Still Rockin' around the Christmas tree

We have had a great Christmas 09'!

Check out my huge fam! We missed getting a pic with my parents, but this is all my sibs and their kids with my grandparents.

The hubs had to go back to work, so he is missing:) Everyone else is "present." Ba ha ha.
Hi Abigail! She couldn't resist walking through the pic. My parents joined us in this pic.

My bro-in-law, Adam drew this pic of Garrett for Christmas. Isn't it great?!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Havin' a Holly Jolly Christmas

Merry Christmas! " Over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house we went"......literally. That's how you "go" when the interstate is 3 feet under water. We took about a 1.5 hour detour to get there, but after having lived 24 hours away from home, it was still an EASY travel day.


Zach is 6 months older than G, but Garrett has just "arrived" to a point where they can run around playing together. The had a great time...a LOUD LOUD time! They missed you Abba!!! I'm sure she didn't miss being in the tub this time...it was wild!!!

There is my sweet sis-in-law, Katie. We've prayed her to December 25....along with lots and lots of folks. She made the comment last night, that she has felt those prayers. I'm so thankful to hear her say that and see her smile and laugh these holidays. I know she aches for Reese this Christmas, but I see God's grace all around her.

We saw the biggest snow village I've ever seen. The kids LOVED the trains!

Christmas morning! Love those reindeer socks:)

Mary loves to play by herself. She was in her own world playing with her princesses.

We have had a great time with the White folks.....love it that Christmas is only half way over! Watch out Popes here we come!

Visions of sugar plum fairies

I took the girls to see the Nutcracker this afternoon. Allie's pal Emma Cate is in the local ballet theatre, so Allie was especially excited to go see it. Mary squirmed a bit at the length of things, but she was also excited to see Emma Cate afterwards. Great job EC!


The girls are starting to look tired from all the obligatory pictures at Christmas time.

I think it's hilarious that Allie ran over to EC for her first autograph. She was so proud.

Garrett stayed home and practiced his snap count. He's starting to look too old for that passie...oh well...he's the third!

Polar Express

Will the REAL Santa.....

....Please step forward.





He he...my sisnlaw Melissa said that if I left a pic like that, I needed to provide some more details! I googled "santa cupcakes" and this was the picture that came up. So cute huh??? I used, twizzler pull and peels, chocolate chips, pink jelly beans, marshmellows, white icing, and those hard chewy fruit candies shape like a half moon!

Ice the cupcakes with white icing, then add the chocolate chip eyes, and a half of a pink jelly bean for the nose. Cut the pull and peels to the length you want for the smile and place the lips. I had to slice the moon shaped red candies in half lengthwise because they were too thick to use as they were. Place the red candy on top for the hat and one marshmellow on the side as shown. Finally paint on the icing for the beard and add a mustache!

A picture for Pappy

Allie went to a birthday party at the pet shop this past weekend. Now isn't it the mind of a 6-year-old that it's OK to hold a snake but NOT to ride a roller coaster. Allie is aware that her Pappy is not fond of snakes, so she asked that I post this just for him!

Knot head

Well after the past week I certainly feel like my head is in knots. Allie and Mary both had Christmas programs at their respective schools. Allie's group performed 3 different days, Mary on one of those days, choir practice for church, church program tonight....all thrown in with half a dozen birthday parties, and here I am not even able to write in coherent sentence structure. I am glad tomorrow is Monday for once......because it's a different week than last! I can't post all the video tonight, but don't worry grandparents, I will get them up:)

The video I did post is of Garrett's REAL knot head. Allie was chasing him tonight and he ran right into the wall. He didn't even cry. I picked him up and said, Night night. When I put him in the bed 30 sec after the crash, his head looked like this!!! I was STARTLED!!! I called hubs immediately for the second time today. Allie ran into the treadmill earlier, don't ask me how, and she had a HUGE knot on the top of her head. In summary....no more programs, and no more goose eggs this week!

They weren't excited about posing right before church tonight. Nothing a cookie bribe won't cure.
Typical preschool program....lots of hand motions..at lots of different times during the song.

