Buy Handmade! Shameless plug ahead...

Send a Christmas gift that packs a great big punch of love... BUY HANDMADE! Everyone loves to get a handmade gift. Not only was it made with careful attention, it often is unique in some way. I've bought many of my gifts this year from etsy.com and still have a few more to go. So please show some love to some artisians (I did leave out "starving") and BUY HANDMADE this year!!!

Visit georgiajewels.etsy.com and receive free shipping... for friends until Christmas!! And if you are local... just call me and pick it up. I am even offering FREE giftwrapping! I will be posting gift wrap OPTIONS tomorrow on my site!

Turkey Day Breakfast

It's a day to bask in thanks, family, and tastebuds! Need I say more? But of course...

MANY THANKS GIVEN...

Wow, what a year full of thanks and praise to be given to our gracious and ever loving Father in heaven! My family over flows with blessings and I absolutely LOVE the holiday of Thanksgiving. I love traveling HOME and having family gathered to play, relax, and EAT! We played games for 4 straight hours on turkey day. Soon after confessing that I cheated by eyeballing the "I" in the scrabble bag to make my triple "q" word... I was pretty much fried!

This holiday was wonderful as always but we missed several family members... including Don who ended up flying.

Abby and I left to go on Tuesday. She had fallen last Saturday off of the deck onto the fence... yes... stradled it and had a very bad injury. I was afraid our traveling would be delayed but we found a donut for her to sit on and it worked out great!

The girls, (my mother, sister, and Abby and I) had a portrait made on Wednesday. That night mom and I went to the auction. It was the greatest entertainment I have had in months!

We spent five hours people laughing to death and left with great stories and some really great buys!

Thanksgiving Day was wonderful. I LOVE turkey and cranberry sauce. I love laughing with my brothers and sisters and playing games, watching movies and just hangin. I love the chill in the air and the hint of Christmas around the corner. I love the pumpkin cheesecake and left overs! I love being home. Abby loves being with everyone too and its always just a treat.

Oh Christmas Tree...

Friday the Christmas tree was bought... cut... measured... recut... and then put up! The smell is so perfect and is the most wonderful thing to start the holiday off with (along with the first official glass of eggnog and shuffle of Christmas cd's)! Mom and Dad always have the most beautiful tree... there are enough lights on it to light a small city.

Fear the Spear!

The best part of Friday was David's high school football game that night. Sherando High School has won the past 20 something games and played for the regional championship. It was 32 degrees and there we sat... OUTSIDE on bleachers! But boy were we prepared! We all had on about three to four layers of clothing... sat on folded comforters... had two huge things of coffee and another of hot chocolate... a bag full of food and candy... hand warmers for our gloves... and much energy for yelling! The warrior on the gorgeous and majestic horse came out and ran down the sidelines (always just an amazing sight) and Abby wasn't sure what to think. When Sherando quickly scored and the fireworks went off... she was very happy about being there.

The warriors won 38 to 0 and became regional champs! It was such a fun time and now they are off for the semi-finals next week for state! Go SHEEEEEEEE-RAN--DOEEEEEEEEEEE Warriors... or simply, "Fear the Spear"!

Going back to Georgia...

We came home yesterday and Don was waiting for us with Dusty and snacks in the car. We are glad to be back home with daddy and also glad we get to go back to Funchester (Winchester) in just four weeks. After days of going full throttle, staying up late and being much of the entertainment, my precious girl (who is almost healed) fell asleep before we got off the runway and slept the entire flight home. When I woke her up after we landed, she looked up with very droggy eyes and said, "Can I have the cookies?" I had told her when we got on the plane that after we took off, our flight attendant would bring her some cookies. You should have seen her face when I told her she'd slept right through the cookies!

My Georgia Jewels

Please visit my new jewelry blog!

mygeorgiajewels.blogspot.com!

Thank you! You should all buy hand crafted for Christmas! I have free shipping through the end of the month! In December, I'll be offering 20% off to all friends! Come and play!!!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I totally love Thanksgiving with my family. It's my favorite holiday with Christmas being a VERY close second.

What I love about Thanksgiving is just the feeling of love and thankfulness that saturates the entire visit and day. My family has SO many things to be thankful for and we really celebrate them... together. I love the smell of burning leaves, the warmth of a great sweater, the crackle of a fire, and the smell of a roasting turkey! Add in permission to play Christmas music, the anticipation of buying the tree that weekend, the yearly family photo, laughter and lots of games... you've got a perfect holiday.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my precious friends and family. We love you and pray you are blessed with many blessings. xoxoxoxoxoxoxo

A moment with Daddy and Abby

Our camping trip was such a joy. To watch Abby run up trails to the top of a mountain was just a blessing. We just smiled the entire time. We hiked a trail to a waterfall. Poor Georgia is almost dry of water and so the fall was more like a trickle but at least it wasn't dry after all that climbing! We saw deer (reindeer as Abby calls them) on the way up too.

A fellow camper told us of a trail that led out to a swinging bridge... one of the largest in the country. It's on the Appalachian trail and was just beautiful. Abby and Daddy were admiring the river below it.

Our journey for Caroline continues. We are almost done with the homestudy and then can move on to the last piece of the puzzle before getting our dossier done. We are hoping to be done with the Dossier by the end of December and maybe travel late spring or early summer!

Hello Friends... been a while

I am sorry I have been gone for so long. So much has happened and it's just so hard to get caught up! We had a trip to Virginia to visit my dear friend Karen and her new and third baby, Rachel. It was a wonderful visit.

We had a camping trip to the mountains and had a blast. Abby is our adventurous camper girl. Her favorite part was peeing in the woods... of course! I took lots of photos and this is one of my favorites! I LOVE TREES.

We bought a new car for mommy... a Toyota Solara CONVERTIBLE. So much fun and we even had two warm days this week to enjoy it! Abby just sits in the back and smiles from ear to ear... she just giggles when the top goes down... too cute.

P.S. Blogger is being a BUG and it has taken me 5 attempts to get this photo!!!! ughhhh

make it 6...