Religious Education - Tree of Hope

Grandma/Meemaw brought in a "tree" of hope and had the kids draw stained glass looking ornaments on it while she read from the Advent booklet and the bible story in Genesis.

Kissing Cousins

Anne was all over Zachary and planted several kisses on him!

Zachary was looking at the camera and didn't notice his cousin sneaking up on him!

Zachary was standing/balancing with his mom's help. He is as big as Anne - almost 20 lbs.

Advent/Christmas Cookies!

Anne had her first snickerdoodle - cinnamon sugar cookie at Grandma's house today.

The grandkids raced to the table to get their cookies.

The 5 grandkids all around the cookies!

Grandma hands out cookies one at a time. She makes 14 cookies of each type for each member of the family for 4 Sundays before Christmas. That's a lot of cookies. Yum! Thank you!

White Dress

This white dress is so beautiful but not practical for every day use. We wore it to church and for pictures at Grandma's.

Santa baby - little Anne

Why does mom keep taking my picture? Trying to get the perfect one Anne - wearing the Santa hat. She is my precious Santa baby - one year old this Christmas.

The Tree

Anne wanted to touch every ornament and she would hold her hand out and say thank you! Her new word this week is pretty!

I could hardly wait until Jamie came home on Saturday to help me decorate the tree. It was a hard decision but we put up the little fake one this year so Anne wouldn't knock it over and destroy it.

Jamie is taller than the tree when it's on the ground. She has grown so much this year and has been a great help with everything - from cards, to shopping, to decorating and baking.

Anne loves to help!

Anne pulled herself up to a standing position several times this weekend to check out all the music boxes and decorations on the coffee table. She loved watching all the lights and hearing the music. It was great fun to watch her enjoy Christmas preparations.

Mashed Potatoes

James made a big bowl of mashed potatoes for Anne. She enjoyed feeding herself and mushing it between her fingers. At the end, she dumped the whole bowl upside down on the floor.

Thanksgiving 2009 - Bastrop State Park

We had a quiet morning - everyone was sleeping while I cooked side dishes like green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole - my first time making that and flaky butter biscuits. We also had cranapple juice to spike with Sprite like my mom used to do. In the afternoon we watched some of the Macy Thanksgiving Day Parade in mom's honor. Then we drove out to Bastrop State Park to see Jamie and spend time with James' family - including the grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. We enjoyed a deep-fried turkey dinner in the outdoors at the tent campsite. Christine provided a fresh wild turkey that she raised on her land. Grandma made pumpkin pie and pecan pie which we enjoyed later. The cousins were cold but they survived. We sang a few songs around the campfire before heading back.

Drink more water - camel back!

On our hike last week, one of the kids had a camel back full of water that you drink from a tube. Jamie thought that was a great idea. James went and got her one for her camping trip this weekend with Grandma. Hopefully, it will help her drink more water! Yeah!

Food Bank Trip

Jamie was one of 10 students who bid and won the chance to go to the food bank today - the day before Thanksgiving. They emptied the pod - full of canned food and coats for kids. Our school donated 220 coats. Then we ate pizza and tried to win a raffle - 2 round trip tickets on Jet Blue.

Operation Christmas Child

Saturday night, we put together a lot of boxes for Operation Christmas Child. We averaged about 4 each in our family. Total for our Sunday School class was 550 boxes in 55 minutes. Total from our church was about 1200. Amazing! They shop all year long and then we put it all in the boxes as a group. Our kids loved being a part of it!