William being all cutie boy!

I bought this fun little decoration set at Anything Indoors today. I personally think it is fun and whimsical. I thought I would take a few pictures of him enjoying it since he was pretty interested. I am always amazed at what the kids notice in our house. I add one small thing to my home and everyone notices. Funny!

The Letter K

K is for Knot

Wordless Wednesday…My little Santa :)!

The Annual Nutcracker Ballet Adventure!

We love the yearly event of heading to the Nutcracker and had such a lovely time again! We were minus one of my nieces this year and my mum  :(. I just hope that doesn’t keep happening…it would be sad to be missing people every year, I much rather have us all together.  (I feel like Josephine March in the Little Women movie when she was upset that all the sisters may never all be together again…picture my face with a big pout).
Here is one of the girls that arrived before the show started. Isn’t she just lovely?
 
The younger girls :)!

The beautiful Paramount architecture, amazing!

Of course we aren’t allowed to take pictures during the show :(, so I snapped shots as quick as I could at the end while the actors and actresses came out for our applause.

After the show was completely over the younger girls were eager to get on the stage and have their pictures taken with the stars.

I just loved this shot with the colors just popping so boldly! The girls (faux guys) were quite busy with all their shenanigans in the show and out. I think they had the best time of all the other participants.

She was just lovely!

We departed from the Paramount and then headed over to Ciatti’s for a quick meal.

Clarisse was pretty excited to eat out and loved the Italian restaurant option. She greatly enjoyed her Ravioli! For me, I was just tickled to check out their WHOLE Gluten Free Menu option. This is the first restaurant I have gone to that has a separate Gluten Free Menu for folks just like me.

Salad is always a yummy treat at a restaurant…why does it taste better there?

Just like the last time I ordered the Chicken Saltimboca. Many this is the tastiest thing ever!!!!!

Lorrie ordered the yummy Shrimp Cappelini…doesn’t that look fabulous!

When we were leaving I saw this shot and had to take it. The kitchen can be seen from the lobby so perfectly. It sure would be fun to just take a bunch of pictures around their kitchen if they would ever let us. Hmmmm, what fun!
The day ended with a return home….ahhhh, what a wonderful day!!!!

Repurposed Items

For the Camera Club this month the assignment was to take pictures of repurposed items. I actually found this to be incredibly challenging and I can’t say I loved it, but I came up with a few things none the less.
What do you think of Will’s repurpose of a toilet paper roll?

…or a plastic spoon?

At the Bakken Museum they had this repurpose of a TV..it may not be good for the TV, but it sure looked cool :)!

This was the final one that I shared at the meeting. This one was specifically suggested by Dawn and it was a good one. Everyone at the meeting agreed this was one of the top repurposed items. Although Minsan pointed out that it isn’t a true repurpose in that it does tend to go back to its original purpose once it finishes it’s job.

Christmas in Many Actions :)!

I took this shot of my sister’s christmas tree the other day and I just loved it. Here is the sooc shot:

Then for some fun, you know, I am just loving the Butterscotch Vintage look :)! Doesn’t it look sooooo 1960’s?  Here is the lovely Vivid style that I love all the time.

How about a little Hot Cocoa action. I love the softness.

Yep, just having fun playin' with Christmas!

The Letter J

J is for Jars

I really, really just love this action!!!

hmmm, butterscotch vintage……
No really, doesn’t he look adorable with the butterscotch vintage  action?!

The Letter I

I is for Ice Cream.

I was excited to try the Butterscotch Vintage action from the Coffeeshop site and this seemed like the perfect time to do so.

Here is another one.

Here is what the original pictures look like.

You know it isn’t like they are terrible in the before pictures, but I did like how the Butterscotch Vintage action added a nice touch to it.  Yep, it works just perfect for me :)!

Christmas has arrived at the Sauers Home

The season began as it has every year with the McGee’s sending us an Advent Calendar. I always find it endearing that they remember us each year :)!

Here is Duncan on December 1st with the first flip entering into the Christmas season.

Since the basement was finished earlier this week, it was finally time to decorate for the holidays. If I remember right, last year we had just finished construction as well…nearly to the same day (how in the world did that happen?!!!!) and because of it, I had not done much decorating…I believe that I did the bare minimum. ALL the other years before this I have always decorated the day after Thanksgiving and you know what…that is a lovely way to start off the Christmas season and I hope we can do that again in the years to come.

So this year we got a late start, but we didn’t spare any part of it. Since we have a new second level now too, we acquired another fake tree (these are necessary now since Will’s mold allergy arrived in our life) from Nichole (thank you!!!) and now have two fully decorated trees in our house. In addition to those two, the kids were able to get a tiny tree when we had met at Minsan’s grandparents home last weekend.

The boys took the tree that grandma had and have since used it in their room. Clarisse acquired a small one I had and decorated it for her room. They are all really excited to have their own trees in their rooms.

Here is Clarisse’s before it arrived in her room.

