Journal Your Christmas - Day 8?

Are you wondering where the posts for days 1 - 7 are?  Well, for now they're in my head. I've been too busy to do any posts, but I'm gathering lots of thoughts and ideas. Once we get to Sunday I should have a LOT more time, I think... and maybe I'll try to go back and catch up on some of the journaling days that I've missed.

This week we have practice on Weds night (which is also our 32nd wedding anniversary), our Home Group Christmas party (here) on Thursday night, Terry has a concert in Scottsdale on Friday night, we're celebrating our anniversary on Saturday and we will be helping with worship at church on Sunday morning.   Then I think the schedule is pretty open until Christmas.  Yea!  Oh, I still have some Christmas shopping and wrapping to finish up, but that's easy peasy compared to these last few weeks.

I thought I could post about today's topic since it's about the Sights of the Season.  I've already been snapping pics this month, so I can easily find what I need.

I love this photo above of our cat, Shredder. She's trying to look so innocent, but you can see the evidence of her tail wagging if you look at the trees on the windowsill.
This past Friday and Saturday 12/4 and 5 - my hubby played in a Christmas Concert each night with some of our best friends. (He's the third one from the right in the rust colored shirt.) Randy Thompson is the featured musician in this band, since many of the songs were written by him. Terry loves playing these concerts with Randy and I love going to them! It's such an awesome way to start the holiday season.




Another one of my favorite sights in December is the bare branch that hangs in the living room.  It's so much fun to change the decor with the seasons. This winter it's sparkly! Silver, gold, crystal and white snowflakes, icicles and other various ornaments. With these decorations it can stay up past Christmas and through the other winter months as well.

And here's a little peek at our Christmas bathroom. This year, I made the two framed pieces on the walls. The black framed picture is filled with holiday designs and expressions from scrapbook paper and the red one, framed in white is "Merry Christmas" greetings on wrapping paper. What a fun and easy way to change out your framed artwork for the holidays!

Be sure to click to enlarge the photos.

Decorating our home is one of my favorite parts of the holidays. Thanks for visiting!

Save the Date!

You have your choice of two Randy Thompson Christmas concerts.  Terry will be playing in the band again this year, but even if he wasn't you should go anyway.

The concerts will be Friday, Dec 4th and Saturday, Dec 5th.  Click to enlarge the poster for more details.

Here are a few photos from the last Christmas Concert.  Sadly, the keyboard player, Gordon Barr is no longer with us.  He has graduated to playing concerts in that awesome band in heaven that never strikes a bad note.  He will be missed.

Randy Thompson Christmas Concert













So, I'm way behind on my posting...not sure where I've been...catching up after my event, I guess. We still don't have Christmas decorations up. Hoping to do that this weekend. We'll also celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary on Sunday. More on that later...

I still need to go back and post from Katie and Ivan's wedding because there are some priceless pics from that one, but I haven't had a chance to go thru them yet. Today, I'll post about Randy Thompson's Christmas Concert. Last Saturday, our dear friends, Randy & Linda Thompson and their family, plus some other friends, performed an awesome concert to usher in the holidays. I love this night and I hope it continues for many years. I know it's hard on their family, so we'll understand (but be sad) if they decide to stop, because it's such a blessing to everyone who participates and those who comes to hear. We would really miss it! I'm thankful that Terry has had a chance to participate and I've had a chance to attend them for the last few years after missing the first 10 years or so of concerts, since we were living in California.

I've posted a few pics here, but the rest of my favorites are at Picasa here Take a look and enjoy! Too bad I don't have a recording of the music. That would make it even more like you were there!

Oh, I also came across those great little gold wire trees at Crate & Barrel last year and I was excited to see that they have them again this year. They have some great prices on some of their holiday ornaments and knick knacks. These can be used as place card holders, but I used them as a little thank you to our staff for the work they did on our last event, along with a few other goodies.

THANK YOU RANDY !!!!

So how do you like my new banner? My dear friend Linda was my inspiration because her banner is so cool. Her husband Randy (pictured here) offered to help me do a banner for my blog. He put together one of my photos with the title, then showed me how to upload it. He even edited the license plate so it's not the original one. Read it closely. I just love it!

I saw this old couple driving down the Arizona highway in that awesome Studebaker and just had to get a picture. I'm thinking that could be Terry and I someday...it's such a picture of happiness to me...still having adventures even when we're older and "grayer".

Stay tuned...I look forward to changing my banner periodically as I get inspired. Thanks Randy, for taking the time to show me how you did it.

Love those musicians!!

I took some pics the other night of Terry, Randy Thompson and Rand Mozingo for an upcoming gig they're doing for Leadership Catalyst. We want to post a "band" photo for them at the event.

The first batch I took were fun, but all of them had something wrong...at least one of the three had eyes closed, mouth open, funny looks, etc. This last batch (above) was more posed, but turned out better overall. Let me know which of these you like the best. I need to decide which one to use for the "marquee"

Here's one of my favorites below from the first set. I LOVE Rand's laughing face!!