Shelor Christmas Card

Scarlet Script Frame Christmas 5x7 folded card

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I was so happy with the Shutterfly Christmas cards we were able to make this year and send out! I used my sister's wonderful photography skills of course and then put the picture above on front and three smaller ones inside. I was also able to do a small update on our family inside. I will definitely be using Shutterfly again!!!

Wonderful Week of Christmas

Although being more homebound this week we have been blessed by guests and gifts! My sister Beth came down for a couple days to help me out and keep us company. She was a big help around the house and with Gideon. Then we had my brother Zach drop by for a little bit, my parents came for dinner and Tyler came to share about his trip to Guyana. We enjoyed the company and food they brought. We also had a man from our Church come out and bring us a bassinet they are done using--it is simply beautiful and I am so excited to have the bed up in our room for baby! Which by the way baby has made it to 32 weeks which is wonderful!

Gideon woke up bright and early this Christmas morning and had a blast opening his stocking--he loves that thing--and his Christmas gift. He was such a happy cheerful little boy! And we woke up to beautiful snow covering everything! It is still coming down right now...all in all we have had a wonderful week!

A New Phase of Pregnancy

Today I start my first full day of bedrest...it would seem that my body likes the idea of preterm labor so I am on bedrest till my 36th week! Thankfully that is only 5 weeks away...but still that five weeks is filled with a bunch of days! I am having to learn to rely on other people for most everything...and not doing which I would much rather be doing...so we will be spending a quiet Christmas at home! Thankfully the Lord has arranged it to where Joshua is on his school break for most of my bedrest time. We would appreciate your prayers that baby would wait a few more weeks till it makes its arrival and patience for us as we are in this phase.

Snowed in Thoughts

Well we are still snowed in at our cozy little cottage...the roads haven't been completely plowed yet and its not very safe on them as we are on a mountain unless you have a 4-wheel drive. So we are enjoying our second day of being warm by the fire and finding things to do. We have been watching a George Eliot mini-series I got for my birthday, wrapping gifts, baking, etc.

This week was my birthday and I had a delightful time celebrating with my birthday sister on the weekend and having a wonderful date with my husband on the actual day. We went to see the new Narnia movie and have dinner. It was so much fun!

I wish to leave you with my favorite quote from us rereading the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, it is said by Caspian: "Do you mean to say, that you come from a round world (round like a ball)and you've never told me? It really is too bad of you!"

Pray for this Christmas Project

As most of you know Joshua is a grad student at Tech this year and we were praying about how we could reach out to some of his fellow students. Well, Joshua came up with a great plan of getting some gospels of John and maybe some cookies and giving them out. So I went to work this week to make that come to pass...Gideon and I baked many, many cookies as there are 65 grad students and I wanted to put 3-4 cookies in each bag. So we made some snickerdoodle, sugar cookies, oatmeal cookies and snow cookies. Gideon was a big help and encouragement--sitting on the counter licking the spoon part of the time. Then I worked on taking some paper lunch bags and transforming them into something attractive (thank you Kristin for the idea) with scrapbooking paper to have something people would like to look at...that took a ton of time--but was so worth it! Then I made labels saying 'Merry Christmas' and who they were from. Lastly came the putting together...Joshua helped with this--we put in the bags: 3-4 cookies wrapped in green plastic wrap, a candy cane and a gospel of John then we tied them with ribbon and the tag. They really looked cute by the end. We have been praying all along that this will open doors of discussion with fellow students and bring about salvation of fellow students. Please join us in praying for all these seeds that have been planted that they will have fallen on good soil!

Some Cute Poses

Gideon's Favorite Toy at the Moment

Random Thoughts

I just love our little boy...he is so adorable. He loves to be outside--and today being so nice and warm it was the perfect day to indulge his desires! So I took my coupon and sales fliers outside and looked through them while he crawled around and played. Then I cleaned out the car and then took him to the back deck where we took down diapers. He loved every minute of it and so did I, it was nice being outside and being with my little boy! He is really becoming a ham for the camera...so photogenic! He also loves to play with pots and pans when I'm in the kitchen.

