My Year Of Hope! My Year Of Grace!!

 

  My word for the year 2014 was Hope!

Hope: the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best. to look forward to with desire and reasonable confidence. to believe, desire, or trust.

2013 ended with me out of a job, I wanted to choose a word for the new year that would have meaning & hopefully bring us good luck! Hope is one of my Favorite Words! And 2014 brought lots of Hope to our Family; Both my son's got engaged & one of them got Married! I finally found a fun new job. I hit the big 5.0. (Don't tell anybody!) And We celebrated our 27th Wedding Anniversary! My Baby Girls turned 17 and are enjoying their Jr. Year of High School! And Erica will start 2015 with her very first job! Yikes! Where has the time gone?! 

We still face some hard issues in life right now, uncertainty in jobs, no health insurance, family members going through divorces, falling out with people we truly thought were our friends. So as I was trying to choose my word for the New Year, I thought of a great book I read this year called One Thousand Gifts, which showed me the need to be Grateful for all we've been given. I've started keeping a Gratitude Journal, starting a list of my own 1000 Gifts! And I was reminded that all gifts are Grace! Given to us by God.

 My word for 2015 is Grace!

Grace: Unmerited favor of God. favor or goodwill. elegance or beauty of form, manner, motion, or action. to favor or honor. 
Yes. My word for the New Year is Grace! We could all use the Unmerited Favor of God! Gifts bestowed on us, we don't deserve! All gifts are Grace! Everything, from the smallest, seemingly insignificant, to the big and very meaningful! 

So Happy New Year! 
Here's to our year of Hope! 
And here's to a year full of Grace!

Christmas 2014

  

Black Friday Shopping was a family affair this year! 

Up & out by 6am, and won a $100.00 Gift Card to Half Price Book Store!

 

 

 John's Mom shared her secret recipes for her Peanut Brittle & Fudge!

And we've been enjoying the benefits! :)

 Chex Mix is always a favorite around here, 

it must be made every year!

Christmas time is here
Happiness and cheer
Fun for all that children call
Their favorite time of the year

Trying to wrap gifts can be difficult with these two! :)

My Daughter did my nails all cute with Santa Hat French Tips! 

 
 

 Had a great time with the family 

making my Mom's Christmas Cookies! 

The best in the World! 

Snowflakes in the air
Carols everywhere
Olden times and ancient rhymes
Of love and dreams to share

Tried some new recipes this year too! 

Like Frosty the Cheese Ball! :) 

And Corn Flake Marshmallow Wreaths! 

 So cute & yummy!! 

 

 Lexi played an Amazing Flute Solo at her band Concert! 

And also played in our Christmas Eve Service

Sleigh bells in the air
Beauty everywhere
Yuletide by the fireside
And joyful memories there

 

 Yes I am THAT Mom, who makes her grown children stand in line

to get their picture taken with Santa!

Our 2014 edition! 

We've done it EVERY year since our first born was a baby!

And this year he is a Husband! :) 

 
 

 We now have two photo albums of our pictures with Santa over the years!

It's my most favorite Holiday Tradition! 

Christmas time is here
We'll be drawing near
Oh, that we could always see
Such spirit through the year

 

 I listen to only Christmas Music from Halloween through the New Year! 

And my soundtrack this year has included a lot of this album;

Kelly Clarkson's Wrapped In Red!

I especially love the song Four Carats! :) 

 We enjoyed the lights at Glendale Glitters!

Our little Luna found a good use of our stockings! :)

So sweet!

 

Oh, that we could always see
Such spirit through the year...

 We've had a lot of fun (and Laughs!) playing my new game;

Loaded Questions, Party Edition! 

 As a Reading Family we got lots of Books 

and Movies based on Books for Christmas! 

I Love that about us! 

My Beautiful Girls & I on Christmas Eve.! 

Well, that's just some of how we spent our Christmas! It's my favorite time of the year! And I hope you and yours had a Wonderful Holiday as well!

Live, Love, Lace (or How to Dye Lace)

We had been looking and looking, and looking for Dresses for the girls to wear to their brothers Wedding. We wanted Lace and we wanted Yellow!! Sounds easy enough, right? Wrong! We found nothing in yellow! Now  I guess yellow is more of a Spring color, and being the Wedding was in October we were having a very difficult time!

I finally came across a couple of lace dresses I thought my girls would like on Clearance at Kohl's. I held them up to my Husband and asked what he thought, he pointed to one and said "That looks like Lexi!", then pointed to the other one and said "That looks like Erica!" So we sent them pictures and sure enough one said "I like the first one!" and the other one said "I want the one in the second picture!" Just like we suspected! :)

The only problem was the dresses were Ivory! So I thought since you can find just about anything on Pinterest, I would look up how to dye Lace Dresses and dye them ourselves since we couldn't find our color! And the Dresses were only $8.00 & $9.00 so even if I ruined them, it wouldn't be too big of a loss! :)

I'm not very crafty, but my girls are! So we bought the Rit Dye at Michaels and read a couple of posts from people who had dyed lace. It was pretty simple. You add the Dye to water in a bucket, put the dresses in, and wait a few minutes. It was easy and really didn't take long at all!

One dress had thinner lace and the lining dyed lighter than the lace, but we really liked how that looked! They both turned out Great! And the girls looked really Beautiful! Who knew it was so easy to change the color of a dress?! And if I can do it, anyone can! :)

For their Birthday, the girls got some Clothes from YouTuber & clothing designer whom they love, Bethany Mota, at Aeropostale and they came with free bags! Cool! But, Lexi doesn't "do Pink" since that has always been Erica's color! :0 (It's a Twin thing!) So she decided to use the rest of our yellow dye and see what it would do to her bag!

Totally Cute! It went from White & Pink to Yellow & Red! Dying material is really easy! And as you can see it turns out really great! Not one person came up to us at the Wedding to ask if we had dyed their dresses! :) And now I'm seeing lots of Yellow Lace Dresses in the stores! I think we started the trend! :)

Christmas Reading

I love to read Books set at Christmas time, at Christmas time! :) So, I thought I'd share what I'm reading with you, in case you are looking for something to read! I'd also love to hear what you are reading, as I'm always looking for good Christmas Books!

 I'm currently reading A Gift From Tiffany's by; Melissa Hill. (It's also what I'm asking Santa for!) ;) It's about two men visiting New York City and their Tiffany's Bags get switched, one holds a Charm Bracelet & the other a very large, very expensive Engagement Ring! :0

My Book Club (who also loves to read Christmas Books!) is reading Remembering Christmas by: Dan Walsh about two of my favorite things Christmas & Family!!

Now Eleanor & Park isn't technically what you would consider a "Christmas Book." I read it earlier this year & liked it. Christmas happens in the course of this book & it was enough that I included it in my Christmas Books Shelf on Goodreads! Check it out for more Christmas Book ideas! And let me know what it's missing!

Merry Christmas 

& 

Happy Reading