New Years Eve 2008

I forgot to take pictures but wanted to write about our New Years Eve celebrations.  We had Grandpa, Grandma, Aunt Becca, and Uncle Jason over for New Years Eve.  We had a fun evening watching Twilight Zones and playing games.  One of the girls' favorites was a marble game with sticks you have to pull out without letting the marbles fall.  We also ate pizza and homemade goodles.  At midnight all the girls were awake.  Baby Ashley woke up right before midnight so we took her downstairs to play.  We all watched the ball fall on television and then went on the back deck and rang bells and played instruments to ring in the New Year.  Uncle Jason and Daddy also put off a few firecrackers.  The girls were still wide awake at this point but we finally got them tucked in and settled down for the night.  :)

Christmas Celebrations

watching the puppet show


Chuck and Bud puppet show

singing Christmas carols

little elves cooking

guys playing Wii

Nicole, Jason, and Ashley

our water hauling system when the well pump died

Aunt Rachel and Kaitlyn cooking


ice skating fun

acting out the Nativity

Ashley opening presents at Nana's

Emily at Nana's

Alexis at Nana's

Hmmm... I think Nana and Papaw will need to expand their staircase. :)

Papaw reading the Christmas story

Emily hugging "baby Jesus"

Ashly opening her present

Emily opening her new fold and go dollhouse

Alexis opening her new magic set

icing cookies for Santa

Well, sadly Christmas is over, but we certainly had fun being with family and celebrating our Savior's birth. We had 3 different Christmas gatherings this year. On my side of the family, the entire family came to our home to celebrate. Rachel and her family drove up from Memphis and Susan and her family drove up from Oklahoma. We also had the pleasure of meeting Jason's girlfriend, Nicole. It was the first time we were ALL together in a while and we really enjoyed it. The children acted out the Nativity, we opened gifts, went ice skating, went to the mall and had a family picture taken, had a Christmas party with games and a puppet show, sang carols, watched a few Christmas classics, played Wii, and just enjoyed each others company. Oh yeah... we also lost all running water for 24 hours with a household of 18 people! Our well pump died on us, but luckily it was repaired the next day. And it really was an adventure getting water in buckets from the next door neighbors. :) On Don's side of the family, we went Christmas caroling at a nursing home. The we all gathered together at Aunt Cyndi's house and ate dinner. After that Papaw read the Christmas story and all the kids opened a couple of gifts. The next morning we all gathered at Nana and Papaws to open presents and eat donuts for breakfast, which Alexis thought was the best part. :) Then all the kids played and we ate a delicious meal together. For our own family Christmas we started by baking Christmas treats. Then we ate a yummy Christmas dinner of Don's favorite - hamloaf. Afterwards, we told the story of the Nativity and had the girls help act it out using their little figurines. Then we took them to a different room and had them sing, "O Come All Ye Faithful" and pretend they were coming to see baby Jesus, (played by Ashley). We took turns bearing our testimony of Christ. Then we had each girl open one present. After that they put out milk and cookies for Santa, read the Christmas story, sang a few carols, and went to bed. The next morning Santa had come and brought 3 presents for each girl to remind then of the three gifts the wisemen brought for Christ. He also ate all the milk and cookies and left some sort of sparkly glitter behind the girls were thrilled to find. He also left candy canes next to their pillows. So we opened all the gifts and then looked in our stockings. The rest of the day was spent just relaxing, playing with new toys, and enjoying each other's company. Ahhh.... I love Christmas. :)

Merry Christmas!

This year, as most years, we'll be having three different Christmas celebrations. One with the Lee side of the family, one with the Grammer side, and our own little family Christmas. I'll post more about those in the next week or so, but in the meantime, Merry Christmas and I hope everyone who reads this blog has a wonderful holiday filled with love, family, and the Savior.

Visit to Santa

We took the girls to see Santa at the mall. They really enjoyed it and the baby didn't cry too much. :) In fact she gave Santa's beard a good tug as you can see she's about to do in the second picture.

Sweet Dreams

Just so sweet. :)

Ashley's first taste of cereal

When we gave the girls cereal for the first time they squenched up their little faces and wouldn't hear of it. But when Daddy gave Ashley her first taste she loved it and kept reaching for more. We found a brand we tried out and really like. It's called Happy Bellies. It's organic whole grain brown rice cereal with added DHA and probiotics. I actually took a little taste and thought it tasted better than I remember the girl's cereal tasting. So maybe that made a difference. Either way she really seems to like it and the gilrs were so excited to see her eating solids. They each took turns feeding her and giggling about the way she'd dive for the spoon. :)

Pumpkin Farm

"Our own little pumpkin"

walking in the corn maze

looking at the camels

smile!

swinging on the tire swing

happy in the enchanted forest

in the corn maze

"Who's been sitting in my chair?"

We went to a nearby Pumpkin Farm recently. It was a beautiful day and just perfect for outdoor autumn activities. It was a really neat farm and had lots of stuff for kids to do. They had farm animals you could pet and feed, a cornfield maze, enchanted forest, "creepy" tunnels, lots of playground type equipment, tractors to climb on, a sandbox full of corn, etc. We had a lot of fun. They even had some camels on loan from someone there. Of course when the girls went over to the camels one of them tried to lean down and nuzzle Alexis's head, which scared her so she jumped back and didn't want to go near it. But a nice older man showed her that he was just trying to cuddle her and she eventually went over and pet him again - with Daddy right next to her of course. :)

Family Halloween Fun

Our Jack-o-lanterns. Emily designed the one to the left and

Alexis designed the one on the right.

Red Riding Hood, little pumpkin, and Madeline.

Trick or Treating

Feed the monster game.

Dancing with Daddy.

Eating hanging donuts.

Little witch broom races.

We had fun celebrating Halloween this year together as a family. Alexis dressed up as Madeline from her favorite books, Emily was Little Red Riding Hood, and baby Ashley was a cute little pumpkin. We had our anuual family Halloween party on Monday night. We baked some yummy treats, like pumpkin cupcakes and we put on Halloween music, like the Monster Mash and danced around together. We have a shoebox decorated like a friendly monster and we rolled marbles into his mouth for him to eat. The girls put on witch hats thier aunt had bought them and had broomstick races. We his paper ghosts around the house for them to find. And we played their favorite game, Monster Daddy, which is where Daddy pretends to be a monster and hides somewhere and they go and try to find him and when they do he tickles them. We also tried a new game we all enjoyed called "trick or treat" where you put a bunch of pieces of paper in to a bowl. Some papers have treat written on them, in which you get to pick a piece of candy. Others have trick written on them and then a trick described you have to do - like eat a donut from a hanging string, or do a silly dance. Unfortunately Mommy got the silly dance paper, but we won't be posting pictures of that. :) At the end we ate our treats and watched "The Great Pumpkin". We also went to Krogers on Tuesday for a Halloween party for kids, went trick or treating Thursday night, and on Friday went to our Ward Trunk or Treat.

First time Swinging

Don put Ashley on the swing for the first time last week when we were all outside playing together. She was pleasant but not that impressed either way. :)

just a few baby pictures

ready for church
playing with Daddy's tie

I have 2 teeth now!

sweet dreams

sitting on the back deck swing

Dawes Auboritum Autumn pictures

We took the girls to Dawes Auboritum to walk around and decided to take a few pictures of them while we were there. We got a few good ones, but it took about 5 shots for every good picture. It seemed no one would look at the camera at the same time. Alexis's face in the first picture is one of those funny ones that kind of captured the mood after a while of what we were all feeling just trying to get a good picture. :)