Scenes of Christmas

Lily got a "Power Link" for Christmas. You can plug into it which allows her to use her switch to turn things on and off. She also enjoyed helping make banana bread by operating the mixer.

December activities

Lily's yearly Christmas party hosted by the Kiwanis Club is always a fun event. It is always exciting to see Santa.

Spencer couldn't believe that Santa remembered him. He was shocked when Santa gave him a hug and said hello.

Spencer's preschool party was lots of fun and will probably never be topped. They decorated sugar cookies, an ornament, a stocking, made a gingerbread house and reindeer food, read Christmas stories, sang carols, and exchanged presents. All in 2 hours and 45 minutes and I am probably leaving out a few things.

We stayed pretty busy during the holiday season, of course. Who doesn't?
Siena wanted to make sure we didn't just sit around at home and waste her days off from school.

So we did some fun things at home and then we went to the movies, shopping, and on a few field trips of our own.

We hopped on Donner and Rudolf and took a ride to the North Pole.

Made sugar cookies.

Decorated a gingerbread house.

We went to the Chinese Cultural Center and bought unfamiliar food items like soda pop with a marble inside the bottle, seaweed soup, juice(box) triangles, and lots of yummy treats with sporting pandas printed on the outside of the cookies. There were many things I really didn't want to try like all their fishy products.

Photo shoot

Beautiful, eh? But can you imagine how much better they would look if I had a decent camera. This is from our point and shoot. One day I want a good camera!

Preschool Fieldtrip

Before heading off to TX for Thanksgiving, Spencer had a fieldtrip to Cabellas. He had such a great time going on a scavenger hunt around the store looking for all kinds of animals from around the globe. Here is a picture of him with his class in front of the African savannah.
It's a good thing he got to practice his sharp shooting skills. That way he was prepared to do lots of target shooting in TX.

Look at the size of those fish the kids caught!

I loved his headdress and war paint. When we got home he wanted to put on even more. What a fierce warrior.

Texas Entertainment

We had lots of down home fun while we were in Texas. It started off within minutes of our arrival in the huge piles of leaves that Grandpa had just raked up. Ahhh, the crunch of leaves on a cool autumn day. That is one of my all time favorite sounds.
Spencer loved looking for birds, turtles, beavers, and alligators on Mercer Bayou. We probably "did in" poor grandpa by the time we were done, but you can't tell by the smile on his face.

Siena got to learn how to drive the tractor while we were at the farm. I was very conscious of keeping Spencer out of the way of Siena and the tractor because I kept having flashbacks of nearly smashing my brother John when he was two. She is looking forward to trying out the truck next time we visit.

Tree swings... oh, the dizzying fun of it!

My man, supplying dinner!

Grandpa kept so busy making sure all the grand kids had worms on their hooks. Then he kept busy helping them take the fish off the hooks. Then he kept even busier still trying to get their line out of the trees.

He spoiled Siena. I don't even think she had to get her hands dirty.

Spencer hung around long enough to catch one fish then he was off to jump on the trampoline with his cousins.

This water moccasin was hiding right beside us all. It is a good thing my dad looked down as he reached for the can of worms. He shot it with his pistol before it slithered back into the lake, then he fished it out. It was a big one!

Lily absolutely loved it out there. It was peaceful and the weather was so pleasant. She was definitely in her element.

Lily's little cousins just love her. Julia loved tending to her every need.

Three generations. See the family resemblance?

A hunting we will go, a hunting we will go...

Look what's for dinner!

Paul loves country life.

We also got to see our friends, the Johnsons.

One thing I enjoyed while I was in the back woods of East TX was not knowing where my kids were every second of the day and being OK with it. They could entertain themselves for the most part.

Thanks Dad and Mom and the rest of the family for the fun and the good eats!

Thanksgiving Festivities

For Thanksgiving we decided to make the 22 hour trek out to Texas to visit my family. My sister Sally hosted all the TX family at her house for the main event. She and her family outdid themselves getting ready for the occasion. (Thank you, thank you! It was wonderful!) We had 5 out of the 9 siblings in our family so it was quite a gathering for one place. Everyone pitched in with the food, each bringing some of their holiday favorites. One of the after dinner highlights was when Grandpa told one of his famous "Brer Rabbit" stories. What could be better than that? We also had lots of fun making flower barrettes for everyone.We all enjoyed it, but little Madelyn was the pro. She loved it and made more than anyone else.

Then we had a marshmallow shooter war. I had never tried out the guns before, so we were a bit worried that it wouldn't work. However, after a few puffs, we were all over it. The biggest doubter, my brother Sam, ended up having more fun than anyone, I think.

Paul ended up using a left over pipe and it worked just as well.

I made safety goggles for the kids out of soda pop bottles. I had read on the Internet that you could take some body's eye out with a marshmallow.

Here my sister Kate got shot in the ear. It was all wet and gooey, but can deliver a sting.

Here's Uncle Sam with the newest member of our family, little Cyrus. He is such sweetie!

Grandma and Grandpa

The second to the oldest- Sally with John and Todd. Bailey and Kelly are in the Marines so they couldn't be there.

Fifth child- Jennifer with Joey

Sixth child- Sam with Crimson, Hunter, Madelyn and Madison

Eighth child- Kate with Casey, Grace, Julia, and Cyrus