Christmas

December is CRAZY! I love it, but it's crazy! The decorations are put away, all of the new toys have found their proper place, the old, unwanted toys are given away, the house has been cleaned from top to bottom, and all of the clutter that collected during the December birthday and Christmas hulabaloo has been filed, thrown out or recycled, and the puppy is home and we are all settling into life with Hurley........I am just now feeling like I can catch my breath (despite the upper respiratory gunk I've got!) and update our blog.

One of the reasons for my lack of time is all of the projects I love to tackle during the Christmas season! I love to make fun gifts for teachers and friends. This year I made ornaments and Christmas frames.

I also enjoy making sweet keepsake ornaments for all of the babies in our nursery at church. This year I made angel-baby ornaments...44 of them to be exact!

Here's a quick look at our home decorated festively for the holidays! The front room is our pretty room...our big Christmas tree in the back room looked a little crowded with ornaments since we had to squeeze it into a corner and so lost about a third of our hanging area! I love having it all up, but hate taking it down...it's so depressing!

During December, we had Christmas parties at school........

We also celebrated Christmas with field trips at school! Meg & Daddy went on the North Pole Express with her 2nd Grade class (sorry, Dad didn't have the camera). And Emily and I went caroling around Roanoke with her honor choir. They sang to the people at the food pantry, the local bookstore, WalMart, and Babe's Chicken Restaurant-where we enjoyed lunch!

We went to see our little friend, Kendyll, perform in the Nutcracker.......

And instead of a traditional party with our ABF (aka Sunday school) class this year, we took all of our families on the Grapevine North Pole Express! It is an old fashioned train that rides from Grapevine to Ft. Worth and back, during which Christmas music is played, pj's are worn, and Santa makes an exciting appearance!

Each year we make our annual 11 hour trek to Tennessee to see my family and then another 5 hours to Indiana to see Dan's family. How we wish our loved ones were closer! Dan took 2 weeks off this year, so we could take our time visiting with everyone. It was so nice not to have to hurry up and rush to our next desitination!

We enjoyed making cookies for Santa with Mimi! This was the first year that Ethan and Ella got to join in on the fun! Wow! Were those cookies decorated!!! Santa probably had a sugar overload!

I think this year Emily & Meg finally made the connection and realized that their Grandad is the pastor of his church! Maybe it's because we don't always get to visit their church when we are there. They enjoyed being a part of Grandad's Children's sermon and were very good in "big church" during the big people's sermon : )

This year, Dan's grandma, Grandmur, was up at Randy & Pattie's (from Alabama) to celebrate with us! She is such a sweet and feisty lady! We love her so!!! Randy and Pattie are now facing the difficult decision to *strongly encourage* Grandmur to move up to Bloomington to live with them now. Please pray with us that this is a smooth transition for her and for them! I know they will all be blessed by their new living arrangements.

Now......to tackle all those thank-you notes! : )