Christmas Letter 2010

For those that we couldn't send a card too (i sent 100) here is our Christmas card this year. This is our 7th year using Shutterfly for our Christmas cards. They always do a great job!! After i decided which pictures to use I had no trouble picking out the card I wanted to use. This card complemented our colorful outfits perfect :) It's definitely in my top 2 cards that we've sent.

I quickly typed a Christmas letter that I included in all our cards this year. Unfortunately, because I did it so quickly I left out two important joys. I added them to this version of the letter.

Merry Christmas

Dear Family & Friends,

2010 was a year of both joys and sorrows. In February, we welcomed our sweet Lyla into the world. She and Marlie have brought us so much joy this year. We are so blessed to have two healthy and happy little girls.

On May 22, our girls gained their first uncle. James’ sister, Katie, married Clint Ebel. He is a great addition to the Price family. We are so happy that we were able to share in their very special day. On May, 29^th, my cousin Rebecca married her high school sweetheart. We were so blessed to be able to make the trip to PA for this special occasion. The day after her wedding my Pappy Thompson passed away while sleeping. This brought us so much sorrow. Marlie and I share conversations about Pappy on a weekly basis. We have so many great memories of him and we know he is watching over us in heaven. In the midst of Pappy dying, my Grandma Maust fell and broke her L2 vertebrae and after seeing a specialist was diagnosed with spondylithosis. She never once complained of any pain and continued to bake all her delicious treats! We are so thankful that she is on the mend. On the day of Pappy’s memorial service my dad told all of us that he was diagnosed the week before with Prostate Cancer. This was a lot for all of us to take after a very eventful week. After hearing more of the details we knew that he was in good hands and that with continued prayers God would take care of him. He will have another biopsy this spring and they will decide if any treatments are necessary at this point. Your continued prayers are greatly appreciated.

In September, we went on a beach trip in Florida with our dear friends, the Fuqua’s. We had so much fun with them and hope they invite us on another trip sometime! We had had a very hectic fall and have not had a chance to see them since. We miss them and are planning the first get together of the new year!

October started out with some more good news for the Price Family. Pratt finally asked Becky (James’ other sister) to marry him. The girls will add another uncle on January 22, 2011. We couldn’t be more excited for them! We made a trip to PA to visit with my aunt, uncle, and cousin that live in Norway. We had a great time with them and look forward to their next visit. My best friend, Elisabeth Parker and her husband and precious three month old son, Judah, came to visit us for a few days in October. We had a great time with them and wish they lived closer to us. Oregon is too far away!! We are looking forward to flying west next fall to visit them.

December is the best time of year for us! We will be spending Christmas Eve and Christmas day with both the Price and Thompson family. We couldn’t be more excited. My family will be experiencing their first Christmas in Dixie and we are all hoping it’ll be white.

We hope 2011 brings you many joys!

Love,

James, Sarah, Marlie, & Lyla

Christmas Card 2010

Mod Snowflakes Christmas Card

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I Love Shutterfly

My husband tells me all the time that we should buy stock in Shutterfly because I am always buying something from there.  When I recently saw the promotion for bloggers to earn free holiday cards I immediately decided to sign up for it.  This is my 8th year ordering Christmas cards from Shutterfly.  They have a great variety to choose from, arrive within a few days of ordering them, and are very nice quality.  My absolute favorite Christmas card was one that we used 3 years ago.  We were at my parents home in PA for Thanksgiving and got a huge blizzard.  We took our Christmas card picture in the snow.  Our sweet little girl was 15 months old and very excited about the snow.  We found the perfect photo card to go with it.  Sadly, it’s discontinued this year but I still wanted to share it.  This is our absolute favorite card to date!!

I’m not sure the style we will be using this year because we haven’t taken our photo yet.  We are hoping for some snow in the next few days while we are still in PA.  I’m very anxious to get started on my cards for this year.  It will be our first Christmas card with our family of four!

Some of my favorite products are:

Photo Books     http://www.shutterfly.com/photo-books

Christmas Cards     http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-cards

Calendars     http://www.shutterfly.com/calendars

Prints     http://www.shutterfly.com/prints/prints

Annual Print Plan     http://www.shutterfly.com/prints/annual-print-plan

Birth Announcements     http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/baby-cards-stationery

What We’ve Been Up To

Wow, my last blog entry was Lyla’s 6 month pictures.  Lyla turned 9 months a week ago so I am 3 months behind on my blog updates.  We have been very busy this fall so I will do my best to try and recap our happenings up to now.

The second week of September we spent a much needed week at Panama City Beach, Florida with our dear friends, The Fuqua’s.  James and Ryan first met as college roommates at Lipscomb.  They ended up hitting it off and were roommates all four years of college.  Ryan and Dana were married June 2004 and James was a groomsmen.  James and I were married July 2004 and Ryan was a groomsmen in our wedding.  We are so lucky to have the friendship that we do with Ryan, Dana, and their sweet little girl, Lucy Drew.  Our girls had so much fun with each other and we enjoyed some adult company as well.  We will go on vacation with them anytime they ask us!!

We celebrated James’ parents 30th wedding anniversary the end of September.  We had a surprise dinner for them at our home with James’ sisters and brother in-law.  I prepared an Italian dinner and Becky & Katie provided the delicious cupcakes for dessert.  We gave them this framed picture as their gift.  What better way to show 30 years of marriage then a picture of their children and granddaughters?

The first weekend in October we took our annual trip to the pumpkin patch.  Marlie and Lyla both loved it.  We had so much fun going through the hay bale maze in the barn, playing in the grain bins, looking at all the animals, going on the hayride to see the baby calves, going through the cornfield maze, and of course picking our pumpkins from the pumpkin patch.

