Our Return Address-- Santa Style!

I absolutely LOVE playing around with graphics and creating things-- perhaps I spend too much time doing it on occasion.... But, I thought our return address labels that I designed for this year's Christmas newsletter were just too cute!

Sorry about the black outs-- I originally posted it without, but then decided Scott might have a heart attack if he knew I had posted our home address out there for the world to see! Not that someone couldn't Google our address anyway without too much trouble, but....

* Yes-- this is yet another way to pass the time while my newsletter is printing! :)

Type on! Post on! Blog on!

So-- I finished writing my newsletter.... But, I have been sitting here for two hours watching it print! I usually take it to the printer, but for some reason, I decided I could do it myself this year and save time and money. I wouldn't get them back until Monday if I took them to someone to have them printed, and I REALLY want to get them in the mail tomorrow. So, I have about 50 copies printed-- halfway there!

I have been surfing around reading all of the Otter Creek bloggers while I am listening to the hum of my printer working overtime! It is amazing how many people at OC blog! SO cool! It is just nice to be able to catch up on the details of friends' lives that you might not ever know about seeing each other for 5 minutes in the hall at church on Sunday morning. Yes, I am sure that is a sad commentary on the state of relationships in the new millennium... but, blogging is still such a convenient way to share and to stay in touch.

So-- to all my fellow bloggers! Type on! Post on! :) Thanks for opening your worlds for us to share!

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I finally finished my annual Christmas newsletter today! It takes a while to complete anyway, but it is even harder now that I have two little ones underfoot! I think the thing I miss most from my pre-kids days is the ability to work on things without interruption. I am the type-A sort who wants to keep working on a project until it is finished-- I am not good at starting and stopping. Many nights I would stay up until the wee hours trying to complete something-- I still do if it's important because late at night is the only time I have to myself.

Anyway-- I hope to get the newsletter to the printer tomorrow. This is our 12th Christmas newsletter! I have them all saved in two scrapbooks so that they are archived for us to look back on each year and for years to come. I am so thankful to have them. I know some detest getting those type of cards and letters at Christmas which detail all of the activities of a family.... But, I don't apologize! I love our newsletter! We actually have quite a following-- some people actually look forward to getting our letter each year. Well, at least they remember getting it! :) I send out over 100 each year.

It has been such a joy experiencing Christmas through Luke's eyes this year. He gets so excited about things like Christmas lights and Christmas songs. It just reminds you of what a wonderful time of year it is and how precious our world is right now with two sweet little ones. We are just so blessed.

Luke has his first Christmas program at school on Tuesday. I will post photos and maybe even some video for you!

Family Christmas Breakfast

Our Otter Creek Family Christmas Breakfast was on Saturday! I was so blessed to help plan, organize, and decorate for it. I was at church ALL week working on it! It was worth it! We had well over 400 people and over 100 families from church represented.

We utilized the website I designed for the children's ministry to have people make online reservations, and it went over very well. We had 96 families sign up early. That made it so much easier for us to do our table layout and plan for food. We also had a spot online for people to volunteer to do all the various jobs required to make it a success-- from set up, serving, break down, and clean up! People at OC are SO great about helping! We love OC! We will have officially been members at Otter Creek for one year on Christmas day! :)

Incorporating Santa into a church event gets a little tricky... I will save all discussions as to why, but this year we wanted to put more of the focus on the "Reason for the season." We started off the morning with a time of worship and praise for God's most wonderful gift to us! Santa's arrival was still a big hit, too! :)

Deck the Halls!

We spent Thanksgiving at my parents home in Paris, TN-- very nice time. They have such a beautiful spot, and it's always nice to be back where you grew up.

Caroline enjoyed her first Thanksgiving meal! She can eat just about anything now!


She had been SUCH a grump that week-- whiny and wanting to be held. When we returned, we noticed she had two new teeth poking in on top! That explains why she was such a grump! Tonight we noticed another one coming in on bottom which brings her grand total to 4 on top, 3 on bottom! She is getting so big!

Luke always has a great time at Pa Bob's house because he gets to help him work around the house! He couldn't wait to get on the tractor! He kept telling him, "We've got a big job to do!" He spent an entire day following Dad around trying to be helpful-- so sweet.




We returned to Nashville on Saturday and spent the rest of the day at Scott's Dad's and the rest of the Westerman clan! That is always fun! Luke LOVES playing at Grandpa Steve's and hanging out with his gorgeous cousins, Stephanie and Shannon.



Caroline had her 9-month check up on Thursday. She is a tiny little thing! She weighs 16 lbs., 14 oz. which places her in the 25% percentile! She is 50% in height. Dr. Wood said he wasn't worried and that she looked perfectly proportioned. This is just new territory for us since Luke was always in the 95% category! She our little petite princess! :)

My favorite thing now is coming into her room in the morning when she wakes-- She is sitting up smiling and playing! What a big girl! What a way to start our mornings! :)




We spent ALL day Saturday putting up the massive amount of Christmas decorations I have collected! It is so much fun, but also a great deal of work! It has so much more meaning this year now that Luke is really old enough to enjoy it. He had to be involved in EVERY step of the process from climbing up the "big ladder" into the attic with Dad to hand down boxes, to climbing the step ladder to hang ornaments on the Santa tree! He was such a big boy (which he reminds us of constantly)! He also LOVES Christmas lights! He and Scott worked hard outside to get all our bushes trimmed with lights!

Luke is into Christmas music, too, which has been so fun! I filled the CD player in our car with nothing but Christmas and we listen to it when we're out and about. His favorites are "Rudolph", "Here Comes Santa Claus" and "Deck the Halls"-- he's right there on the "fa la la la las!" What a magical time of year!