Time with Family

Just wanted to share a few recent pictures of my family taken Christmas day.

My dad and I

My brother, Bryan and his two boys, Brandon and Spencer

My wonderful family


Brandon, Spencer, Pappy, Courtney and Jonah
Unfortunately, we were not able to spend Christmas day with my sister and her family, hopefully we will be able to catch up with each other on New Year's.

Christmas Morning

Every year Jonah and Courtney decorates their own tree for their room. Last Christmas Courtney made the comment that she wished Santa would leave a present under her tree in her bedroom. Well that Santa must have great hearing, because this year Jonah and Courtney awoke to two presents under each of their trees. Moonsand and a Webkinz Reindeer, Courtney named hers Randy and Jonah named his Roxie.

Santa even left a present or should I say a bag full of new toys and treats for Rascal.

Webkinz in our Christmas tree! Yes, the big thing at our house right now are Webkinz. Both Jonah and Courtney are all in to Webkinz, BIG time. In fact, Jonah told Santa that he was going to go cheap this year and only wanted 4 Webkinz, nothing more. Well, he recieved three and since Santa sometimes has a big heart, he threw in a few more gifts to make it a wonderful Christmas.


Jonah and Courtney, Christmas morning in their Penguin PJ's, that they received Christmas Eve by way of their Advent Calendars and a clue to where they could find them.

Jonah and Trey, in their PJ's trying out their Ripstick that Santa brought them.

Digital Cameras from Santa

Merry Christmas to All

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas Day!

A Starling Tradition

Every Christmas for the last 4 years, when have taken a trip to Gaylord Opryland Hotel in Nashville to view the lights and decorations in the hotel as well as taking a chilly walk through the ICE show. Well since we have moved, I thought that this tradition would need to be replace with a new one, but that is not the case. This afternoon we were able to keep our tradition going by attending the ICE attraction at the Gaylord Palms in Oralndo and then strolling through the hotel, enjoying the lights and music. I will say that it was a little strange to bundle up in a parka to walk through an exhibit that was a chillin 9 degrees and then afterward look out the hotel window to view a pool full of people swimming. A little tropical, but still an awesome site to see, 2 million pounds of Ice, sculpted and created into a wonderful winter wonderland. Everything you see is carved from ice.

My favorite attraction besides the ice slide, was the train. It was really neat, the way you could walk through the train.

Looks good enough to eat!

My honey and I

So, our family tradition carries on.

While we were at the Gaylord Palms, we searched the 4.5 acre atrium for 20 Gnomes, that were cleverly hidden throughout the resort. We were given 10 clues to where we could find 10 of the 20. This Gnome was frozen inside a block of ice located inside the ICE attraction. By the way, did you know that in many Scandinavian countries, it is believed that a holiday gnome lives hidden under your house and at Christmas time he emerges carrying a sack of presents over his shoulder. I think that searching for the Gnomes was just as much fun for Phillip and I, as it was for the kids.

Celebrating the Holidays

Jonah and Cleave at the Youth Group Christmas Party. Jonah every few seconds would slowly rise up out of the present like a mechanical person and Cleave would sit there like nothing was happening. It was too funny.

Over the weekend both the tweens and the youth group celebrated Christmas with parties at the church. The the youth group celebrated Sunday after morning services with a family dinner and then a gift exchange and games for the youth group. This has certainly been a great experience for Jonah. The youth group has definitely opened their arms to welcome Jonah in. I know not everything is always perfect and a bed of roses but this group of kids including the seniors has made Jonah feel like a part of this family. I have learned that before too long some of the younger kids will be given "new names", which is a challenge for me b/c I barely know the kids real names. Like it took me several weeks to realize that Cleave's real name is Josh, go figure. I wonder what name Jonah will be given.

Letter to Santa

Last night was the Tweens Christmas party at church. At the beginning of the party, they had the kids write a letter to Santa. I and several others were touched by Courtney's letter, so I thought I would share it with you.

Dear Santa,

All I want for Christmas is world peace. Also I would like a Webkinz (a Collie) and I would like to see my friends in Kentucky. Merry Christmas!

Love,
Courtney
I wanted to cry. I will say that the world peace reminded me of an answer that a beauty pageant contestant would say, but overall I was so touched. This is a picture of Courtney and her new BFF (best friend forever) at church, Rose.

