Happy Birthday Tara

This is my beautiful niece, Tara! Happy Birthday Tara!

I Blog because of Tara.

She is the one that turned me on to the whole blogging world.

And nearly 3 years and 1076 posts later I'm still blogging.

I love it and I love yall who come here and

visit and sometimes leave comments.

Tara has the cutest little family!

They are just precious.

This is Ali, Tara's sister and Grandma Griffis and Tara.

They came from Ohio to visit their Grandma,

a few days before Thanksgiving.

We had a wonderful day with them

on St. Simons Isl and Jekyll Island.

The temperatures were in the 80's the days they were here.

Tara is married to this Santa's helper, Ben.

He was such a good sport to bring his Santa's suit

all the way from Ohio so we could get

Santa beach pictures.

We think they turned out really cute.

We stayed on the beach that day until dark.

The kids didn't want to leave.

We finished the evening off with dinner at

Willie's Wennie Wagon. It was a Great day!

Tara, I hope you have the best birthday ever!!!

Love you and your little family.

How Are You Doing?

All Smiles

No Peeking

May all your wishes come true.

Merry Christmas!

Holding It Together

Merry Christmas!

Last Night

A good time was had by all.

Mama and daddy didn't make it up due to health issues.

They were truly missed.

More pictures later.

I've got a busy day ahead.

Merry Christmas!

The Crenshaw's Come Tonight!

I love it when my family comes.

Tonight is our Christmas celebration.

One Week Away

Take great care on this last Saturday before Christmas!

Not Necessarily True

Shop Party Tonight

I can guarantee that no one will be wearing a suit but it will be fun anyway.

I don't have to cook supper, yay!

Easy Peasy

I bought several flats of strawberries this past

summer and I saved these little baskets for a craft of some sort.

At the time I didn't know what I'd use them for.

I ran two rows of ribbon.

You could do all three rows.

If you can melt a bag of chips and crush some

candy canes you can make this wonderful Christmas bark in 3 minutes flat!

Really, it's that easy.

Over on Prudence Pennywise blog she had two different

step by step blog posts on how to do this and

just how easy it is to make.

Check it out here and here to see for yourselves!

I'm filling the little baskets with that wonderful bark.

It will make nice little gifts for teachers, neighbors,

Home and Visiting teachers or anyone you

need to remember this Christmas season.

Or just eat it yourself.

Enjoy!

Merry Christmas!