Last night Joshua and I went to my last childbirthing class...I know many of you are trying to figure out why I'm taking child birthing classes when I've already had one baby. Well, since Gideon came so early I only made it through two of my six classes and when I found out the same class was being offered this year I just joined right back in and enjoyed it very much. I have learned a ton that I didn't know about why certain things happened at the hospital and I learned how to labor more naturally for this time around. Joshua was a great support last night going with me and I sure did need him because we did a practice labor and wow was it rough! Our instructor had this crazy music that would play to indicate a contraction and we went through all three stages of labor where you ignore them at first and then you get to the point where you can't and when you can't we started to practice laboring positions with our birth partner but the catch was to make us really "feel" the contraction we were given a bag of ice that had to first be put on our hand, then the back of our hands, then our upper arms and finally on the neck. This was to have us really try to concentrate of breathing through contractions with something terribly painful and discomfortable on us. It sure worked, I had a tough time concentrating...but Joshua is great--his job was to make sure I didn't tense up, massage my back and remind me to do deep breathing...it was a very affecting class and at the end we "had our baby"! Our instructor is a doula and she is a such a great teacher! I am so glad that I rejoined the class especially since I am praying this birth will be completely different than last time...:-)

Which by the way baby is doing great, moving around, making me hungrier this time than last time so I'm definitely growing! I am due the middle of February for those of you that don't know. So I'm almost to my third trimester. We will be surprised again as to what the baby will be--and I keep going back and forth, sometimes I think it is a boy and sometimes a girl...who knows! :-)

Favorite Family Pictures

Isn't my sister Beth an amazing photographer????

Playing in the Leaves and Some New Curtains

Just some cute pictures of Gideon playing in the leaves and I FINALLY got some curtains up in my kitchen and my mud room! Yay! I've been meaning to get these up since I got married. They are fully lined and make the house look more homey!!!

Time for Holiday Cards

I don't know about you but holidays are coming up so I've started thinking about getting our family picture and sending out cards to all our friends and letting them know what we are up to. I especially love getting family pictures from other people so its fun sending out our own. Shutterfly has some amazing holiday photo cards and I love looking through all of my options and finding exactly what I'm looking for! When Gideon was born I had a blast looking through their birth announcement cards I love how you have the variety to choose how many pictures you want on the card, special colors or messages and of course it comes with envelopes! Also you can order amazing stickers with your picture on it to put on the envelope to make the card exciting even for the mailman! So I've enjoyed looking through Shutterfly's selection of cards to pick what I am going to use as I want to get a head start on this year and not be rushing at the last moment! I especially love the cards that have my picture as the whole front of the card and maybe a little greeting on top. So be looking for a special card with our family picture this coming Christmas/New Year! What do you do for cards?

We got a Piano!!!! And a Box from Houseparty!

We are so blessed to have our very own piano! We have been wanting to get one for a while so that Joshua and I can both practice--I need to so that I can start playing more often at the chapel and we both just enjoy it so much. Joshua plays amazing classical pieces that are just so soothing! So on Saturday morning with some friends help they moved it into our living room! Yay!

Also I got my very first box from Houseparty for my Shutterfly party I am hosting in a couple weeks! That is pretty exciting, I can't wait to have people over and share my enthusiasm for the photo books! I'm also combining it with a Stampin Up party which is a company that does cards and rubber stamps that are so beautiful!!! I'm excited!

Birthday Boy

So Gideon has celebrated his first birthday with quite the birthday party! He had family out from both sides so we had about 25 people come out and we had a nice picnic over at the picnic shelter in our park that is right behind our house. (It is great because we can use it anytime it's not reserved!) We had lots of food, people and great gifts for the Birthday boy! It was great to catch up with everyone. Gideon couldn't quite wait for his party to get into his cupcakes, he had to sample it the night before when he reached up and grabbed a bite from one of them on the edge of the table! He was adorable! But it made him more cautious to dig into his birthday one at his party...once he realized it was okay he had a blast! And made a wonderful blue mess all over us both! He got some adorable clothes, great books, trucks, stacking cups, blocks and a dinosaur! He sure is having fun playing with his toys