Just One More Day

Just one more day and we are done with our "official" home schooling days for the year, YEAH!!!!! I feel like this school year has been completely chaos, with our move and spending a month living in a hotel, everything has been CRAZY to say the least. We ended up falling 18 days behind in our school lessons, which is not a good feeling. After our move the kids and I buckled down and some days we were able to complete two lessons and some Saturdays the kids were willing to spend a couple hours working on their lessons. With all this said, the kids and I are happy to announce that as of yesterday we are officially back on schedule and we are no longer behind. Which to some home school moms it is not something they worry about, they just realize that they have to get the work done sometime but to me, I love my summers just as much as the kids do and the thought of having to spend summer days doing school while everyone else was out playing, just makes me ill. Tomorrow, after a English test and completion of several other subjects the kids and I will celebrate will a small Christmas party and what a celebration that will be.

Poor Rascal

Poor Rascal received his first haircut last week and should I say I will not take him back to that groomer ever again. Totally changed his appearance but not his attitude, as my neighbor says "he is still rotten" and of course we love him no matter what.

Courtney loves her Rascal.

Time for a New Tag

In honor of the holiday season, it is time for a new tag. You know the rules, so here are the questions:

What is.....
1. Your favorite Holiday Movie? Charlie Brown's Christmas and Home Alone 1

2. The best Christmas present you ever received? Phillip totally surprised me one year with rollar blades

3. Your favorite Santa memory? When we took the kids to see Santa and he told the kids that he was aware of them not being at home Christmas morning and knew that they would be at their grandparents house and he sometimes made special exceptions and they would get their gifts before they left for Fl. That evening when we arrived back home, Santa had visited and left two presents for each child that they had only told Santa during that visit, one hour prior. Miracles do happen at Christmas.

Do you prefer...

4. Colored or white lights? white

5. Artificial or real tree? Real, but I have artificial ones

6. Prelit or stringing your own lights? Prelit

Do you...

7. Bake anything special for the holidays? The four of us spend one to two days prior to Christmas baking lots of sweets and goodies, including my famous "orange juice" cake for neighbors, families, co-workers and freinds

8. Put your tree up before Thanksgiving? We usually start Thanksgiving night and continue throughout the weekend

What is your...

9. Favorite Christmas food? deviled eggs and ham

10. Favorite festive place to go? Christmas on Ice and riding around looking at the lights

11. Favorite Christmas Carol? Drummer Boy

12. Favorite Christmas Album? Acappella Christmas and Kenny G's Christmas

I now hereby tag JP, Alicia, Joanna, Judith, and Terri

A BEAR!!!!!!

Okay fellow bloggers and blog readers, let me just tell you that at 5:30 this morning there was a around a 350 pound black bear in my neighbors driveway. Now, we do not live in the woods, we live in the city and we live in a subdivision, where the houses are right on top of each other. My neighbor walked outside at 5:30 this morning to spot a bear on the driveway of my neighbor across the street from us. And where is the bear now, we ask? When 911 was called, my neighbor was informed that they had received several calls and that they were following up on it. I can only imagine where that bear was yesterday when our street was full of kids riding their bikes and scooters and to think that Jonah, Courtney and their friends has pitched a tent and made a club house on the empty lot next to this house that the bear was at. YIKES!!!!

Decorating for Christmas

Well, I am back at it, that is playing around with digital scrap booking. It is truly not the same as scrap booking, but it is fun and I can sit in bed or on in the recliner with my laptop and get a lot more done in a short amount of time. Will I print these out, I am not sure, but for right now I am enjoying it especially when I can't sleep. Here are some layouts done with pictures that we took last week while decorating the Christmas tree.
Jonah, Courtney, and myself, I know we don't look very Christmasee (is that a word, I know we say it) but what do you expect when the AC is on and it is 80 degrees outside.

A new challenge...........trying to get the angel on top of our 9.5 foot tree. The kids had fun on Phillip's shoulders and Jonah finally got the angel in place. By the way this is the tree that we just purchased and was offered the 1 year warranty on it (believe me we did not fall for it).

This year Phillip took the camera from me and sat on the couch taking pictures, while the three of us decorated the tree in the living room. I love Christmas trees, in fact we will end up with 5 trees in our house before it is all said and done.

This is the tree that is usually in our kitchen/breakfast area. It is all red and white and has snowmen with cooking utensils all over it. I love this tree for its simplicity and uniform. We had to place the tree in the dinning room this year due to the space and windows in the kitchen. I originally placed the presents on the dinning room table so that our little one (Rascal) couldn't get his paws on them but everyone who comes over comments on how good they look there with my apothecary jars..

Rascal has truly enjoyed laying underneath the tree and so far he has not touched any of the ornaments, just one present.