the party I had to tell him. He was cool with it thankfully.

We had chili, buffalo chicken dip, bbq bacon wrapped smokies, and some other snackie snacks. And his cake was a lemon cake with lemon icing. Birthday boy's request. Easy enough! 

Even though I said no gifts, Danny gave Anthony a funny shirt

Yeah, that's a kangaroo bustin a sag sayin Whas sup?

There was some serious lookin convo goin on here. . . heavy stuff looks like 

Brandon is a little drummer boy... BW is what Anthony always calls him... 

these two clowns can't even take a pic together without being goofy

These two lovely ladies are two of the greatest gals! And I miss singing with them. But we still talk and email and text and hang out, so it's all good. Love them! 

Riley and Drew played really well together even though they're about 4 years apart and didn't really know each other

This was the first time in the 5 years we've lived in our house that a kid used the stairs as a slide

You know I had to have some one on one time with this little dude...        
               \\  oh.my.goodness.he.is.a.sweetie.pie.  //

So that's pretty much it. 

At the end of the night when the house was quiet cuz all our friends had gone home Anthony said he was exhausted. He said he was tired from hosting. LOL But he said he enjoyed it. So that's all that matters. 

Thankful Thanksgiving Blessings - post 3 of 3 (yes this is the final post on Thanksgiving 2012)

This is my crew... 
   the mamas and the papas, the babies and the big uns. . . and a couple twins in the oven of my niece's womb

My dad only has one brother. For Thanksgiving this year he and his wife joined us and they brought Ma Ma (my 90 year old grandmother). She's one of a kind fo sho!

We had a bit of a singalong and sang a bunch of church songs.

It was awesome sauce. 
My family is pretty stinkin cool when it comes to this kind of thing. Even if I say so myself.

This picture of my parents - it's SO going in the photo calendar for next year. Mm hmm
Love it!

Trevor, he doesn't sing much. 

He made friends with Kerlandy's doll and just listened to our beautiful harmony.

Sasha has an itty bitty baby bump from those twin babies she's insulating. I can't wait!

Trevor and Leslie wanted me to take their family picture. 
In MY family, that's never an easy task... never ever
   see for yourself - 

Whew...  

Scrapbook perusing... 

The kiddos played several games 

Kerlandy LOVESSSS Aunt Leslie

Kerby pluckin on the good ole guitar... 

The almost 15 year old grandson is growin like a weed but of course Nanny is a shorty ha

I asked Ma Ma if I could get a pic with her and Dad. You know, the kind that's good and everybody's smiling. 

Remember, I said pictures are never an easy task in my family... 

 All's well that ends well ... 

So you see my family is cool and I love em a bunch.

Thanksgiving was really nice and I guess now we have to put it in high gear to a few more birthdays in the fam and Christmas and wrappin up 2012. 

Whew.

I have so many blessings I couldn't list em all if I tried. God is so good to us and I'm so very thankful.