The Best Money I Ever Spent

When my Noah-the-Pooh was born we were pretty tight on money so we weren't able to take as many professional photos of him as we wanted to. I do have tons of pictures that I took of him myself, which I cherish dearly, but I really wish I would have made more of an effort to save money for more professional ones.

Well I'm not making the same mistake twice! For Christmas we took beautiful photos at a studio of my 3 rascals, and most recently we had Our365 Photography come to our home and take photos of Baby Carlitos. 

Oh my goodness! He looks so beautiful! Take a peek at some of our photos:

I know money is tight for many of us, but if there's one thing that's never a waste of money, it's photographs of our precious little ones.

Sing Me A Lullaby Mama

I love singing and rocking my little rascals to sleep. Unfortunately, I found myself doing it less and less as my eldest rascal got older. But one special moment that Noah-the-Pooh and I shared last year reminded me that my rascals are never too old to hear their mama sing them a sweet lullaby.

Last year Noah-the-Pooh and I dove into out first year of homeschool. Rather than overwhelming ourselves with all sorts of subjects, we simply started with literature, a subject that we were both comfortable with. To our delight, our first lessons in literature would consist of learning new lullabies. We sang "Over The Rainbow", "Away In A Manger", and "Brahms Lullaby".

But the most precious moment came when we were learning "Baby Of Mine". He sat on my lap and I rocked him as I sang the lullaby to him. By the time I was done, Noah-the-Pooh was fast asleep! My 6 year old baby, rocked to sleep with a gentle lullaby.

Here are some lullaby collections that my little rascals enjoy :

Traditional Lullabies - classic lullabies

Rock Music Renditions of Lullabies - we love U2 from this collection.

Country and Folk Music Renditions of Lullabies - check out Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline!

Jazz Lullabies - with Judy Garland, Nat King Cole and June Christy!

Lullabies & Peaceful Worship - has beautiful prayers too!

Daddy's Lullabies- Now daddy can have sweet lullaby memories too!

This clip makes me cry whenever I see it *sniffle*.

Cherished Childhood Memories {12/24/09} plus 1 more

Hooray for Christmas! Usually I'm running around like a mad woman trying to get everything baked, kids ready and myself ready to rush over to my mother-in-laws house. My Hunny usually works Christmas eve in the morning so i have to do this all myself. But this year...aaahhh, my Hunny is home, the kids are clean and dressed, my in-laws will be coming over to our place this year and I've cut down on the cookin' and bakin'. I'm making my famous Sweet Bourbon Ham, Fantasia Cheese Cake and Green Beans with Hickory Smoked Bacon. I usually only make these dishes for Thanksgiving and Christmas so my family is very excited. I'm taking pictures to share the recipes with you next week!

Now on with this weeks Cherished Childhood Memory...

When I was 10yrs old, my family had fallen into hard times. Being that I was just a child, I didn't really know what was going on. I just saw that our home seem to have some furniture missing and the Christmas tree wasn't put up that year. My mom then told my sisters and I that we could not afford any presents that year. We were heartbroken, but we understood the hardship.

We weren't completely empty handed, we did get some gifts from my extended family and from my dad and step-mom.

The morning after Christmas, my mom was mysteriously missing. When she came home she called us to the nearly empty living room and handed us each a large plastic bag. She had managed to scrape up some money and went shopping in the wee hours of the morning. She had no time to wrap, so she just had the bags stapled on top.

In my mind I remember the bag full of clothes, but it probably had just few garments that my mom lovingly chose for me. My most favorite item was a beautiful, silky, pink bra. It looked much to delicate and fancy to give to a girl that just started wearing bra's, but she gave it to me anyway.

My sisters and I were so grateful for the sacrifice my mom and step-dad made to bring a Christmas smile to our faces. I know I'll cherish that memory forever.

Have a Merry Christmas Vintage Mama's!

Take lots of pictures and journal those memories!

Remember last week when I told you about my cousins and I doing the Sound of Music? Well here's a pic! My cousin on the right is Captain Von Trapp, greeting "Froline Maria" in the middle and "Baroness Schrader" looking lavish at the far right. And whose that cute-as-a-button little girl in the middle? Why that's me playing Gretl!

Cherished Childhood Memories {12/18/09}

Merry Christmas fellow vintage mama's! I hope everyone is having a fabulous December full of classic carols and vintage angels. I've been just as busy, not only with the usual Christmas hullabaloo, but also mulling over my goals for my blogs. This is part of the reason I haven't been posting as much (the other is that I'm a busy mama!). My vision is definitely become clearer and I am so excited, thrilled and even a little scared. I appreciate your patience and I promise that I won't disappoint!

I have some fun, new projects I'm working on as well for my blogs, one of which I'm debuting now!

Cherished Childhood Memories is a series were I will be sharing with you some of my most precious memories from my own childhood or my children's every Thursday. I invite you to share your own cherished memories about childhood as well in the comments below. I look forward to reading them!

In my post about our Fancy Nancy party, I told you a bit about my artsy, eccentric family. One of my fondest memories of my eccentric family is when we did "The Sound of Music" for Christmas. Oh, honey it was incredible!

I was about 7 years old when my cousins and I put on a fantastic show for our parents. I was the youngest so they pretty much handled most of the details while I concentrated on learning my lines and music. My older sister and cousins created programs, painted backgrounds, shopped thrift stores for costumes, and even choreographed dance routines...it was a production!

It was so much fun! My family still talks about how proud they were of us. I wish I had some pictures to share. I'll ask around during Christmas with my family to see if anyone has some. We actually did several plays and even some dance routines throughout my childhood. I share more of them later!

Share your Cherished Childhood Memory below!