The strange part of life for me was assembling the fake trees. That is a very weird concept for me since I have always, always, always had a live tree and loved all the aspects of it. My new job is to fall in love with the new fake tree life that we have…I will admit with prices having gone up so much with real trees that having two fake ones will certainly keep Christmas costs down :)!

Here are my little helpers as we assembled the tree for the basement. 

Here are the same helpers decorating the tree.

The kids loved helping and really were very good helpers. Having the kids get bigger has certainly changed the adventure. Having the ornaments actually stay on the tree is pretty cool too :)!

Here hammy Santa Boy!

…and boy who loved Santa’s stockings and really wanted to know how many stockings Santa had!

Here is the final tree for the kids :)! It sure is busy, but they are very proud of it!

While they were decorating I set up the horse sleigh that I use every year that was made by my grandpa Norris. In this season while we have this old piano it seems to be a great place to have it and to also hang the stockings. I can’t say that we have hung them more than a few times ever, but it was fun for the kids. Somehow they expect that there is supposed to be presents in there on Christmas morning…what gave them that idea!?! I am the only one with my name on it though. I think my mom had made it for me when I was just a wee one…anyone want to make one for each of the rest of my family members?

Here is the view from my entry way. I bought new garland at the end of last year with fake snow on it and everything. I personally think that it is just lovely and am thrilled with the results! I love having a fully decorated banister. Not all split levels have a full banister like this, but since Minsan knew how much it meant to me to have one, he made sure to protect it for me. When we were in the building process a HUGE price increase arrived because of all our rocks on the property. It was going to cost a lot of money to haul them away. The builder knew that we were on a VERY tight budget and had planned to recoup the cost by having this area be a sheetrocked half wall since banisters like this cost around $1500. After all was said and done, I am glad that Minsan found another way to make this work and keep the banister plan. I love it!!!

…and I love this garland, especially at night with the lights all twinkly!

Here is the new fake tree that Nichole donated to me. It went together super fast compared to the one in the basement. It is called a Canadian pine, but it does look an awful lot like a Scotch pine which happens to be my favorite styled Christmas tree. It was only three pieces and the the branches are all attached. It was soooo much easier to put together, love that!

I added a few new ornaments when I bought the new garland last year. Honestly, I happened upon an AMAZING sale last year after Christmas. I had forgotten half of what I had gotten last year, so this was really fun to unwrap and check it all out.

I love this and one other butterfly clip I had acquired. So pretty too!

I got a handful of a few different sizes of these stars. It fell in line with my rustic/gold styled tree that I have been working towards for a few years. One more bonus from the two trees thing is that I was able to decorate this tree EXACTLY how I wanted this year :)! I know it is selfish, but I really do love the style I have with it and it is hard to do that when the kids help!

Here is one of my older decorations. I have a couple of them and they actually just sit on a branch. I just love them!

The terrible thing is that I have no idea who gave this tea pot to me (sorry if it is you…), but I love how cute and simple it is.

Here is another one I had bought a few years back. I have a number of them that are in that style, but different toys.

I acquired the manger that Minsan’s grandma has used for years. Minsan’s grandpa had made it too, so it made it extra special. In the box also were the contents of the two bags were all these little people.

So here is the manger scene ala Great Grandma Sauers…incredibly sad to have put it up, but I know that the sadness will lessen in time and we will be able to continue on with the fond memories of her life.

So here is my living room in all its Christmas glory. This is the first year that the tree has been in my living room area, but with the TV moving downstairs there was that wide open wall that needed to be used. As far as what I should do with it when the season is over…well that remains to be seen :)!

There you go, Christmas Sauers style. Thanks for walking through this journey with me :)!

The Letter H

H is for Helpers…

Santa’s Little Helpers ;)!

19, 999

Yep, I have officially turned over the 20,000 picture mark with my camera. It cycles through the numbers and is able to take 9,999 before starting all over again. It surprises me when it happens. I first got the camera in the spring of 2008 and it took me about 14 months to move do the first cycle. This time it only took me 5 months…. it is no wonder that I needed to upgrade my hard drive to a Terabyte size!

So here is the 19,999th picture:

Letter G

G is for Gold Ball

…and gold glitter.

I know this is a blurry shot, but Grandma Gloria couldn’t be missed in the letter G moment!

The life of Riley

I had the chance to take some pictures of a baby that was born to some missionaries we know. I pretty much pushed myself on them because I love practicing on newborns…isn’t he super sweet!?!
   
While I was taking his pics his older sister could not help but jump in and share in the fun! She loves her new little brother  very much :)!

Isn’t she adorable?

Here is their older brother too. He came home just as I was finishing up.

They are an amazing family and I am so thankful they let me take some pictures of their family :)!

Zechariah and Jeremiah

Here are some picture I took of the other Sauers Boys from the Chip and Gloria clan. It was  quick shoot outside, but thankfully a successful one. Here are just a few more of the many pictures I took!

There you go, just a few great ones of these little guys called Brothers! Thanks Nichole for letting me do this, it was sooo much fun!