School Christmas Parties

I helped out with Hannah's Christmas party on the Friday before they got out of school.  I was pleased that all three of the girls' Christmas parties were at different times this year so that we could be at all of them.  

We started out the party by making Gingerbread houses.  The kids had fun but it didn't go so well.  This is Hannah's table for the moment.  They switch them around every couple weeks it seems like, but Remy and Penny are her two best friends at school (the ones she talks about all the time) and they both happen to be at her table right now, so that's fun!  Remy is across from her and his mom is an amazing 1st grade teacher at our school.  I would be so excited if Hannah got his mom as a teacher next year.  Penny is sitting to Hannah's left and her mom is a speech therapist at our school.  

This was Hannah's finished product.  Ha!  

After "making" and eating the Gingerbread houses it was time to get their gift from their Secret Santa.  They had so much fun giving a gift to one of their friends (they had to keep the gift to under $5)....they had all drawn a name at their Thanksgiving party.  

Hannah got this cute book and had me read it right in the middle of the chaos.  A few of her friends started listening too!  

I enjoyed getting to be there with my sweet kindergartner!  

Claire's school performance and party was on the morning Tuesday the 19th.  Mommies and daddies and grandparents were all packed in the room to see their little three year olds.  I caught Claire signing "I Love You" to her Daddy just before they started singing.  She left it there for awhile.  She was so excited to have both of us there.  

This age is so cute to watch.  The little boy to Claire's left kept bending over and then standing up and pulling up his shirt.  Ha!  There is a mom in the corner of this picture who was trying to talk her son into singing, but he couldn't be convinced.  They have 10 cute kids in their class.  

We loved getting to be there to cheer on our girl and we appreciated Ms. Sherry watching Abby.  The school asks that you not bring siblings to parties, which is a bit of a pain, but it is fun to have one on one time with our little preschooler.  

Emily's party was the same day as Claire's but in the afternoon.  Ms. Sonja came over to watch Claire and Abby was napping the whole time.  I only got this ONE picture at Emily's party.

They had fun eating Christmas themed food and rotating to different stations.  We had two craft stations and two game stations.  Emily was especially excited about the ornament that she made.  

I had so much fun getting to celebrate Christmas with all my girls and their friends.  All three parties were super cute and sweet!  

Church Christmas Performance

Emily, Hannah and Claire had their church Christmas performance on December 3rd.  Pawpaw and Grandmama drove up on Saturday so they could be here for it and we enjoyed also getting to watch the SEC championship with them and cheer on the Dawgs together.  

I didn't ask them to pose like this, but they were all snuggled up to Grandmama and Pawpaw after they got here so I ran to get my phone. 

We enjoyed having Grandmama and Pawpaw at church with us on Sunday morning.  She took a picture of each of the girls before we headed out the door.  

Mimi and Papa arrived that afternoon so that they could be here for the performance that night.  We enjoyed spending several hours relaxing with everyone.  

I've enjoyed working with the Play and Praise kids (3 years old through K-5) again this year. We've consistently had a good number of kids each week and they have been so sweet. 

Getting ready to take the stage!

Claire wanted to stand beside Hannah.  

During our performance at the elast Spring Claire stood on the stage with her arms crossed and a big scowl on her face during a large chunk of the performance.  This time I can't remember if she smiled much, but she didn't scowl, used the instruments and maybe even sang a little.  Go Claire!  

Hannah looks tall here, but it's probably because she's between two three-year-olds.  

This was Emily's third play with the big kids choir and I've never seen her work so hard to memorize her lines and learn every song and motion.  She wanted to practice all the time and we were really proud of her hard work.  It showed as she knew that play backwards and forwards.

The play that they did was called "Out of the Box" and it really was super cute.  Emily and three of the other girls were "angel cheerleaders."

My friend Shannon got a picture of Emily during one of her speaking parts.  I love that you can see how much expression she was using!

The whole gang after the show!  

All the grandparents headed back to their houses after the show but we were thankful they made the trip up to be with us! 

And we were super proud of all three girls!

These Days

We brought out our Thankfulness jar at the beginning of November and enjoyed adding to it each night (that we were at home and ate dinner together).  I love hearing what they're thankful for.  We want to help them cultivate an attitude of thankfulness and this is a fun way to help do that.  

Katherine's birthday was November 4th and we enjoyed getting to celebrate with everyone!  Mom made a red velvet cake for us to enjoy!  

The whole crew! We love celebrating birthdays!!  

October was pastor appreciation month and we got cards, gift cards, and other gifts all month long.  We felt (as always) so loved and appreciated.  One family offered to keep the kids so that we could go on a date night.  We weren't able to find a date in October so we went their first week in November.  The girls had so much fun at Sophie's house and we enjoyed our date night to the Cheesecake Factory (gift card from someone else).  

They had a bounce house at Awana one night and the girls loved it!    

We always have to make at least one leaf pile to jump in every fall.  Bert also got some cute video of them.  

Abby watched them from the window for a few minutes, but then she wanted to get out there too so I bundled her up and brought her  out.  She wanted to help rake, but was a little dangerous with that thing.  

I found Emily reading a book to Abby later that afternoon and I thought it was so sweet to see her so locked on.  Abby LOVES to be read to.  

One Wednesday we had a picnic in Daddy's office before Awana started.  They thought it was an adventure.  

We had a play date with the Burns' kids and they really loved playing dress up with some dress up things we don't have!

