Christmas Cards

I love Shutterfly. If you know me well, you know that I am constantly using their site to store photos and make gifts for family members. I love taking pictures, and what a wonderful way to display them and make family and friends smile while in the process! I looked around the house to see what all 'Shutterfly' I had, and this is all I could come up with because (like I said) I give all of my projects as gifts. Below you'll see the book I made 3 years ago for Daniel for our 1-year dating anniversary and the book I just recently made documenting Riley's 1st year of life.

If you're not familiar with Shutterfly, you should check out their website and see all of the photo possibilities they provide.

Besides photobooks and prints, they also create Holiday cards (click here to see the huge selection). I am so excited about making our Christmas cards this year! I love photo Christmas cards because I feel they are so much more personal than just signing your name to a generic store-bought card. Plus, you can put these cards on your refrigerator and leave them up all year long to remind you of friends and family you may not see very often.

There are 188 different holiday photo cards offered on the Shutterfly website, and I'm going to share a few of my favorites with you.

I love that this one provides space for several pictures and lots of text. Great way to update those you don't see very often about the happenings of 2010!

This one is similar to the one above, but it caught my eye, too. Again, several pictures and text can be included. You know, the cute little boys may be part of why I like them, too...I'm drawn to cute little boys :)

I love all of the bright colors! The word 'joy' is such a short word, yet has such a powerful meaning. I would love to share our joy with those we send our cards to!

"And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." 1 Cor. 13:13 After all, Christmas is all about God's great love for mankind...SO great that He chose to send Jesus Christ to this earth!

So as I said earlier, I love Shutterfly. Now you know some of the reasons! Plus, for my fellow bloggers out there, Shutterfly is currently offering 50 free holiday cards! If you're looking for just the right holiday card and want to be included in this offer, be sure to go here.

Operation Christmas Child

It's that time of year again! Operation Christmas Child through Samaritan's Purse is collecting shoeboxes full of gifts for children all over the world. We found out when we came to FBC Hughes Springs that our church has been involved in OCC for years (which we were excited to hear!) - in fact, we're the collection site for our area. This morning was collection day for those in our church who chose to participate, so yesterday I packed our box so I could be sure to take it this morning. After I finished packing it, I called Daniel inside (he was out working on his 'new' car...surprise, surprise!) so we could pray for the child who would receive the box. Riley was toddling around as usual, so we asked if he wanted to pray with us. I am blown away every day at just how much his little 15 1/2 month old brain understands! He walked over, grabbed both of our hands, and just stood there the whole time Daniel was praying. Then when Daniel finished and said, "Amen," Riley said, "Amen." It was the sweetest thing! We always pray together at our meals, but I didn't know that he realized prayer didn't have to just be at mealtime, and I certainly didn't know he could say "Amen." Now, don't get me wrong. I don't think our son is some sort of super-spiritual 1-year-old who is going to start preaching tomorrow, BUT I do know now just how important it is that we SHOW him what it means to be a follower of Christ even at this young age. He is watching everything we do and listening to everything we say. We must be intentional about living out our faith in front of our son. I'll never forget standing in the kitchen praying over that box with our baby! Oh how I pray that whoever gets our box (a boy between the ages of 5 and 9) will know who Jesus is and have parents who desire to teach him about faith in Christ!

Here are some of the boxes collected this morning during the worship service

Riley and Daddy with our box

Happy?

Riley's new favorite word is "happy." I'm not sure where he picked it up. Maybe it's from the multiple times a day that I sing "If you're happy and you know it." :) Anyway, he likes to walk around the house saying "happy" or "be happy." It is too cute, so I decided to video this morning. You'll also get to see a 'live' view of the joy that comes from playing with shoes.

*Disclaimer: I am well aware that his clothes do not even come close to matching and he's wearing a halloween shirt. It was Sunday morning, and he had just had a bath but it was too early to put on his church clothes. :)

Ferocious or Friendly?

*Let me begin this post by reporting that all those living in the Bramlett household are feeling much better and just about back to normal (whatever that is!). Daniel has a few more days on an antibiotic, and then we should be medicine-free! Thank you so much for your prayers!

