Happy Birthday, Talitha Joy!

Talitha is 22 today! I'm so thankful for her friendship! I first got to know Talitha 10 years ago when the 3 years between us seemed to be much more of an age gap. That quickly changed though and today I'm happy to call her one of my favorites to road trip with (or fly across the world with), a friend who shares her bed and chats into the wee hours of the night, not to mention the one who introduced me to my husband-to-be. Happy birthday, Talitha! I'm thankful to call you a dear friend! Praying that the Lord blesses you with many more years to serve Him.

Yellow Tote Give-Away

Okay so Day 11 on the 12 days of Handmade Give-Aways might be my favorite. Isn't it so sweet? Hope I win, but I'd be happy if you did too so go on over and add your comment for a chance to win!

Invites

This is what I spent several hours on over the last couple weeks so I expect at least 5 minutes of ooohing and awwing when you receive your invitation! Someday I'll post a tutorial on how I made them, but that might have to wait until after the wedding. Meanwhile, look for one of these coming to a mailbox near you in the next few days!

Frugal Friday

In case you are planning to order wallets for Christmas, here's a tip I discovered to save a bit of money. Make your own wallets before ordering! I used this for ordering photos for my wedding invitations and definitely was glad I did! It is a free download and easy as pie to use! For more information and to download the program go here.

After using the program, you just upload your already made wallets to Costco (or your favorite photo shop) and order them as a 4x6 or 5x7 print. Compare ordering a 4x6 at Costco for $0.13 to ordering a set of wallets at Costco (also a 4x6) for $0.39 and you'll be thankful you put in the 30 seconds at home. The other cool thing is that ordering a 5x7 gives you the actual normal size of wallets (2 1/2 x 3 1/2) which are not even offered to order from most neighborhood photo shops. Happy photo editing!

Fabric Give-Away

Aren't these fabrics fun? And one is oil-cloth!! Oh the possibilities of things to be created from these!! Enter for your chance to win over at think liz.

Yarn Giveaway

During my year at Master's I was blessed with a wise and Godly woman for an RA. Her name is Monica and while she lives on the other side of the country I still like to peek in on her blog sometimes for her Deliberately Domestic inspiration. This is how I discovered the 12 days of Give-Away on another blog this week. The first 6 days are already closed, but head on over to Think Liz for your chance to enter the other Give-Aways--including this chance to win 2 hanks of recycled wool.

How Lovely are Your Branches!

Well, 2010 is officially the year of the biggest Lensch Christmas tree EVER!

Mike and Debbie and kids went with me to the u-cut tree farm on Saturday so we could both find trees for our families. With our new high ceilings in our new home, I was sent as the family delegate to find a 10 footer this year!

I think we found it! We even had a stick to measure!!

There is something so angelic and mischievous in this expression at the same time. ;-) Andrew was having a blast running through the trees--he even hugged a few!

It took some help from Mike, Dad, and Kirk to get the tree in the house when we got home. It was heeeeeavy!

I spent a few hours on the ladder decorating this monster...I mean uh...tree.

It definitely was a balancing act! I think I mastered the technique of sticking out my rear far enough to keep me atop the ladder while I reached for the tree. :-)

Mom and Dad put a lot of work in to get the tree standing and decorated!

And our finished product:

Now we're just waiting for the grandkids to show up and marvel over the size of this thing! I'm sure the adults will have a fun time marveling over our craziness too! It definitely is not something I want to do every year, but it sure is lovely now that all the work is done!