Christmas Cards

My favorite Christmas cards have always been the ones where we've been in our Halloween costumes. It all started when Amelia was a baby and we got a great shot of all of us dressed as clowns. I was looking on Shutterfly and found the perfect card layout that matched our costumes in both color and mood. Last year we used a picture of us all dressed as monkeys. The year in between? Honestly I've been racking my brain to remember, and I think we just did some lame cards from the portrait studio where we took our family picture.
Seeing as I can't even remember that one, and the others bring an automatic smile to my face, I think I need to go with the Shutterfly holiday cards again. But we didn't do a group costume for Halloween this year, so what to do? Never fear! After just a few minutes in Shutterfly I found the PERFECT card and I just LOVE what we're going to send out this year.
And, to make it even better, I'm participating in Shutterfly's Bloggers Get 50 Free Holiday Cards promotion, and you can too!

What I really wanted to blog about

I finally got around to reading a book I've been aware of since I was in elementary school, but never read, Across Five Aprils. And it reminded me so much of a family in my mom's ancestry. They lived in Illinois, and one of the sons went back to the area his father's family was from to fight for the South.
But I tried to look for the details and couldn't find them. I'm so sad. It was information I'd just found in the last couple of years and is trapped on the dead (presumably virus-laden) computer. Why, oh, why hadn't I backed up my family history data in so long? Oh, because the CD writing drive had been dead for a long time, and most of the USB drives, too, and I could never find a flash drive anyway since James was always taking them to work...and a million other excuses. But, honestly, I could have emailed myself the file at any time. Instead, I just "backed it up" on the hard drive.
And so many, many hours of work are likely lost, for the failure to take a few minutes. Hitting my head on the desk now.

The one condolence in this is that the most vital information, needed for temple ordinances, is mostly intact on NewFamilySearch. But that's the bare bones. The meat of it was in my notes.

Random things

A bunny outside the window by the computer desk. First time we've seen one here. One small Swiss Chard plant disappeared the same day. Fortunately that was the full extent of the garden damage.


James' department had a bowling night. The girls practiced in anticipation. They didn't quite seem to grasp the fact that square blocks do not roll.



Amelia got into James' birthday cake.

We ate it anyway.

Especially Jeb.