I had no clue what Riley was going to be for Halloween until a few weeks before when I received a call from Daniel's mom. She asked if we had a costume for him yet, and I said no and that we really hadn't decided on one. She then told me she'd found one and wanted to send it to us. It took .2 seconds for me to say, "yes, we would love for him to be a lion!" :) Anytime a grandparent offers to send something you thought you were going to have to buy, you're dumb not to take them up on their offer! Plus, I saw a picture of the costume while she was in the store, and it was adorable! Are you ready to see the cutest lion ever?!

I just knew that he would hate having the hood on his head, but he was completely content with it! He never once tried to pull it off. Such a good lion! :) Here we are on our way to the town's trunk or treat.

I was just looking back at last year's Halloween post...what a difference a year makes! We stuck with the African animal theme, though, and I love that! :) Doesn't he look oh so ferocious?!
Walking around at the trunk or treat.

This is my hands-down favorite pic (taken by Krystle, by the way) from the weekend. Here's Dorothy (Abigail - 24 days older than Riley) and the Lion. I printed this one and it will be going in a frame very soon!

Not only was Riley a great sport Saturday night, but he wore his costume again Sunday night for our church's fall festival. Family pic before heading to the festival. (notice my African shirt...yes, that was intentional)

I just love him!
My two boys...so thankful for them!

So, after seeing all of the pictures, what would you say? Ferocious or Friendly?! I may be biased, but I think the answer's pretty obvious. :)

More Shoes Please

I've been wanting to write this post for several weeks now, but haven't taken the time. Tonight's the night...after the week(s) we've had (and it's not over yet!), I need a chance to reflect on things that make my sweet boy happy. As you may have guessed from the title, shoes are one of those things. He didn't care about shoes until he began walking about a month ago. Up until that point, I wasn't too concerned about him wearing any because he was just crawling around everywhere. He wore the same pair all summer thanks to some great friends in N.O. handing them down (love y'all, Hudson's!). Anyway, he is now ALL ABOUT shoes!

He likes to walk around the house carrying our shoesHe likes trying on his daddy's shoes! Now that's a "shoe" I would love for him to fill one day! I pray he always wants to be like daddy.

And he likes to try on his own shoes in his room. Notice them scattered across the floor...
It's not even necessary that they match!
In fact, I think he kind of likes it when they don't match! :)
As you can tell, if we're just playing in his room and have no intentions of going outside, he still wants to have shoes on. One day he even tried to put a pair on OVER another pair. He wouldn't believe me when I told him it wouldn't work...I had to SHOW him! Can we say determined?!

I'm just so thankful that his shoes currently come from his cousin C.J. and his grandmother, Ya Ya! If he still loves shoes this much when he's older and we're buying them, I sure hope he'll get excited over the ones we find at Goodwill! :)

Sick boy

I don't have much time to write right now, but I wanted to ask you all to please pray for the little man. He's had a rough go of it the past couple of weeks. Last Monday (18th) I took him to the doctor for congestion and a cough. He was given an antibiotic and breathing treatments. The dr. said he didn't have bronchitis but was close to it. Yesterday he finished the antibiotics and still wasn't better, so we took him back to the dr. today. I'm so thankful Daniel was able to go this time. They did chest x-rays and took blood and determined he now has bronchitis. SO, we're trying a different antibiotic and continuing the breathing treatments. I feel so sorry for the little guy! He's such a good sick patient, though. He hasn't really acted like he's feeling bad, and he gets so excited when I give him his medicine...they must really make it taste good! Anyway, please remember him in your prayers. Thank you so much, and I'll try to write a more "fun" post soon.

Turkey

I was reading a cooking magazine yesterday when Riley came up and pointed to the front cover. There was a turkey on the front, so I said, "turkey." He then said his rendition of "turkey." I thought it was just a fluke, so I said it again, and then he said it again. I was shocked...I mean, he won't say book, but he'll say turkey?! Then, last night after dinner, he just started saying it on his own for Daniel. I knew it was time for a video!