Shutting this blog down! Come over to my new one!!

I am going to close this blog, and hopefully import all the old posts to my new blog.  So this will be my last announcement.  I don't want to lose any of you, so please hop over to Ida & Mae to follow along!  I like readers and comments!  :)

Please join me on my new blog!!

I am going to close this blog and go down to just one blog now that will encompass both my jewelry business and my life.  I think I can merge the old posts on this one onto my new one.  That way I won't lose my old posts from all these years of blogging.  So please come join me on Ida & Mae!  I don't want to lose my followers!!

I relaunched my business! Come follow me!!

You may remember about a year ago at this time I started my little jewelry business Beadworks by Marcy.  Well, I have just relaunched that business with a new name and a new look.  The name limited me to just jewelry, and I want to offer more goods in the near future.  So I bring you, Ida & Mae!  I have a new blog up, a new FB fan page, and I am working on my Etsy shop.  Please come "like" and follow them all!  I am thinking about closing this blog and just having the Ida & Mae blog only.  I certainly do not want to lose any followers, so be sure to come on over and follow me there!  If/when I do decide to close this one, I will be sure to make a big announcement to let you all know.

Christmas is almost here!

Christmas cookies made...

Christmas gifts made and wrapped...

Christmas party finished...

And soon to have sleeping children who will awake on Christmas morning to open presents!  Ron and I are super excited for Christmas this year now that the kids are a bit older.  Ronnie is already anticipating it!  But most of all, we will be sure to share the true reason for the season with our kids, the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  We will read the children's bible story and watch the children's video about the nativity.  Looking forward to it all!  Merry Christmas to you and yours!

Our Christmas cards!!

Well, I ended up choosing a different card design than the ones I blogged about.  But I LOVE how they turned out!  They arrived last night, so I filled them out and mailed them today.  Here is the front of the card:

The inside has a large photo of our whole family with our names underneath it.  And the message says: Merry Christmas
"She will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." Matthew 1:21


Thank you Shutterfly for the wonderful FREE cards!! :)

Baking with my friend Mandy

My friend Mandy posted on Facebook last week that she had tons of whole wheat flour and eggs and was going to do some baking.  She wondered if anyone would like to join her, so I did!  We are like- minded when it comes to eating healthy, natural foods, so I was thrilled to be able to spend some time in the kitchen with her whipping up some yummy recipes.  Her son Hunter is in the hospital recovering from his bone marrow transplant for his leukemia (click on the "help Hunter blast leukemia" link for his Facebook page).  Her husband is staying in the hospital with him, so Mandy is home alone with the kids, and her wonderful friend Tawnie who is staying with her right now.  We had a great time baking up a bunch of different things to try.  All of which tasted great!

Tasty muffins!

Mandy's youngest two children, such hams!! (Almost 5 year old Ronin was the bone marrow donor for her bigger brother, she is such a brave little girl!)

Just some of the mess we made. :)

Me and Mandy.

Hamming it up again with the cheesy smiles!

Mandy was taking out the peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, while Drayken was spitting out the piece of thumbprint cookie he didn't want.  LOL!

These scrambled egg muffins were fantastic!  Like mini quiches!

Dishing out the muffins while Tawnie does dishes for us. :)

Drayken just cracked me up!  He was up on the chair playing with the radio.

A Shutterfly Christmas

I am new to Shutterfly, but so far I have been pleased with them!  I signed up for a new account a couple months ago and received 75 FREE prints!  I had not printed any photos in a long time, so it was fun to be able to get copies of some of the great photos we took this summer.  I had edited some on-line and they turned out so neat!  I kept some for us, and also put some together as Christmas photo gifts for both sets of grandparents.  So right now they are offering bloggers 50 FREE photo cards!  So I am going through their awesome selection of Christmas photo cards.  I like this one as well as this one and this one and this cute vintage one.  It won't be easy to pick out my favorite, but I will eventually narrow it down.  Here are some of the photos I am thinking of using:

In addition to their great card designs, I also love Shutterfly's calendars!  These are a great gift for grandparents, or just for yourself.  Something that I have not seen at many other sites is the option to have your photos made into canvas wall art.  This is neat!  I may have to look into this for a family photo next year.  One other item that I think is neat are their thank you cards.  What a great way to send a thanks to those who attended your child's birthday party!  Fun stuff!  What are you doing for your Christmas cards this year?