Meme's Christmas Party

Last weekend we had Meme's Christmas Party at Jodi and Michael's house.  I always love this evening with family.  We make lots of great memories and eat tons of delicious food.  This year, Sophie also set up an arts and crafts area, so you know where Lily wanted to spend her time.  She made this adorable little snowman; Mia made one too after taking a break from chasing Bo and Russ.

 Mia and Zac enjoying dinner together.

 After dinner we took lots of family pictures.  Here's Meme with her great-grandchildren.

 Meme and our girls.

 Meme with four of her grandchildren.  Lee wasn't able to make it this year because he and Jaime went to her family's get-together.  We'll excuse it this year because they were announcing their engagement!  We are all so excited for them!

 Lily showing off "my favorite gift."  She has been having a blast with this Barbie and dog set from her cousin Russ.

 Mia was beside herself excited when she opened this butterfly dream lite from Reed.   She exclaimed "it's exactly what I always wanted."  I love how animated she gets when she's excited!

 The girls were both thrilled with their gifts from Randy.  He gave Mia a Cars mat to drive her cars on, and Lily received a Floam flower vase set.  The last gift they opened were gifts from Meme.  She gave Lily the Sum Swamp game and Mia the Hoot Owl Hoot game.  The four of us have had lots of fun with these over the last few days.

We had a smaller gathering than usual this year.  Lee and Jaime were with her family, and Dianne and Molly were at urgent care since Molly had a 103 degree fever.  We also missed Mom and Dad this evening, but understood they couldn't make it since Mom was coming back from Tennessee to recover from her surgery.  Even though these family members couldn't make it, we had a wonderful time catching up with one another, visiting and of course, playing our white elephant exchange game.  What a great evening!

Miscellaneous Pictures

 A few pictures from recent times.

The girls playing superheros one morning.  I love when they play nicely together!

 Lily built a rocket ship out of a small box that a Christmas present came in.  Mia and Lily had a lot of fun with this for quite awhile.

 Love my princess Thing 2!

A couple of Lily's school pictures from this year.

 Lily's wish list for Santa this year.

 Mia's wish list.  Notice #4.  This came about after she asked for her own laptop, and I explained that she couldn't have her own laptop.  She calmly said "Ok, then I want a flying carpet."  All I could think was "I should have stuck with the laptop!"  She also has "car with remote control" listed as #5, but then she started coloring on top of it.  I love how she wrote "Mia is 4" on the bottom.

 Papa stopped by Howards while we were eating one evening.

 Three of my favorite silly people.

 I love coming home and getting cards like this that Lily has made for me.  Warms my heart!

I hate that I can't get this picture turned correctly, but I wanted to put it in here.  We had a great time at Kendall's wedding, and I love this picture!

 So precious.

 I love this picture of Ryan walking Kendall down the aisle.

 Mia used her handprints to make this picture at Thanksgiving at school.

 Mia's soccer picture.  After the first couple of weeks, she loved it!

 Lily's soccer picture.  We were so proud of how hard Lily worked this season!

Annual Family Pictures

Just before we left for Disney, we had our annual family pictures made.  I like taking them at this time of year, not only because the weather is usually so pretty in the Fall, but it's right between the girls' birthdays.  This year, we used Allison Mauer Photography.  She was so easy to work with!  We met at Kennesaw National Park to take a lot of pictures, and then we drove a few minutes over to Kennesaw Avenue to be in front of a really cool stone wall.  This was a wonderful experience, and we were so pleased with how great the pictures turned out.  Since we didn't make Christmas cards this year (which I'm really regretting right now!), I thought I would just post a lot of the pictures on the blog.  Enjoy!



ACCA Christmas Program

Lily was so excited about her school's Christmas program.  She asked me probably two dozen times in the few days beforehand if I would be there.  She just couldn't wait to perform; this is the same child who not too long ago dreaded performing in front of people!  She wanted to keep her part of the show a surprise, so I had very little idea of what she was going to do.

