Christmas at Home

It was nice this year that Todd was off for Christmas Eve! We spent the day cooking for Christmas dinner and just hanging out and enjoying the day. Our tradition has been to eat Papa Murphy's pizza for dinner so that we don't have to do any extra cooking for Christmas Eve. Before bed the kids always get to open their new Christmas pj's from Grandmom and Grandpa!

Here they are showing off the new pajamas!
Christmas morning always begins with Todd reading the Christmas story. Then the kids get to look in their stockings!

Then they get to open gifts! We try to get them each 3 gifts as a symbol of the 3 gifts that the wise men brought to baby Jesus!

This year was a little bit unusual as Todd and I did not fill stockings or buy any gifts for each other. We got this new TV, stand, speakers, and bookshelves for Christmas this year. We got money from Todd's family to pay for part of the expenses, but the rest of it was our gift to each other. It looks very nice!

After a yummy french toast breakfast made by Daddy, the kids were ready to try out their new DS games!

We had some friends come over to share Christmas dinner with us and watch The Nativity Story. And, of course we had our birthday part for Jesus which included this red velvet cake!

Christmas in Maryville

Here are a few pictures from our Christmas in Maryville!

Grandmom and her elves!

Ty hugging Mommy after opening the first gift of the evening!
Trey is just chillin'.

Travis and Jackie are chillin' too.

All the kids went in together to get Pops a smoker!

The grandkids made this lovely gingerbread house!

We are always thankful when the whole family can be together to celebrate special occasions!

Book Club

The kids belong to a book club that meets about every 4-6 weeks. The boys and girls are separated into different groups and read different books. (Mommy is the leader of the girls' group.) For their Christmas party they were supposed to dress up as their favorite character from a book they had read. We had a hard time getting a costume together for Brandon, and although we did finally come up with something, we got no pictures of it. But, Bekah knew right away that she wanted to be Laura Ingalls, and we were able to find some clothing to make it work. Here is our beautiful Laura!

The "real" birthday!

Bekah woke up on her birthday at Grandmom and Grandpa's house. Per her request, we had cinammon rolls for breakfast.

She also got her gifts from mommy and daddy. She was convinced her gift was tap shoes, but was very pleasantly suprised to find out is was the pink DS she had been wanting!

And she got a Zumbuddy!

Mommy and Daddy always decorate the bedroom door for the birthday kid so the celebrating begins the minute they get up! Here is Bekah posing with her birthday decor!

After breakfast we drove to Algood to celebrate with Todd's family at Travis and Jackie's house. Here is Bekah with her 3rd birthday cake! This one she got to share with Aunt Jackie!

And there were still more presents to open!

And thank you hugs to be given.

We are so blessed to have been able to spend the last 7 years with our daughter, Bekah! We are so thankful that God gave us such a wonderful blessing!

More birthday celebrating!

Bekah's birthday party was held on the Tuesday evening before Thanksgiving. She had one friend spend the night with her after the party. Here's Bekah the next morning with her balloons from the party.

And here is a picture of her and her friend with their matching hairdos!

Later on that day, we dropped off her friend and then drove down to Tennessee to Grandmom and Grandpa's house. Grandpa's birthday is just a few days before Bekah's birthday, so they had a party together that evening.

Bekah got another artist's palette cake and Grandpa got a cream cheese pound cake.

This was one of her gifts.

Here are Grandpa's gifts.

And Bekah's gifts.

We are thankful that we live close enough to our family to be able to celebrate special days with them! The following day was Thanksgiving so we enjoyed lots of good food and hanging out with our family. The day after Thanksgiving was Bekah's actual birthday. So, there was still more celebrating to come!

Bekah's Birthday Party!

So, her party was 3 months ago, but I am just now getting the pictures on here! We held her party at a local make-your-own-pottery place. It is called Earth and Fire - Pottery By You! This was our first birthday party that we've ever done for the kids at any party place. And, I loved it! I showed up with a cake, drinks and some plates and cups and that was it! I didn't have to clean my house before or after the party or come up with any party games, etc. I think we may have to do parties this way more often!

Each girl got to select the piece of pottery they would like to paint from a selection of appropriately priced items (the cheap ones!). Here they are hard at work.

Bekah chose a cat!

When they were finished they each got a face painting from Todd!

Then Bekah got to put her hand print in the special birthday girl plate. Each of her guests put their fingerprint and name around the edge of the plate. The fingerprints were turned into flowers by the pottery store staff. Bekah will always have the special plate to remember her special day!

Then it was time for cake. Bekah chose the rainbow sprinkle cake mix so it would look like paint in the cake. I made the cake into an artist's palette.

Of course she got lots of presents too!

Here is the whole crew! Unfortunately one family was out of town, but everyone else made it!

Super silly girls making a crazy face!

Tea Party

Well, first please get up off the floor now. I know you fell over when you saw a new post on my blog! I can't believe it's already 2011 and January is over halfway over! We enjoyed our Christmas break from school, but now we are plugging away again. In history we have just gotten to the Revolutionary War! When we talked about the Boston Tea Party, we made some tea and scones. Here are the kids enjoying their own tea party.

Yes, Brandon is wearing his snow pants. For some reason he loves to wear them around the house. Maybe he thinks it will make it snow??