Creative? or not so?

Something that I have a ton of fun doing is decorating cakes. I'm not great at it, but I love doing it. I love copying something that's already been done which is typically what I do. I'm a good copycat! Every year, one of my friends has me decorate a cake for her boys birthday parties. Typically I've found a cake pan that has a shape (which makes it easier) or a picture to copy. This year she showed me the invitation and a sticker and I was supposed to go off of that to do the cake. So...i free handed it...which I've discovered, may not be my gifting ;) The theme was rain forest because one of her boys loves moneys and the other frogs. This unfortunately wasn't my best work although I did try very hard! :)

The items to work from....

The final free handed product....

Calling all you prayers

I have a couple of urgent prayer request and thought I'd post them for anyone who would be willing to pray for them. My girlfriend Lynn is going in for surgery today to have a cancerous tumor removed. We are praying it all goes well and that they will be able to find and get rid of it all! She has three young boys and so pray for the family as they continue on this journey that they find peace in it all.

Secondly, Arlie's grandma, Arlys, is going in for surgery tomorrow to have a tumor removed (cancer) in her colon. She could use prayer as they will also determine how much more cancer she has and how to proceed after they asses that.

Thirdly, Arlie's other grandma, Enola, passed away on Saturday, so since you're praying, pray for peace and comfort on the loss of such a loved women! Everyone was expecting it, so they were as prepared as you can be, but it still is hard to loose someone you love.

Thank you for your prayers. God is good and faithful and still heals today!

Wedding Fair

I thought I'd take a picture of what our booth looks like at the wedding fairs we go to. We get to briefly chat with a couple hundred brides and hope they decide out of the 15 photographers that they want to look at our websites. It's a hard field with a lot of competitors. I'm just glad I don't have to try and figure out which photographer to go with. Thankfully, we've been fortunate enough and blessed to have enough people booking us to keep us busy! We'll see if that's the case still this year!

Classic

Jordan had a friend over (Julia) on Sunday. They played so fabulous together! Sydney had gone to a different friends house, so we got to just sit and watch football. It was great. Anyway...They played house almost the entire day. They started with a wedding and since I knew all the vows, I got to be the pastor...I only allowed them to "pretend" kiss the bride. Then they had twins. I told them congratulations and asked what their names were. Jordan said "This one is Optimus Prime" and Julia said "and this one is Jenniveve." That made me laugh!



They were making books about their lives together. It started with a wedding, then kids, their house...(FYI: they are having four kids...two girls and two boys). They were both making their house pictures and one of them commented on the others house. And I heard, "Well..that's just something we'll have to work to agree on" and "We can decide that later when we really get married." I don't know about my kids. They think about being married WAY to much!

Norwood Christmas

On Christmas day we went to Arlie's parents. We had our family Christmas that night before his sister's and their families arrived. We had a great time! The kids went snowmobiling and rode in sleds behind the snowmobile. They went ice fishing and played outside. We made two huge snow forts facing each other to have snowball fights. We also had several layers so we could fall back if needed! We had more food, games, and great conversation! We sure love to spend time with our families and have been very blessed to have such wonderful families that we both enjoy hanging out with!

Sydney looking out at the snow fort!

Bjorn wearing Sydney's new sparkly dance shoes!

Grandpa reading the annual Christmas Story to the kids!

My favorite spot to sit by in the rocker and read!

Christmas Highlight

Every year when we open presents I think of how much we get and wish we were giving back in more ways than we do. So this year, I took 15 coffee mugs that we haven't used much if at all and had all four kids (Jordan, Jacob, Sydney, Riley) fill them with hot Chocolate and tea. Then if they wanted they could make cards or things to put in them. I was so proud of them because they all (besides Riley...but he's pretty young) made cards, then proceeded to make ornaments, bookmarks and several other crafts. We were then going to find an "Old Folks" home and deliver them. Jacob was writing in his card and said, "Mom, how do you spell dear?" She asked him what kind of deer because there are different ways to spell it. He said, "I want to write, Dear Old Person". We laughed. I thought that would've been great! I called one Home and left a message telling them what we wanted to do. They never called back. So we decided to chance it and go to a different home. We weren't sure if they would want us to just drop off the mugs and they could deliver them to the people who would be most happy to get them, so if we could...or if they would even take them. When we got there, they were so happy we were there and gave us 15 room numbers and each of the kids got to hand deliver the mugs to 5 residents. The reactions were all great. Some were so surprised, delighted, or shocked...wondering who we were. Some gave the kids cookies or candies or wanted to pay them. One gentlemen was sleeping in his wheelchair. We weren't sure if we should wake him, so we just left his mug on the TV stand. As we were leaving Jacob said, "I think he was dead" rather loudly. We assured him he was probably just sleeping. Another room one of the ladies really wanted hugs from all the kids. She bribed them with cookies. It worked!! As we were leaving she asked for one more from Riley (who loves to answer and talk by roaring). He decided this was the opportunity to do that. So he roared at her then rushed in a hugged her. We all kinda looked surprised like, what do we do. She laughed and said, "That's my kinda kid, nice and feisty!". It felt good to have the kids give and see how much joy you can get from giving back!

