A Snow Day?

Judah doesn't care if it's cold, snowing, raining or 100 degrees. He loves outside. Give him a coat and let him go. He was especially curious about the snow.

He paid very close attention but try as he might, the little guy never could make a snowball like his big brother. Maybe it was the teddy bear mittens.?.

Snow angel...

Christmas Part II

Christmas Eve is a big day for us. We spend the early part of the day with Patrick's Mom and his sister and her family. Then later we go to church and spend the evening with Patrick's Dad and Lynn. Piper and I made fun cookies, molded mints and snacks for Christmas Eve. Not to mention the food. We are the best cooks ever...or at least that's how I justify all the stuff that I ate!

The official cookie taster hard at work.

Everybody loves the moose antlers.

A couple of aprons and some green frosting sure do make for a cute picture.

Judah's new ride...

Target had these awesome script letter pins to put on stockings and I wanted some really bad. Dear Target and every other store in America: PLEASE BUY MORE OF THE LETTER Z! There is never a Z for Zac in any of the Christmas stuff I want to buy. Thank goodness Santa let us know which stocking he left us stuff in. The script letters would have been perfect because each year the kids want a different color stocking from the bunch so we could have changed them around. But only if Target and every other store in America would PLEASE BUY MORE OF THE LETTER Z!

And I was so tired by Christmas Day that I forgot to take pictures! The good news is I have video footage of the kids opening their presents.

Christmas Part I

We may shop and put up the tree after Thanksgiving, but, Christmas really begins the Sunday before Christmas for us. That's when we have our big "Family Christmas" with aunts, uncles and cousins. The Friday before the big party all the girls and a few of the boys gather for the most massive baking session ever. Cookies, divinity, pralines, fudge and anything else we can think of are made in abundance for the party on Sunday.

Me, Mom and Ms. Norma making pralines - my personal favorite.

Aunt Dianne always has an art project for the kids.

The kids love to play before we all eat. The girls get in the lemonade stand with a pitcher and cups and every one of them is running inside and out. Piper and Paxton walked by me with Piper in front followed by a slinky in the middle and Paxton at the back. I looked over and said, train? Nope. Wrong answer. They were making a Slinky Dog. Love it!

Two of my favorite people: Kristi and my cutie pie Godson William.

Is it time for presents yet?

Yep - presents!

Piper was more excited than anybody this year. Every single present came with shrieks of excitement.

Here's one you almost never see - a picture of me with the kids. Usually I am taking the pictures!

And another one that is rare: all of us in one picture together. This one made me happy, happy, happy!

Pre-Christmas Fun

Here are a few funny ones from pre-Christmas festivities. As usual, the teenager was either sleeping, playing video games or filling some other slot in his busy social calendar. But don't worry Zac fans, there will be pictures of him in future posts. :)

Piper's school party was really cute. Good thing we went with pigtails that day since glitter and glue were used multiple times!

Now for something I like to refer to as "sugar sneak attack". Here se wee Judah enjoying a ring pop from April (queen of all things ring pop).

And this was about 2 minutes later. Seriously. Only 2 minutes. The camera didn't capture the layer of sticky drool on his face or car seat straps but y'all really didn't want to see that anyway.
Sugar sneak attack part II. He was so sleepy he couldn't keep his eyes open but still refused to give up the mixer attachment.

Once again, only a couple of minutes later this is what we found. Our rocking chair has recovered but it took a fair amount of effort.

Two words: Total Diva...or April's Protege. Both fit.

Pre-packaged, Play Doh colored sugar cookie dough. Greatest invention ever! I won't even show the picture of the free-form version even though they were cute. Piper and I pressed the dough into our cookie cutters fore this batch.