Preparing for Christmas

Every store I've been in this week has been full of Christmas stuff! We have been thinking about Christmas at our house too. I have already purchased several Christmas gifts, and I have even wrapped many of them. I'm pretty much done with the stocking stuffers from all the good drugstore deals I enjoy getting.
One big Christmas task that I have not started working on is our annual Christmas card. Before Drew was born, I made our cards. It was fun for me, and I always got lots of nice feedback from the recipients. Now that Drew is part of our family, I prefer to spend my scrapping time and money on scrapbook pages rather than cards, so in the past few years, I have found that it is cheaper and much less time consuming to simply order photo cards. People want to see Drew, so for us, photo cards are way to go. I love that I can do it all from my computer and just have the cards shipped to us. They always come with envelopes too, which cuts out that step and extra cost.
I've ordered our Christmas photo cards from several different shops through the past few years, and this year, I plan to get our cards from Shutterfly. They have lots of cute Christmas cards and photo cards to choose from. They also make photo books and calendars, which Drew's grandmas LOVE to receive!
If you have a blog and would like to receive 50 free Christmas cards from Shutterfly this year (like I am getting!), follow this link to sign up! Hopefully, this will save you a little time and money this Christmas and get you some cute cards to send to your friends and family!

Mater Teeth

Drew and Jim went to a store the other night and came home with this fun sucker! He put it in upside down at first,

but then he got the hang of it!

Here is a little video of Drew and his Mater teeth sucker!

Some Recent Scrapbook Pages

I have a few scrapbook layouts to share today. They are all based on sketches from Let's Scrap.
The first one is about our Day Out With Thomas in August. We had such a good time that day, and this sketch let me use a lot of pictures from our day. This next layout is about one of Drew's favorite activities. He loves to golf, and he is always excited to go visit Jim at work. Jim gives us a cart ride out to the little range behind the clubhouse and lets Drew hit golf balls off a tee. Drew loves it!

This layout is part two of our trip to the Creation Museum this summer with my parents. We didn't do too many of the the indoor activities at the museum, but we definitely enjoyed the dinosaur section!

This last layout is about our little baseball guy. He loves to hit baseballs in the backyard (and in the living room, for that matter, but we prefer outside!). I did a lot of hand stitching on this layout, and I had a lot of fun with that.

I had mentioned a while back that Jim's current job would be ending at the end of November and that he was hoping to be hired by the new company. He has still not officially been hired, but he and the other managers and superintendents are meeting with the new boss today. We are hoping that this meeting will give us a little more information, and we would appreciate your prayers that all the details will be worked out soon!

Pumpkin Carving

We carved a pumpkin one night last week. It was a little pumpkin that we bought when we were at Lyda farm in North Carolina. Jim was the carver, Drew was the "helper," and I was the photographer. Jim's mom was also there as a spectator. Drew was a bit of a pill that evening, and didn't really help as much as he did last year. He didn't like the feel of the pumpkin, so he didn't help much with cleaning it out. We all pretty much just watched Jim carve. Drew spent a lot of time running around on the porch and playing with the lid of the pumpkin.

Here are the guys with the finished pumpkin. It was pretty cold by the time we finished, and we were all ready to get inside!

Maybe next year, Drew will get a little more interested in the pumpkin-carving process!

Little Engineer

Since Drew is still a big train fan, we decided that he would be an engineer this year for Halloween. He was given the hat and scarf last year for his birthday, so I just picked up some overalls at the thrift store, and his costume was done!
We met some friends at the Detroit Zoo for Zoo Boo a few weeks ago. We had a fun time trick-or-treating at the zoo. Costumed volunteers passed out candy.

Drew and his friend Nathan

The reptile house was open, and Drew enjoyed looking at the animals.

We met some friends at the mall last week to see a little Halloween show.

Sunday night after church, we took Drew to see a few relatives. We went to Jim's mom's house first.

He wanted to fill his bucket with candy!

Then, we went to Jim's sister and brother-in-law's house.

Drew had fun being an engineer this year and was able to wear his costume several times! We are all enjoying his candy this week!