The last blessing I posted was for the week of 12/7. SOOO.....I'm a bit behind. :P
So here's the one for 12/14, in honor of his birthday that was that week, my older brother, Deron. oh, almost forgot my plug! This is with Sya's 'The chosen One, set 2' templates.
Journaling reads:Deron is my eldest brother, and growing up we rarely saw eye-to-eye on anything. But now that we’re older, I have a new appreciation for him. He has an uncanny memory, especially for music, so there have been lots of laughs as we remember old songs and old TV shows. The best thing thats happened is that Zach has latched onto his Uncle Deron in a very sweet way. Zach runs to him the instant he walks into a room and will be content to sit on his lap for hours onend. He may not have any children of his own, but Deron’s definitely got a soft spot in his heart for Zach. They’re buddies! And seeing this interaction makes me appreciate my older brother a lot more now than I used to. He really is a blessing to my family.Next up, for the week of 12/21, in honor of Christmas, my blessing was the Birth of Christ.....and since I didn't even set up my nativity scene this year (we totally slacked on the decorating around the house since we were gone for so long), I snagged this picture of what my nativity scene looks like off the internet. Gotta love Flickr! Template is from Sya's 'Chosen One, set 3'.
journaling reads:As a Christian, there isn’t any story or event that is more precious than that of the birth of Christ. He was a king, but wasn’t born that way, and that beginning set a precedent for his life and his works here on Earth. His birth meant a huge change for life as it was known at the time, and for those of us that live after him, it’s hard to imagine what our lives would have been like had that night in the manger never happened. Each year at this time of year, we make sure to read the story of the birth of Jesus to our kids so that the real meaning of the holidays doesn’t get completely lost in Santa and his reindeer. I want my kids to know how important this little story is to me, to them, and to the world. The birth of Christ started a whole new life for the world, and for that, we are all forever blessed.
Then for the week of 12/28, since I previously did a blessing on the Mother/Daughter bond, I thought I'd better keep things even and do the Father/son bond for Karl, Matthew, and Zach.
Journaling reads: These are my boys. Karl has his twinny-twin Matthew, and his ‘second twin' in Zach and they just love to wrestle and play together as only boys can do. They like to chase each other and watch silly ‘boy shows’ and have all kinds of fun together. I’m so glad they get along so well and are as close as they are. I love my boys very much!And now for this week, 1/4, I chose to showcase some of my priceless gifts...template is from Sya's 'Stripped, set 4'
journaling reads:I’m not really a materialistic person. Sure, I enjoy a box of Godiva chocolates just as much as the next gal, but the gifts that I truly look forward to each year are the ones made by my children in their classes. One of my most treasured ornaments for the tree isn’t one that I got from Hallmark,it’s the little gold ornament that has a handprint of Alaina’s when she was in Pre-K and the teacher made each ‘finger’ into a snowman. That ornament is so special because of what it represents. Alaina and Matthew both made molds of their hands in Kindergarten, so now I have their two handprints, preserved forever when they were five years old. In Pre-K, Matthew cut a bell out of dough and painted it himself and was so proud of it! And the cinnamon christmas tree is one that Matthew and I made together at a parents’night. Then this year Matthew made me a Christmas card and Alaina made a stocking ornament for me. As my collection of these little treasures grows each year, I am completely overwhelmed by the joy that the kids have in making and giving them to me, and I will always cherish each and every one. These are by far the best Christmas gifts a mom like me could ask for.So there! All caught up with the blessings.....now, onto all the other stuff I've scrapped, and after being trapped for almost 40 hours in a vehicle, I've got LOTS of layouts to share! :P Are you ready? Here we go!
