2009

Hope your 2009 is merry, bright, and full of possibilities!

The Fearless Hunters

A few weeks ago, Luke took Abby on an overnight hunting trip.  They just had a ball, and they were fortunate enough to bag a trophy black buck.Here is little Miss Abs, holding the horns.  Doesn't she look so cute?
I love it - she's a very versatile young lady.  She can dance ballet and kill a deer.  Not many girls can say that.

WHEW!!!!

Boy, was THAT a whirlwind!!  Christmas came and went, all at a furious pace, and now we are left with the aftermath... new toys to find a "place" for, new clothes to find hangers for, wrapping paper and ribbons and boxes and bags EVERYWHERE, and more leftovers in the fridge than I want to eat.  It's almost enough to make me a little "scrooge-ish"... almost, but not quite! :-)

Hope your Christmas was blessed and magical.  Ours was.

And now, time to say good-bye to the old year, and welcome in Baby New Year!

Happy New Year to all!

O, Holy Night

O, Holy Night, the stars are brightly shining!

It is the night of our dear Savior's birth.

Fall on your knees,

O, hear the angel voices.

O, night, divine,

The night when Christ was born.

May you and yours have a blessed, meaningful Christmas!

Babies, Babies...

Just look what we have at our house!

Two perfect little calves.

Merry Christmas to me!!

Almost...

I ALMOST...

...hit another deer night before last.

Thank God I did not, because, if you're counting, that would have been 3 in less than a year.  

My insurance company would probably laugh and then DENY, DENY, DENY my third claim (just before dropping my coverage.)

It's no wonder my premiums have skyrocketed!

And the award goes to...

...SHELLEY, for fabulous new blog design!!  Thanks, Shel, for fixing my blog up YET AGAIN!!

Cuties

Tonight I FINALLY got my annual "kids in Christmas pajamas under the Christmas tree" photo.  It is usually one of the first photos that I take, and I often use it for my Christmas card, but not this year!  This year I had to pretty much FORCE my little darlins' into their PJ's and say thing like, "You'd better smile, or you're in BIG trouble!"  and "Act like you like your sisters!"  It was a real family bonding moment.  ;-)

Despite the drama, the results were cute.

Merry Christmas from my cuties!

Take a deep breath...

...because now I can relax and enjoy the holidays a little more.  A lot of the "craziness" ended as the week ended, and SCHOOL IS OUT!!!  Here is just a little bit of what went on this week...

Abs and Gracie had a little mini-dance recital this week.  They were pretty cute.  Here is Miss Abby with her BFF, Lainey, ready to dance.  Here are the sisters, ready to dance and look lovely.

Here are all the little girls in both classes.
Our church also had their annual Christmas Cantata, followed by Taste of FBC, which is a snack supper and "funny" talent show.  Santa usually makes an appearance here, so I was able to get a cute pic with "the big guy".

Hope your holidays are special, and SLOW, like mine are now going to be! ha ha!

OVERWHELMED

I'm completely and totally overwhelmed.

Anybody else out there feeling my pain?

This has to be the busiest week of the year.

I baked 15 loafs of banana read yesterday, 6 dozen cookies, and made 2 different types of candy.  Every child has a Christmas party at school this week, and I think I'm in charge of most of them.  We had a little dance recital tonight for the two younger girls, as well as a church meeting that I was supposed to be attending.  All of this while Hubby was on call. Fabulous.  I have a party for the kids at church tomorrow evening, and  I'm also hosting a party at my house on Thursday evening for my girlfriends.   I know it will be fun, but at the moment I'm wondering, "What the heck was I thinking?!?!?"

I used to love Christmas.

Before I was in charge of making it "magical" for everyone!

Anyone else feeling overwhelmed?

A Quick Funny...

A couple of days ago, we watched The Sound of Music.  Kate loved it.  The next day we were getting in the car, and she said, "Oh!  We should take The Sound of Music DVD to watch!"   Grace was behind her, and she did not hear the whole statement.  All she heard was "the sound of music".  At that moment, a helicopter was passing overhead, and Grace said, "K-K, that's not the sound of music, that's the sound of helicopter!"

Oh, she is her own little party, every single day.

Christmas Parade

The girls rode in H'town's annual lighted Christmas parade over the weeknd.  They loved it, but I will admit, I've never seen a smaller parade.  There were not very many floats... It lasted about 5 minutes!!  But, it doesn't really matter, because they had fun, and isn't that all that REALLY matters?  :-)

Here is a picture of their float.  It looks pretty good, I think!
Here's Grace, very excited before the parade.  (She would rather EAT that candy than THROW it! ha ha!)
Here's Abby, ready to smile and wave.
Here's Kate, cheesing it up for the camera.
Here's Abs with her BFF, Lainey.  They are really going through life together!  So cute!
Happy Holidays!

St. Nicholas Breakfast

Saturday we took the kids to one of the local churches here in H-town for a Pancake Breakfast.  Their priest dressed up as St. Nicholas and posed for photos with all the kids.  It was cute, and provided some great photo opportunities (amazingly, I remembered my camera!)

Here are all three girls, looking pretty with St. Nick.Kate, my 1st child, and...

Abby, my second child, and...
Grace, my third child, and...
Luke, who often stands in and acts like my fourth child!  :-)

The Nutcracker -08

Last night was our little elementary school's performance of "The Nutcracker."  It was really cute.  Abby was a candy cane, and Kate was one of the dancers at the opening "party" scene.  Kate also had a singing role. We had to come home after school and get ready and be BACK at school by 5:00.  That does not SOUND challenging, but clearly I have never hot-rolled two heads of hair and applied stage make-up to two children at the same time.  Wow.  It took a LONG time!  We were just almost late.  When we got there (finally) the show was great.   I took a few photos, (surprise!  I actually remembered my camera!) so here is a quick visual for ya.  

Here is Miss Kate, after the opening dance number.  Note that she and her buddy, Taylor, have the same dress.  That's because Taylor's mom and I both LOVE a good bargain from a certain store with a red bullseye for their logo... (we call it "Tar-Jay" at my house...)
Here is Miss Abigail in the Land of the Sweets, dancing as a lovely candy cane.  
After the play, the kids went up on stage to have their pictures taken in front of the scenery.  Their Daddy bought them flowers to celebrate a great job.

Here's Abs.  She's beautiful, and I'm not a BIT biased.

Here is Katie Beth, looking WAY too grown up for my tastes...
And, finally, here is a group photo of the little performers.
No photos of the mighty Miss Grace, though... about half-way through the show, she looks at her Dad and says, "I gotta' poop.  Now."

You can't argue with a 3 year old about such things.  

When you have to go, you have to go.  

He exited quickly to find the restroom.

Luckily, the older girls had already done their parts, so at least he didn't miss them!!

A December Rarity

Some things are so rare in my world that I feel the need to document them.  This particular sight is, in fact, so rare, that it has never happened before.  I took a photo because I was still in awe that this particular event was actually occurring.It's my hand.  And it's mailing my Christmas cards on December 1st.  They are done!

CRASH!! BAM!!! BOOOOM!!!!!!!

The holidays are colliding at my house.  What do I mean?

Oh, friends.  Let me show you.

This has started to go up in my living room......but this is still sitting outside on my porch!


Help!  Thanksgiving and Christmas have collided at my house!  Something's gotta give!