I'm not organized enough...

Written by Shannon Leigh

to send out Christmas cards so....

I hope your celebration of Jesus' birth was joyous.

LOVE,

The Andersons

Merry Christmas!!

Written by Shannon Leigh

Matt and I are headed out of town for the holiday to a place that doesn't have internet (or at least the kind that works).

But before I leave... just wanted to say...

Merry Christmas!

Hope your day is magical!

Christmas, 1956

Grandma Dudley 8 days before giving birth to my dad.

A Few Things on my Christmas List

Written by Shannon Leigh

Found here.


Found here.

Found here.

Found here.

Christmas... in no particular order...

with zero words...

It's True.

I can hardly contain my excitement.

Meet Me in St. Louis

So I have decided that I have the BEST friends in the world. When I think of them my heart swells to 3x's it's normal size.

Megan (who I haven't seen since my wedding), Zay, and I met up at my house Friday night. We braved the cold and traveled to St. Louis on Saturday to meet up with the rest of the crew at Joy, Ashley, and Michelle's place. They live right off of Delmar in an adorable old house (you know the kind with high ceilings and hardwood floors, YUM).

We had an incredible dinner, a white elephant gift exchange (hilarity ensued of course), and we may or may not have had a "belly sliding" contest on the hardwood floors. Ashley may or may not have dominated and I may or may not have been pathetic. But most of all we talked, A LOT, got caught up on each others lives and reminisced.

These women are successful, beautiful, genuine, and most of all women of God that motivate me to love my Savior. Thanks for a fantastic weekend ladies!

Thankful... The Understatement (and lots of pictures)

A remarkable long weekend for me and mine.

Matt, Izzy, and I forged the roads of thanksgiving travelers and embarked on a blessed adventure with those we love the most.

On the Thanksgiving Eve we left 205 Campbell and drove to Matt’s parents in O’Fallon. I found out on this trip that I like to drive, unless it is light enough outside for me to read. When we stopped to pick up some dinner rolls about 1/3 of the way there, I decided I was bored and thought that maybe the time would pass more quickly if I were to be the driver. So I drove, and we were there before we knew it. (Sorry for the side story).

Anyway, Matt, his Dad, and his brothers participated in the Turkey Bowl which is an annual flag football game put on by their church. I stayed home and watched JoEllen make the thanksgiving yummies (I guess there wasn’t so much for me to do!). Thanksgiving went off without a hitch and we enjoyed a meal with a hand full of Matt’s relatives that we rarely get to see. Going to the Andersons is always great. We played a lot of catch phrase and a lot of rock band on the PS2. I decided that Matt and I are not destined to have rockstars for children. Neither of us have an ounce of rhythm, the drums on rock band proved this to us.

Friday we helped put up some of the Christmas decorations… Friday evening we headed to my parents so that I could attend the annual Gardner-women-cookie-bake-a-thon that was taking place at Aunt Beth’s Saturday morning. This is always a treat (no pun intended). There were 15 Gardner women + Kellen all together (thank goodness for big kitchens). This means we were missing about 5 girls. We made about 25 different kinds of cookies, YUM! We always love excuses to get together and eat. This was not an exception. We also had a mini wedding shower for my cousins almost wife, Chery. She is from the Philippines so she doesn’t have any family around. This was the first time I met her and she was so sweet. We figured out that she will be number 40 of the Gardner clan.

We helped my mom decorate her tree (3 trees in one year, that has to be a record) and later we went to visit the invincible Grandma Dudley (who was sent a pink hard hat from my Aunt Karla). It was really great to see her and Granddad as always. The end to a perfect weekend? Waking up to snow on Sunday morning and getting Kellen out of bed and open his curtains to a winter wonderland. The perfect beginning to the Christmas holiday.

Although this post is long and not very organized I just wanted to share with you all that I am thankful for on this earth. My God is so gracious to give me such an amazing life. What more could a girl ask for?

It was so depressing having to go back to work this morning, but all good things must come to an end. There are always more things to look forward to. Maybe I will break into those Christmas cookies…