10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.....

well....in just a few minutes anyway.....but we are all up for the duration....this will be the first year the Draper 5 has rung in the new year all up together.

Have a blessed 2008!

Happy New Year!!!

Hope everyone has a fun New Years Eve!! I am doing blog catchup today and tomorrow, so check back. I have 2 new posts below this one.

I started out just going to post my top 10 pics of the year, but it ended 20, and that is still not all of my favorite pictures from this year. Out of over 4,000, it is just too hard to narrow down! These aren't really in order of my favorites, except the top 2...these 2 are my very favorite from this year.

This one is courtesy of KHaynes photography.

Our Christmas party at Suzanne's

So I am really behind on posting these. We went to Suzanne's house a couple of weeks before Christmas to have our Christmas party. My kids so look forward to going to her house, and were even more excited that it was going to be a party!

I had seen on Debbi's blog where they had made gingerbread houses using icing and graham cracker's, so I was really excited to get to do that with the kids.

Suzanne had a Nativity play planned out for the kids, and it was so cute....complete with costumes!

I notice Rachel is sharing her food with Josiah...and he is eagerly taking it!
Of course, some of it had to be eaten along the way!


It was girls against boys creating their villages, and once we were done, it SNOWED on our villages with coconut! And yes, it made a tremendous mess!
The shepherds
Mary holding baby Jesus
Joseph
It was too cute.....too bad my girls were party poopers and wouldn't participate!
Then......they had to run off all that sugar and energy!!

Knitting blog

Lisa has started a new knitting blog. She has asked me to co-author...which is scary since I am in the very beginnning stages of teaching myself how to knit. Check it out http://knitme2gether.blogspot.com/ , and if you would like to be a part of it and write about your knitting experience, let me know! I am working on my first post right now.

Eeewwwww.....

Taking the tree down....

I am usually pretty excited to put up our tree every year. I love unwrapping each ornament and remembering when/where I got it.....the kids excitement, the beauty of the tree when the lights are off. Why is it then, that I can't get that tree down fast enough after Christmas?? My mom always waited until after New years to take hers down, and I would like to be that way....but I just can't stand to look at it anymore. My kids hung all the ornaments on it this year, so you can imagine....what looked bad, just got worse and worse as the weeks went on....you know, with the hangers, rescue heroes, and stuff animals hanging out in the tree as well. I just can't look at that mess, ANY longer!!

Also, Noah asked me if we could leave his tree up all year long, b/c he loves having it. Now I know....it does not hurt one thing to let him leave it up.....and I would love to be able to allow myself to let him do that......but I am so ready to take his down and put it up too! I just don't want to look at another Christmas tree again until, well I guess next Christmas. Anyway, just wondering everyone else's thoughts on this subject!

Crazy Hair...

This chair creates some kind of static when you rub your head on it......

Don't you know THIS was hard to comb out!!!!!! I could have stopped them before it got so bad, b/c I knew it would hurt to brush out....but instead....I egged it on so I could take their picture!

Poor Noah.....he wanted so bad to do the same with his hair....and he is really cheesing like he thought it was standing up, but it just made his flat on his head!

Still missing my kids.....

So, since I am sick, my mom isn't coming tomorrow to bring my babies home, so I don't think I will see them until Saturday. I think this will be the longest I have been without seeing them. I am glad though that they are getting to spend this time with their grandparents. Before we moved to Little Rock, they saw both grandma's at least once a week, and usually more than that since we all went to church together. So....they have really missed them a lot. Our parents have been very important parts of their life, and that is exactly the way I wanted it to be. So anyway.....I am here again whining that I miss them!

And, since I am sick, and going along with the theme of being lazy while they are gone, I have been designing pages for an album Clay is going to make for me. He has started him a new hobby of making mini flushmount albums, and he hass been practicing on our pics....which I am excited about! I have showed you some of these pics before, but b/c they are my all time favorites of the kids when they were little, I thought I would show you the whole album. Each pic will be creased down the center, so that it makes 2 pages, but when you open it, it will show the full spread.