Tasty Tuesday

Vanilla Wafer Cake
or Coconut Pound Cake
6 eggs
2 sticks of butter
2 cups sugar
2 cups coconut
1 large box Wafer
1/2 cup milk
2 cups nuts
1 teaspoon vanilla
Cream butter and sugar together.
Beat in one egg at a time until smooth.
Add vanilla, wafer crumbs,
pecans and coconut.
Bake one hour at 350*

~~~~~~

The pictures really doesn't do it justice.

This is a really old recipe.

I remember my mama making this cake at Christmas time when I was a child.

It was always one of my favorites.

Still is.

It's a really moist cake and no need for any icing.

YUM!

Funny Kid

Shelby informed us tonight at the dinner table that

we weren't having hot dogs we were having "meat sticks"!

Hope you had something a little better :)

My Favorite

Happy 1st Birthday Bentley

From this sweet little puppy.

And look at his ears they are both laying down.

To this huge handsome guard dog.

And like everything else in this house

the Sweetheart has managed to spoil him rotten.

I look forward to many years of loving Bentley.

Merry Christmas From The Beach

I took these pictures 2 days before Thanksgiving.

It was 81* that day and we stayed on the beach until dark.

My niece Tara and her family were down from Ohio

visiting and took their pictures too.

Santa is Tara's husband Ben.

She made his Santa suit and I think she did a great job!

I'll show their pictures soon.

Brunswick 1st Ward Christmas Party

The Red Chair

The Red Chair Revisited.

When the Sweetheart was in the hospital

I talked him into getting a new chair for

him and the kids and the animals to share.

They all love to sit on his lap and his old

chair just wasn't big enough to share anymore.

It is so big that he and I can both sit in it together.

I ordered it on line, and they call it " A Chair and a Half".

It is a recliner but not a rocking recliner.

It's GREAT and we all LOVE it!

The GRAND~girls can lay down together in it.

Plenty of room for 65 pound Bentley.

After a few days of being in my house

the chair got cold and got it's on blanket.

Walgrin loves the chair and sits in one corner.

Dawson lays in the other corner.

Sometimes they share it.

Even Mo, the fat cat can share it with his Sugar daddy.

I get to sit in it when they let me :)

A Great Christmas Cookie

Check here for other Ruby Tuesday pictures.

Red Velvet Gooey Butter Cookies

1 8oz. pkg. cream cheese

1/2 c. butter, softened

1 egg

1/4 tsp. vanilla

1 Red Velvet cake mix

1/2 c. powdered sugar

DIRECTIONS: Preheat oven to 350 degrees.In a medium bowl, cream together the cream cheese and butter. Stir in egg and vanilla. Add cake mix & stir until well blended.Powder sugar your hands well. Roll into 1" or 2" balls and dust balls in powdered sugar. Place 1" apart on ungreased cookie sheets (Siplast and parchment paper work well too) . Bake for 10 minutes. Leave on cookie sheet for 3 minutes or more before removing to cool on wire racks.

The original Gooey Butter Recipe, I posted here.

Hooked?

My brother sent this to me this morning and I thought it was cute.

Tis The Season, Cute

Party Time

Brunswick 1st Ward Christmas Party tonight 6:30 at the church.

33 Years Together

December 3, 1977

Mr. and Mrs. Claude Harry Griffis

For my anniversary present, he shaved and when back to a goatee!

It looks so much better.

I'll try and get a new picture this evening sometime.

Also, all I wanted was to have all 3 dogs wash by some one other than myself.

I'm easy like that.

We had them washed yesterday and they smell and look so good.

I love them again.

I love my Sweetheart even more after 33 years.

He's a keeper!

Date night tonight!

Have a great weekend yall.

Have You Heard This Before?

I just LOVE it!
I hope you do too.

This is the first year I've heard it.
Do you have any favorite Christmas songs you would like to share with me???
Give'em up!

Horton House

Isn't Jay just a precious baby boy?

Jay's mom is Kristie and Kristie's mom is my good friend Beth Newsome.

I took his pictures last Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving.

It was a beautiful Fall day with temperatures in the 80's

I took the pictures at the Horton House on Jekyll Island.

I love this place for pictures and I know yall have seen it often in my portraits.

The following is posted on a historical marker to the back of the house.

~~~~~

MAJOR WILLIAM HORTON
Born in England
Came to Georgia in 1736
Died at Savannah in 1748

These are the remains of Horton's tabby house. Major Horton of Oglethorpe's Regiment, the first English resident of Jekyll Island, erected on the north end of Jekyll a two story dwelling and large barn. He cleared fields here for cultivation of crops which supplied the settlers at Frederica on St. Simons Island, a neighboring island, who would have suffered except for this assistance. Major Horton cut a road across the north end of Jekyll, running east and west, from this tabby house to the beach. This road is still known as the Horton Road.

Major Horton was a trusted officer chosen by James Oglethorpe for important missions. Upon Oglethorpe's final return to England in 1743, Major Horton succeeded him as commander of the military forces of the Colony of Georgia.

Poulain du Bignon, owner of Jekyll Island after the Revolutionary War, repaired the Horton tabby house and made it his home. As the du Bignon family grew, wooden wings were added to the house.

This is Tristan, Jay's step brother.

This is Jay with his Aunt Cathy.

I enjoyed taking their pictures on such a perfect day.

Jacob's 1st Birthday

From this to this in one year!

Notice the short hair on the 3 year old stylist :)

Jacob is her only cousin on her mom's side of the family.

He is one loved little boy!

1st Birthday Parties are the cutest.

Jacob is my DIL's only nephew.

No relation to me.