Emily had her first field trip and they went to the Peace Center to watch a play.  I loved this picture of her and some friends that Tara sent to me. 

One Friday Bert went hunting with some guys from our church.  He'd never been hunting before so he had to take an online class before he could get his licence.  They picked him up at 4am, which would have been a little early for me, but he didn't mind.  He really enjoyed himself.  

He only shot one bullet the whole day and he got this deer.  I was so proud of him and we're excited about the meat that we have in the freezer because of it!  Hannah was a little sad about the deer having to die, but he talked her a little about it and she came around.  

Emily wrote a short chapter book for a contest at school and came in first for her age group.  The book was called Rachel's Dream.  She had illustrations all through out the book.  The only thing we helped her with was how to spell certain words.  She did such a great job and we were so proud of her hard work.  Now her piece of literature is off to the district level and we'll see how it does there.  If her Mommy was voting though she'd definitely win.:)  

We had a big Thanksgiving lunch at church (the Sunday afternoon before Thanksgiving) and this was our spread.  We love our church family so much and love fellowship time with them!

Emily bought this doll bed (that Abby's playing in) at an auction that we had at church with her own money.  The auction was to raise money for Nicaragua and Emily got out her piggy bank and brought about $20 that she could spend it there.  

We celebrated the start of Thanksgiving break by taking a family trip to this new restaurant called Hwy 55 for milk shakes.  All 6 of us enjoyed them!  

Our preschool choir on Sunday night has been extra cute this semester.  We've had a really good group of kids coming each week.  Our performance is December 3rd and they're going to do such a great job!  

November was great and we're looking forward to December and celebrating the birth of our Savior together!

Decorating for Christmas

We decorated for Christmas on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  This is our sixth year getting a real tree and every other year we've only had to go to one tree place and we've found the perfect tree.  This year we finally found our tree at the THIRD tree place.  Thankfully, all of these places were pretty close together and near our house because we were under a time constraint with the UGA/Tech football game starting at noon.  We made it home and Bert was able to put it in the stand before the game started.  

The girls  had so much fun decorating the tree.  They loved picking out their favorite ornaments to put on.  

Somehow I didn't get a picture of my Claire Bear putting ornaments on but know she was right in the middle of the mix.  

Abby was a bit of a tornado.  She was sooooo happy the whole time we were decorating, but a little on the wild side.  She'd run to our dining room table, grab an ornament, run to the tree and try to put it on, and if she couldn't get it on a limb she'd just throw it at the tree and repeat.  We didn't break anything, but I'm sure that wouldn't have been the case if we didn't have carpet because ornaments were dropped all over the place.  

When we first got home our tree had a lump sticking out on the right side, but Bert trimmed it up and now I think this might be my favorite of all the trees we've had.  I love this little nook in our house.  

I've wanted these outside little trees for a couple years now, and finally decided to buy them.  I love the way they look with our door open (there is a storm door there) and our big tree lit up in the background.  

We love driving around and looking at lights and we usually end up doing it about once a week in the month of December.  So fun!!  

Bert's 35th

We started off Bert's birthday celebrations in Toccoa on Friday (the day after Thanksgiving).  Everyone that had been there for Thanksgiving came back over and we pulled out all the leftovers and enjoyed a mud cake that mom had made for his birthday.  

He had plenty of help blowing out his candles.  

On Monday after school I had the girls make some cards for their Daddy. 

Emily had been wanting to make some "treats" from her Easy Bake oven to celebrate her Daddy's birthday so we made those Monday afternoon too.  Emily was the directions reader and she had her helpers stirring the mix, etc.  

We had a couple smaller things for Bert, but his big gift (gift was from Mimi and Papa, me and girls) were some side steps for his truck.  So on Tuesday after I picked Claire up from school we drove the 30 minutes to pick them up.  I had talked to these people on the phone several times the day before and they were probably chuckling about my lack of knowledge about what I was ordering.  Whatever.  

We had to wait about 45 minutes and these girls had a blast in the store.  I wasn't too worried about them hurting anything, but there were some big parts that I didn't want them to get hurt on, so I literally chased them around the store making sure that that didn't pull anything over on themselves.  At one point Claire stopped, pulled Abby beside her and said "take our picture."  So I did.  They smile better when the picture is their idea. Ha! 

I had worked so hard to keep the side steps a surprise and we were going to give them to him at his family party on Tuesday night, but after the guy from the truck store wedged them into my van (all the way down the length of the van) I realized that I literally couldn't get them out by myself.  They were too heavy.  And it would have been fine to leave them in there except Emily and Hannah couldn't get to their seats and we had to pick them up from school in a couple hours....so, I had to call him on the phone and tell him about the sidesteps and then ask him to help me get them out of the van so I could go pick up the girls. That afternoon, after he got off of work he put them on by himself in no time.  So glad he liked them because there were more options that I realized when I first had the bright idea to get these for him.  

On Tuesday night we celebrated with Taco Soup (which Bert really likes), and Key Lime Cake made by a lady in our church who just loves loving on our family.  She asked me on Sunday if she could make a cake for Bert's birthday and I told her we would all love that.  Her Key Lime Cakes are famous around our church, and for good reason.  We enjoyed every bite!  

After cake it was present time.  Notice Abby's high heels.  Funny girl!  

Happy 35th birthday, Bert!  You're a great dad and an amazing husband and we love you so much!!