My little Angel

This is one of my favorite Nativities too! I like the angel... She is sooooo cute!

Auten Family Christmas Tradition

When Q and I were dating, we saw an ornament at Cracker Barrel that was a blown glass pickle... We were like who would want a pickle on their Christmas Tree... Then we found out the story of the pickle;
According to German tradition, the pickle brings good luck. After all the other ornaments were hung on the tree, the pickle ornament was hidden somewhere within the branches. On Christmas morning the first child to find the gherkin was rewarded with an additional small present left by St. Nicholas. The pickle tradition encourages youngsters to enjoy the many ornaments on the tree before checking to see what St. Nick has brought them.
We don't do St Nick, but we adapted the Pickle Ornament to become the Candy Ornament! Every year we hide the candy ornament, and the first child to find it gets a special bag of candy.

They get rather intense in their searching. They search,

And search... until finally,


The shout of VICTORY!

I think this is the fourth year in a row Tym has won it...

He got Skittles and Air Heads... He was happy! lol

Family Fun

Let me just say my children are special... Yeah, my daughter, Nana, and her twin cousin Rebekah were jumping on pogo sticks shaking hands... Nice. lol

We call them twin cousins because they were born 10 days apart.

Then we each had boys born 5 days apart... as if that weren't enough, then Shann got twin boys in foster care... lol

Since I can't post recognisable pictures of the twins, this is as close as I get. It is really cool, Shann has these figurines, and they really closely resemble her family right now. She has two older girls, a slightly younger boy, and then the twins.
Some children are birthed in the womb, others are birthed in the heart.
We were playing a card trick, a special way of identifying the card, and they had to figure out the trick... We had so much fun!

Before they could guess I had to whack them with the magic spatula to endow them with the knowledge of which card had been chosen while they were out of the room. At the end of the night, all of us but Uncle Jimmy had figured it out... He gave up. We'll get him next time.
Me whacking mama... Musta worked, she got it!

What Am I?

This one is for YOU Becka Bean!!!!!

Final post of 2009

I usually do something deep and thought reflecting.... But hey why look back and hit a tree when you can look forward and walk around the tree! 2010 is about to begin!! Sheash I need some of those huge new years glasses... 2010 is perfect for glasses, two 00's... I digress... This will make you smile...

Young Raccoons Saved from Pepsi Machine @ Yahoo! Video

Awwwww ain't they cute!!!!!

wow he's grown!

This is Granite... Remember the scrawny little rat we rescued from the church parking lot? You can read about him here.

I'd say he is one blessed little kitty...

She's Worth It!

God blessed us with this ring to be able to give to Nana for Christmas. The cool thing is it is three diamonds, and three sapphires. Nana's birthstone is Sapphire. I told Nana that the Sapphires represent her and the Diamonds represent Christ and as she grows, the bigger she gets, the bigger Christ gets in her.

True Friends

“Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away.” ~ George Eliot
I am thankful for my true friends... Most especially my husband.

Meet Cookie Dough

Tymothie and Juliannah got a giunea pig for Christmas... His name is Cookie Dough... lol cause he is the color of cookie dough. As the picture shows, they are having fun!

Sneaky Sister

My sneaky sister called me a couple of weeks ago and told me this whole long spiel about how she and her neighbor had decided that there are some things that a neighborhood should only have one of... Griddles among them. Then she asked if we had a griddle... to which I answered no... We do now.

I need to take more pictures...

This was two of my favorite moments about yesterday... Que knew that we were getting him a tool box, what he didn't know was I put a tool in it. So, I put a combo lock on it, and put it unwrapped under the tree, and he spent many minutes trying to figure out the code... In the end the stinker opened it and changed the code on me! However, he didn't look inside untill Christmas Morning, for the kids sake.

Also, my In-laws gave Que and I matching watches.

Very pretty...

Blessings...

Keep praying for the twins future... (click on their picture to read about them if you have not already)
Well... this is all I get when I try to take a pic of Sam... But she is still a blessing.

Nana

Anny

Becka

Suzannah

Matt

Elijah

Tym

The bible never speaks of kids as anything but a blessing... Our family is blessed!

Christmas Joy!

The moment they realized they were getting a Wii

This was my joy... Tymothie's hand print... awwww