Alaina's Thanksgiving program at school:
Alaina's brownie troop at the bounce houses:
my Mom's family Christmas get-together:
Alaina and her 3rd (I think) cousin, Lindsay at the family get-together:
opening presents at my parents' house: 
Alaina using her new cupcake maker she got from my parents:
The ginerbread house we made this year:
Our family portrait:
The kids' formal portrait:
Zach and Matthew enjoying some Christmas cookies:
Matthew's class Christmas party:
Alaina's class Christmas party:
Christmas morning at our house (on New Year's Eve technically):
New Year's Eve '09 at the Rainforest Cafe (which I can't really take credit for since I just changed some of the pictures and redid the journaling...my SIL Nicole did the actual layout)
British Ice Creams (which DO taste funny...it wasn't just the kids), using Sya's kit, 'Learning Curve': 
An Irish Carriage Ride in Galway:
The Dublin Cross:
The Menai Bridge (or as we like to remember it: The bridge that we couldn't cross because the TomTom didn't know the bus was too wide to get through! LOL!)
Our cruise opening page, using Sya's 'Stripped Set 4' template:
Our cabin decorations, using Sya's 'Stripped Set 4' template:
Karl's surprise welcome gift of a cooler/mug/hat and Bud!, again using Sya's 'Stripped Set 4' template:
The towel animals on our cruise:
And last, but not least, to plug Vicki's new kit she's releasing tomorrow, called "Fall Memories", a layout from our UK trip of the Globe Theatre:
I THINK thats it! Told ya there was a lot! :P And now that catches you up on all my scrapping endeavours. I'm sure you're stoked!
That's enough scrolling down the page for now, don't ya think? This has been a fairly uneventful weekend...the only exciting thing was that Alaina started her pre-baptismal classes today....I cannot BELIEVE she's old enough for that already! Where has the time gone, seriously?? the rest of the weekend we've just doing laundry and starting to reclaim the house from that post-vacation mess that always happens. Why is it that we manage to walk into a clean house after having been gone for 2 weeks, and in a matter of minutes, it looks like a nuclear weapon was detonated?? It's a talent I guess. BUT, all laundry is put away for the moment (since laundry never really ENDS, that's only a temporary gloat), the kids are bathed, and lunches are made for tomorrow. I feel like I'm almost ahead of the game right now!
and tomorrow it's back to work/school for all of us...BLAH! So until next update.....later!
then we said goodbye to Miami and were off to the Carribbean!
That night there was a 'welcome dance party' at Camp Carnival, where we saw Funship Freddy....
Monday, we were at sea all day, so the kids went to Camp Carnival......Zach lasted all of 37 minutes before we were paged to come pick him up! Alaina stayed in her class though, and they were rehearsing for a Christmas program they were going to put on the next day. so we just explored the ship for a bit...
Alaina headed off for her last practice. She was super excited because she'd gotten picked to sing a solo in the program! And since she was the only one singing any kind of solo, we were quite proud of her! So we made sure to get good seats for the program:
The after naps, we were pulling into San Juan, Puerto Rico....I was the only one awake, so I went up on deck to snag some shots of the old forts as we pulled in to dock...
then another group shot from a fellow passenger 
and back onto the ship!
AHHHH........
The next day was Christmas day, and we were in St. Maarten........so in honor of the day, take note of the headgear:
We went to Orient Beach and not only was it super-crowded, but the waves were really rough.....but that let us enjoy boogie-boarding for the first time!
The next two days were at sea heading back north to Miami, so we hung out on the ship....the kids participated in a build-a-bear workshop-type thing (parents paying dearly for said bears of course!)
And the kids wanted to take their "bears" to formal night (none of the kids actually made a BEAR at all....Alaina chose a Husky, Matthew picked a Moose, and Zach wanted a 'towman')....
Matthew wasn't tall enough, so Alaina was the only one that got to try out the big waterslide on the ship:
And then on the last day we all played a round of miniature golf up on the top deck....it was really windy with the boat rocking, we had the perfect excuse for our crummy scores!
I would push Zach around in his stroller quite a bit (and ride the glass elevators), so I got lots of chances to take some pictures of the ship.... 
Then on Sunday morning we were back in Miami.....I took the traditional cruise pictures of the kids while we were waiting for our debarking group to be called:
Then it was back to the van to start the drive home! We made a couple stops along the way....in Savannah, Georgia, where my aunt used to live....we went to dinner at a place she used to take us:
then the next day just as we were leaving the hotel, there was a big explosion and the power went out, so we had housekeeping staff carrying our luggage and Zach down the 5 flights of stairs to the ground......exciting!!