Emma Cate went to watch Allie's school perform "Christmas in Egypt"

Allie's teacher is GREAT! She seems to be ok with my little chatterbox. Allie told me earlier when she had a bad day for talking and talking, that "Ms. C's grace cup had tipped right on over." I'm sure this was one of those weeks for her! I don't know how teachers "do" December!

Emmy came too for the performance. Sometimes I think Allie gets more excited to see her there than me!! I'm just the lady with the camera!

Fireside

I found Allie parked right in front of the fireplace tonight before she was to go to bed. I said, "Al what are you doing?" She replied, "mamma, I'm just so tired, that I wanted to sit in front of the fireplace and read my book." It sounded like a great idea to me...I pulled up a bean bag and a book and joined in the fun. Who of us are too busy for a night by the fire with our kiddos?? Don't get that busy this December....this was way more fun.

The Nutcracker

Today the girls and I went to a tea to support the ballet theatre in town. Allie's friend Emma Cate is in the ballet and will be performing in the Nutcracker in a few weeks. Mary was super excited to be included this year. She all of a sudden seems so much more grown up. She walked around holding Allie and Emma Cate's hands like a big girl. They really liked the dressing up part...every little girl needs a good tea party once in a while.

If I never see another snow flake....

...I'll be fine:)

Well of course I didn't mean that when we left Rochester. What an extreme though! Above is our old house on a typical January day. It was an almost daily occurrence to see the flakes falling, and now it is almost unbelievable to see them fall for even 3 or 4 min per year! That's about how long it lasted today. I had to grab my video camera of course to document that it DOES happen here once in a great while. It made me nostalgic for my friends up North. I do not miss the snow...but I do miss them!! Check out the video at the bottom of Allie helping me "shovel". That was before there were piles of it on the driveway too. The bottom video is from today.


...not too cold for Mary and Garrett to play outside. Who really wants to swing when it's 38 deg???

..or play pik-a-boo either!

I just realized that after uploading you can't even see the flakes!!! Rediculous!

"Elfie" returns

A couple of years ago, my SIL, Mandy, gave the kids the Elf on the Shelf "set" for Christmas. Allie started asking to get "Elfie" off the shelf the day after Halloween I think! I'm sure you've heard of this fun tradition by now, but if not "google" it!


I copied this idea off of a friend on facebook..where else?! For the sake of my sanity, I told Allie that Elfie wouldn't fly until December 1rst this year. You would have thought it was already Christmas. She was up at 5:55 looking for him. Thankfully I beat her to it...the shaving cream did not last long!

She found him flying through the den this morning. Only 22 more days left!

Ready...Set...Go!

Once Thanksgiving gets here, life takes off for a couple of months at least. We had a great visit with my parents, my twin brother, and his family! Thanks for making the trip since the hubs had to work. It was nice to be home:) Be prepared for a long post!

Isn't this picture awful?! I found him hanging from the outer side of his crib rail last week. I had ordered this crib tent months ago in anticipation of him climbing out. He doesn't seem to mind it, and now I can rest easy!

Got a sweet picture of Grace!

Anna Kate is an easy poser unlike her sissy! We had to work for the pic of Grace!

This was about the only picture of all 5 that I have! They were outside enjoying the 70 deg weather most of the week!

....no Nanna didn't cook the WHOLE time....she was out at midnight shopping...a true story (sort of:) We actually turned around and went home after we saw 1000 people at Toysrus!

After everyone went home, we made our annual outing to find our Christmas tree. I made a scrapbook page for our family album below.

This is probably one of my favorite traditions all year!

Garrett loved running around screaming...WOW!!

Sweet sistas!
It's next to impossible to get a group pic of the kids at this point! It has become tradition that we go eat hamburgers after all that hard work of picking a tree out. Guess Garrett was hungry!
It's nice to have the tree decorated before December 1rst!

Bunny gave us this ornament with Reese's name on it. I had put it away for safe keeping, and before I could get it out, Allie said, "mom what about Reese's ornament? We need it on the tree!" She prays for Katie and Jason every night and remembers Reese often. We miss her, and will be praying her sweet mamma and daddy through this holiday season.

27 days until Christmas...this will be fun!

If this doesn't get you in the Christmas spirit....

I know it's not even Thanksgiving, but these pictures make me giggle.