Sheppard Christmas

Arlie blessed us by being able to take the full week of Christmas off! We got to spend 5 days at my parents and 4 days at Arlie's parents. It was so great having all that time to sleep in an relax and enjoy family and the season! We spent the 21st through the 25th at my parents. Ben and Deanna and family joined us on the 22nd - 24th. It was a house full, but a lot of fun! We played tons of games, ate tons of food, way to many cookies, read books and hung out. The kids went sledding on one of the days it was warm enough...however the sledding hill had about a foot of powder on it which made sledding really really slow! They opted for king of the hill instead!

Makeovers from Sydney

My Nephews made us all tie dye shirts!

Sydney's Tae Kwon Do Test

The next Monday, Sydney had her test. She was so excited after watching her dad and brother. She couldn't wait for me to watch her. At about noon that day, I got a call from Jordan's school asking me to pick up Jordan because he was throwing up. I picked him and and later that afternoon broke the news to Sydney that I wouldn't be able to watch her, but daddy would take lots of pictures and she could show me everything she did when she got back. She told me her heart was really sad that i didn't get to come with and watch and thought it would be best if i left Jordan home by himself! Nothing like breaking a little girls heart :( Arlie said she did great. She also is the lightest one in her class and unfortunately, didn't get her board broke (she kicked it wrong and hurt her foot on the first try and didn't want to try again. They convinced her, but then she kicked it wrong (a different way) and was done trying that). Since it's the first belt, she passed anyway! She did really good and come home and showed me a couple of the moves...some, she claims, she forgot ;)

Green and Yellow belts

Jordan and Arlie had their Tae Kwon Do Test on December 8th to see if they could get their next belt. Sydney had her class first (and her test wasn't until the next week). I had a very stressful day, so I decided while Arlie and Sydney were at her class i'd take Jordan and run out and get some coffee so I could just sit back and enjoy watching them test (the tests go pretty long). While, on the way, we got detoured because of a bad accident and since it had just happened they were having the cars drive right past the accident to get them out of the way for the ambulances and fire trucks that were coming. Knowing that it probably looked scary, I asked Jordan how it made him feel. If he was scared at all, or if he was fine with it He asked if anyone got hurt. I said that there probably some that got hurt from looking at the vehicle. After I grabbed coffee, I said, "Jordan let's talk a little bit about that accident. What are you thinking about" He quickly responded, " I was thinking you'd say, Jordan let's talk about that accident, and ask me if i had any questions". Apparently it didn't affect him as much as I thought it might! ;)

We got back to his class to a worried Arlie (because it had taken much longer than we expected). However, the tests went good for both Jordan and Arlie and we were proud of them as they got their Green (Jordan) and Yellow (Arlie) belts! Way to go boys!




You have to break a board to pass the test. Jordan is the smallest and lightest in his class and on of the ones that broke a board. Several of his classmates didn't break theirs.

Christmas Tree hunting

One of my favorite parts of Christmas is looking for the perfect tree and decorating it. Besides Christmas music, not much else, puts me more in the season than that! We went to a place on hwy 65 that we've gone to in the past and found a FABULOUS tree. Jordan really wanted a red tree, so we told him he could ask the attendants if they had any red trees and if they did (we were 99% sure they wouldn't) we'd get a red one (Sydney wanted pink). We arrived at the lot and Jordan asked them if they had any red trees. They looked kind of confused and said, "Red Pine?" I smiled and explained the story so they understood and unfortunately for Jordan...they were just out of them ;) We got our tree home and a couple days later decorated it. The kids had so much fun finding their ornaments and hanging them up...they weren't as excited about Arlie's and mine. This year our tree was probably 10 feet tall. I loved it!