It’s official! I have completely lost my mind!

After having been gone for NINE DAYS and TWO HOURS on our “spontaneous” football National Championship “vacation” – HA, HA – I walked into my home during the wee hours of the morn and sat down to my computer(S) because I didn’t want to miss a party.
A party people…with you!!
No, the van isn’t unpacked, but the cooler is empty.
Is that good enough?
Ladies, this is not just any party, but a gazillion of the best parties in town.
Could you not have spread them out ladies – Boo Mama, Thrifty Decor Chick, and Julia?
Kimba, Rhoda?
I have no social calendar for months, and now they all fall at the same time?
When I have no time for quality blogging?
Talk about balancing beauty and bedlam!
Here I am wanting to impress you with small moments of beauty, so I decide to go techie on you and load pics from my laptop while typing on my main computer…guess what…blogspot doesn’t like that very much.
I lost all of my verbage!! AHHH!!!!
Therefore, I really don’t have time to be the hostess with the mostess at 3:00am…come back later for the Homemade Gourmet treats. Right now, all I have to offer are these…..
Don’t worry, they’ve only been sitting here for two weeks, but my heat was turned down very low, so apple pies – here we come.
Last week, The Nester got us all imagining we could be her with our garlands.
It was lots of fun sprucing up our mantles.

Since my conscious is guiding my time right now, as well as the fact, I have numerous toothpicks holding open my eye lids, I will just give you a sneak peak into my many tree with some of the pictures I already had loaded.
One of my traditions is to give each of our five children an ornament every year, as well as making some together.
When we “launch” them into adulthood, they will leave with a set of handmade Jesse Tree ornaments (post coming this week), as well as the ornaments that we have collected each year. It became a bit of a challenge to figure out how to decorate with a variety of styles, so now we have “compromised” and have SIX trees.
Yes, it’s the only thing I do up big.
(more trees at We are that Family…I’m really late to that party 🙂

I have One large 9 foot tree that the kids call the “fancy tree.”

Diamonds are a girl’s best friend, aren’t they?
This is the tree where I can indulge my white light fetish,
as well as pretend that I am dripping in gems.
I am not really a diamond kind of gal, but during December, it sure is fun.

Only fancy ornaments are allowed…gold, diamonds, ivory/burgundy ribbons, oh, and I can’t forget the pearls.

Then, in our foyer, we have the kids’ tree. (pretend picture here)
They can have as much fun as they want…colored lights, colored ornaments, and it always looks spectacular. They really want to feature it in the great room, but I haven’t been able to give up gazing and gawking at the fancy tree yet. Maybe next year.

I then have four small trees.
1. The most meaningful is our Jesse Tree, and I will go into detail on it Wed.
2. My music tree, which began when my very first bridal shower invitation asked every one to bring a musical type ornament (I was in full time ministry leading worship at the time).

3. My angel tree, which began at age 16, when my mom and dad presented me with my hope chest that had many special angel things in it.

4. And, of course…a sports tree.
Three boys….need I say more? (and yes, the girls love it too)
Definitely… GO PACK…we have quite a few more of these. 🙂

And as I was taking the picture…


I am not kidding…look at the book it fell on. hee hee
This is Carl – our Elf on the Shelf…click the side bar – follow me and you’ll hear all about this fantastically fun tradition, as well as many more ideas to come.
Yea – I am finally home!!

And now for some of our outdoor family decor and lighting, taken just for you a few days ago.


I hope you are enjoying time to pause and ponder the real meaning of the season….it’s all about HIM!