Another Birthday Month in Brewster-ville!

January is another birthday month in the Brewer home! The four of us share 2 birthday months, September for Dan & Sophie and January for Jen and Grace. Tomorrow I will be twenty-seven. 27! And on Saturday, Miss Gracie B. will be ONE! We are planning a Winter ONEderland party for her and I am so excited!

I usually make invitation and incorporate a photo into it, but this year I ended up going with scrap-blog. It came together quickly and printed good at Wal-mart. I would have edited it some more, but somehow it got lost in cyberspace and I didn't want to start over. :)

Today, after church my little family is heading out of town for a few hours. We are going to Lowes to look for some organizers for my new craft center and of course to go to TJ Maxx! We'll hit the party store once more and eat a yummy dinner at On The Border courtesy of Jer & Suz's Christmas gift to us. I am looking forward to it!

This weekend has been pretty restful. Grace is learning to soothe herself back to sleep!! So, we have had two nights of uninterrupted sleep! (This is the BEST birthday present!! SLEEP!) And yesterday, I got a nap too. I'm on a ROLL! Sophie went to the farm with Pappy (Because he agreed with her that cows do indeed like stickers! She had to take some stickers to "her" cows, Kelly & Pretzel. She came up with those name on her own. :) The kid's got p-e-r-s-o-n-a-l-i-t-y!) and me, Dan and grace all got naps. :)

Now, I'm off to make some breakfast and to get ready to worship! :)

Oh Happy Day!

Debt-free is the New Rich

"Keeping up with the Jones' may be an American pastime, but I've got some news: the Jones' are in hock up to their eyeballs. Do you really want to emulate them? Then take a good look at what you're spending your money on. After all, getting out of debt is hard work. Don't make it harder on yourself by spending money on things you don't need. And remember: being free from debt is the new rich."


-Steve Scalici, CFP® is the Senior Vice President of Treasure Coast Financial, located in South Florida.

Read the entire article here.

Ten on Tuesday

1- it's almost wednesday, but maybe i can whip this out in 15 minutes!
2- i know i need to change my header. i know that is no longer Christmas-time. :( i know i need to take down my tree and all the other decorations and remove the two trees and decorations that didn't even get finished this year. aaaghh! i am so far behind.
3- my new cricut expression will be here tomorrow. i can't wait to try it out! i have three cartridges coming with it- plantin schoolbook, storybook (SO excited about) and doodlecharms. i might pull a daniel and go to the UPS loading place tomorrow morning. we're such tracking nerds!
4- i got a blackberry curve last night. i am so in love. especially since today i can browse the web on it. tomorrow i probably won't be able too. sigh. well, unless i beg my papa. hmmmm. we'll see. :)
5-grace i went to ft. smith today with mom & jaclyn for one of jac's dr. appt. please pray that she will begin to progress soon and that little ike will come in God's perfect time without a c-section!
6- we've been helping jac get moved into her super-cute new home this past week. it's adorable, and super sturdy with CEMENT walls. definitly the place to be in case of a tornado, not the best place to hang pictures. :)
7-i have 7 minutes left until wednesday. i am officially up past my bed-time.
8- i've still yet to look at the pictures we took over Christmas. again, i am wayyyy behind. it might help if i could locate the camera.
9- i love my super duper, handy husband. i got a vision of a laundry sorting solution for our little laundry room, well, nook and he built it tonight. i'm excited, the office is headed into a craft room. yea! now the rest of the house/garage won't be the craft room.
10- the girls are growing so fast. grace kept climbing up on sophie's bed tonight and turning the light switch off. over and over. she isn't even one yet. amazing! last night sophie and i were praying and she prayed, "dear lord, please help me to be four so i can go to school when i am five. i am three now and i need to be four so i can be five." too cute! sometimes i want them to grow and then they do all too fast.

midnight, i better go! as pooh & piglet would say, happy wednesday!

one of my favorite weeks...

i always love this week between Christmas and New Years. for us it's a time to rest and catch up and organize.

Christmas was good. busy, crazy, exhausting, but very good. we loved visiting with our families and laughing and all the yummy foods and watching the girls open their gifts. (i took lots of pictures, but have yet to download them. i will soon!) we were all so very blessed and now we're going through old toys and stuff and trying to get things is (much) better order. grace is cutting some major teeth and sophie is testing the boundaries over and over and over again. (:0), but i have enjoyed spending time with them too. we've spent lots of time playing in the playroom. tomorrow we are headed to tulsa to celebrate Christmas with my mom & mike and and to enjoy some New Year's day sales! woo hoo! i'm hoping for a peaceful, relaxing trip.

my parents blessed me with a cricut for Christmas and i am SUPER excited about getting it going and making some fun stuff in the new year.

but, for now, i'm going to keep on resting and reading and playing and organizing and planning and hugging and snuggling and savoring these last few days of the holiday season.

blessings to YOU!

Merry Christmas!

Lord, help me to remember this tomorrow...

If I decorate my house perfectly with lovely plaid bows, strands of twinkling lights, and shiny glass balls, but do not show love to my family - I’m just another decorator.

If I slave away in the kitchen, baking dozens of Christmas cookies, preparing gourmet meals, and arranging a beautifully adorned table at mealtime, but do not show love to my family - I’m just another cook.

If I work at the soup kitchen, carol in the nursing home, and give all that I have to charity, but do not show love to my family - It profits me nothing.

If I trim the spruce with shimmering angels and crocheted snowflakes, attend a myriad of holiday parties, and sing in the choir’s cantata but do not focus on Christ, I have missed the point.

Love stops the cooking to hug the child.

Love sets aside the decorating to kiss the husband.

Love is kind, though harried and tired.

Love doesn’t envy another home that has coordinated Christmas china and table linens.

Love doesn’t yell at the kids to get out of the way.

Love doesn’t give only to those who are able to give in return, but rejoices in giving to those who can’t.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.

Love never fails. Video games will break; pearl necklaces will be lost; golf clubs will rust. But giving the gift of love will endure.

-A paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 13 by Sharon Jaynes

3 days until Christmas!

it's 11:30 pm on Sunday night. the weekend is almost over. sigh. i just finished picking up all the rooms (minus the play room. i can't tackle it tonight!) and now i'm ready to start making lists, lists, lists for this week and to finish up some airport work. hopefully sleep will come soon! the girls are sleeping away and dan is busy working on some Christmas gifts. i'm so thankful for his help. i love working with him.

we have a full week ahead and i seriously need to make every hour count until Christmas. i do have a lot to do. but, i am determined to enjoy it. i realize that most of my expectations are self-imposed and that in the end it will all be ok. my family will still love me even if I didn't get the perfect thing for them this year! Jesus is the perfect Gift. He gave Himself for me and i want to give myself to Him and to others. the other gifts of Christmas are secondary.

today on the way to Church (we visited my Dad's little country Church today) I was thinking about all that was left to do... the cleaning, shopping, wrapping, cooking/baking, crafting and wondering how in the world i was going to get it all done with the girls at home? (they have been especially demanding lately!) it hit me that they only have one childhood. this will be the only Christmas we will have with Sophie as a three year old. this will be Grace's only 1st Christmas. time goes by too fast and I want to enjoy them right now and not regret it in the future. honestly, things have been super difficult lately with Sophie so this is me asking for God's grace to help me! tonight I talked to her about all the things we are doing this week and she seems really excited. i told that I am going to need her help and that the most important thing was to LISTEN and OBEY. we'll keep going over that one and hopefully those words will get down in her heart!

i am looking forward to this week! one more week to wear those Christmas sweaters! :)

We just gotta Keep Calm & Carry On!
Merry Christmas!!