These pictures were taken a bit before Thanksgiving, but her shirt lended itself to a Christmas like theme... At Thanksgiving, we are thankful for the food God provides; and at Christmas, we are thankful that He sent his son to save us from our sins.

As they say: Live and Learn. That is certainly the case here. I was very surprised to see this picture and others that were taken in White Sands, New Mexico. I had never heard of it. I have seen white sand beaches in Florida and in Hawaii, but I had not seen any inland. I had not even heard of White Sands National Park in New Mexico. In addition, I had no idea that John and his family were traveling there so close to Christmas. So this was a Big Surprise for me...a very pleasant one. I'm hoping to blog more pictures later.

I'm still a bit behind, haven't been making layouts as often as I would like. The one here tonight uses a picture from back in October. It is our granddaughter Lauren and her new husband Pat.

Looks like Oliver is having a great time on his Christmas present. And we have videos that really show how cool this is. We have more videos that were taken that night. Its lights make it extra special. Luckily this is a great time to be on a cul de sac.

It is difficult for us to know exactly what to get the kids for Christmas. We had help from John this year while he was in town. One of the things we found was gift cards for Build a Bear. That is always fun and so we were glad to make those one of our gifts to Julia and Oliver. I'll post a picture of Oliver with his masterpiece soon.

Ava is a very lucky girl. Just look at all the gifts... and it was only the day before Christmas, not a creature was stirring, but Ava. The cool thing is. It was still light outside. Santa hadn't even left the North Pole and look at all those presents. We should have seen this same scene the next morning while all Santa's gifts were everywhere and nothing had been unwrapped.

Pictures with Santa are always special to me. Not only do I enjoy seeing the kids ineract with Santa , but I also like to see the joy in Santa's eyes. That would be a fun job...well, I have seen occasions when it was not so sweet, but not often. I love the smiles. Julia has been accentuating hers a bit. It is called live and learn.