The second weekend in October we went to PA for a long weekend.  My mom’s brother lives in Norway.  He and his wife, two of his three boys, two of his nephews, and his daughter, her husband, and their adorable daughter came to the states for a visit.  It was wonderful to get to spend time with all of them.  We were even so lucky to help Nora celebrate her 1st birthday.  We enjoyed a nice drive to the “farm” where my dad hunts every year.  The leaves were still very colorful, Marlie got to climb into the tree house, and Annie used her scouting skills to chase some deer out for us to see.  The highlight of the trip for Marlie was to ride a horse.  Our neighbor, was boarding a horse the first night we were in town.  She knew that Marlie loved them so she asked the owners if she could take a ride on it.  They were so nice to let her take a ride on her. Marlie still talks about the white horse she rode!!  Marlie also got a surprise visit from her best buddy, Austin.  We ended the weekend with a nice dinner amongst 75 of our close family and friends.  We truly have a wonderful family!!

Four days after we came back from PA we packed our bags and hit the road again.  We went to Atlanta for James’ cousin Jesse’s wedding and to visit with his grandparents and other family.  We had a great time.  James worked two days while we were there so the girls and I had to find things to do all day.  We had lunch with a friend, Amanda Walton, from college.  She has two girls that are the same age as Marlie and Lyla.  We had a great time visiting with them.  We made a quick trip to the Mall of Georgia and had dinner with one of James’ high school friends and her boyfriend.  We spent an entire afternoon with Granddad and Grandmom.  They took us to Cracker Barrel for lunch and spoiled the girls with their love and attention.  We spent two nights with Uncle Don, Aunt Kelly, and their two kids.  The girls loved all of them and also loved their teacup poodles, Gorgie and Lola.  Marlie is still talking about going to see them at Christmas.  We had a delicious breakfast with my friend, Chrissy, and her now fiancé’.  We also lucked out and go to meet the newest addition to the Garner family.  Millie Kate is adorable and we enjoyed spending a few hours with her wonderful family. We wish they lived closer!!  We ended the very busy, fun filled weekend with a gorgeous outdoor wedding.

 

My best friend, Elisabeth and her husband and three month old son came to visit us from Oregon.  I will be posting a separate blog entry on their visit because I have too much to say.  So, on to Halloween.  The girls dressed up as the Princess and the Pea.  We took them to Ghouls at Grassmere (halloween at the zoo) this year and they both loved it.  Marlie had so much fun trick-or-treating this year and really got into all the decorations.  The people on our street really get into Halloween so it was a lot of fun for all of us. 

The first weekend in November we went on our 7th annual Gatlinburg trip with James’ family.  We had snow one day while we were there.  We enjoyed sitting by the fire, eating pumpkin muffins, watching it snow, and watching Beauty and the Beast.  We went to the aquarium and all had so much fun.  Marlie loved all the fish and Lyla loved them equally as much.  We ate pizza, did go karts, visiting the Christmas Village, and took a lot of photos. It was a much needed relaxing weekend with the family that we all love so much!!

That was a lot of catching up so I will try very hard to keep this blog up to date!!  Remember that there are more pictures from all of our happenings on the Picasa site. 

Lyla’s 6 Month Pictures

It’s hard to believe that Lyla will be 7 months of Friday.  She is a very active little girl.  We didn’t have any trouble getting Marlie to sit still for her 6 month pictures but Lyla’s were a different story.  She wants down to roll around and army crawl all over the place.  If she sees something that she wants she will get it.  She is really starting to get a little personality.  She “talks” a lot so we’re not sure but think we might have another talker on our hands.  She is very sneaky though.  When she is trying to get somewhere or get something she is very quiet.  She’s going to be our very mischievous one, we think!  She has two teeth now and is loving her homemade baby food.  Her favorite things to eat right now are oatmeal, peaches, and peas.  We are anxious to continue watching her grow and learn new things.  Here are a few of my favorite pictures that we took of her.  The others are on my picasa link.

Marlie is 3

It’s so hard to believe that my baby girl is already 3.  I have no idea where the past three years have gone.  When she was born she weighed 6 lbs. 7.4 oz and was 19 inches long.  At her 3 year appt she weighed 35 lbs. and is over 3 feet tall.  wow!! 

Marlie is such a sweet, smart, hilarious little girl.  She never stops talking and is always laughing about something.  She can count to 20, knows almost all her letters, knows all her shapes including octagons, and is obsessed with the planet saturn and her beloved horses.  She sings songs all the time whether it’s a song someone taught her or one that she makes up.  She has quite the imagination and is always telling stories that aren’t always true.  We’re working on that, haha!!  When she goes to school it should be interesting what she tells her teachers and friends.  She is a great big sister.  She helps take care of Lyla all the time.  She is especially enjoying playing with her since she now sits up and is almost crawling.  It’s so fun to watch her teach Lyla different things.  Marlie also loves to clean.  I guess she got that from me and I’m so glad for that!  She loves to help clean the windows, vacuum, and scrub floors.  She’s a very good helper.

We are so proud of our Marlie and love her more and more every day!!

Here are some pictures of Marlie through the past 3 years.

Hospital picture, 3 month picture, 6 month picture, and 9 month picture.

1 year picture and 2 year picture.

Princess & the Pea

         

My Favorite Ebel Wedding Photos

Katie & Clint had over 900 pictures taken of their beautiful outdoor wedding.  It took me quite a while to narrow them down to my favorites.  After picking my favorites I still have 217.  I’m in the process of putting them into a shutterfly photo book and deciding which pictures to have printed.  Why did their photographer have to take so many great photos? Needless to say I can’t post all of them on here so here is a peak at the ones that made the top of my list.  The rest of the 217 can be found on my Picasa Web Albums.  Enjoy!