 

Just before we left, she practiced her curtsy.  Such a cutie!

The program started with the whole school singing together which was neat.  Then, Lily's class and the other Kindergarten class stayed on stage while everyone else sat down.  They performed three songs and Callie recited part of Luke 2 which was so sweet.  Lily had mentioned they were playing instruments which was exciting for them; what 5 or 6 year old doesn't love to make music?  Here is a link to the classes playing "It's Christmastime."  Lily is in the front row, in the middle.

 

After they finished these few songs, most of the kids sat down though Lily, Emory, Avery, Kelsey and Nara stayed on stage, and three first grade boys joined them.  They handed out their boomwhackers.  Now, Lily had mentioned to me she was playing a boomwhacker.  Honestly I thought this was a cutesy-Kindergarten name for a drum.  Nope.  It's a real instrument!  To top it off, Lily's was pink which thrilled her.  They played "Joy to the World," and it was absolutely adorable!  You can see the link to it here.  We were so proud of Lily and her friends for this!

 

After they played the boomwhackers, Lily and her friends sat down while the other students performed.  Everyone did a great job.  It was such a wonderful evening.  I feel like there is true joy at ACCA, and you could really feel it among everyone this evening.  We are so glad to be a part of this incredible school!

Chattanooga Visit

We headed up to Chattanooga for a weekend getaway recently.  On Friday afternoon, we left town to catch the "North Pole Express."  Last year the girls and I rode this while Ryan was in Chicago.  We really enjoyed it and looked forward to riding it again this year.  While they seemed to like it, I have to say that I was disappointed.  It didn't seem nearly as well run as last year; I doubt we will return to this or recommend it to anyone again.

They had a couple of light features to enjoy at the station.

 The girls liked the gingerbread cookies that the "elves" hand out while on board.

 Mia kept a close eye on what was going on outside train as we pulled into the North Pole.

 After picking him up from the station (no Mrs. Claus this year), Santa comes around to each family for pictures and to find out what the kids would like.  Both girls said the same thing as when they saw Santa at Lenox: Rainbow Dash for Lily and a Thing-A-Ma-Jigger for Mia.

 After our train ride was over, we headed over to the Residence Inn to spend the night.  On Saturday morning, we checked out and headed over to the Children's Museum.  The girls loved it! 

The entrance was decorated so cute.

 The girls had a lot of fun playing with the water features which was the first exhibit.  They put on raincoats, rolled up their sleeves and had a blast.

 They loved these little windows where you could feel the water coming down but you stayed dry.

 After playing in the water and on the playground above the water, we headed over into "Creation Station" where the girls made ornaments, made stop animation and enjoyed other fun little areas like that.

 Right now the upstairs exhibit is all about a "Winter Wonderland."  The girls went through a snow maze, watched how an igloo is made and had fun "ice skating" in their socks.

 We climbed to the top of the tower to look out over downtown which was neat.  Then we headed back down where they had fun playing doctor.  Mia could have stayed in this part for hours!

 Soon, our friends joined us at the museum.  Michael, Allison, Kaitlyn and Jason Sepulveda moved to Chattanooga last year, and we were so glad to catch up with them.  Lily quickly latched on to Kaitlyn while Jason and Mia had fun together.  We stayed at the museum for awhile together because there were more fun exhibits to explore.  They loved the area where you could build a little coaster for balls to roll around on.  We also discovered a place where you used a little container to send messages across the ceiling to the other side of the room to a friend; it's a lot like a bank drive-through window.  The girls stood on one side and sent messages to Jason on the other side.  They loved picking out a question and then waiting anxiously for his reply.

 After the museum, we all went to lunch together at Urban Stack which was awesomely good.  Their custom made burgers were out of this world delicious, and then the sides (gouda cream corn and sweet potato fries to name a couple) were so yummy.  This was a great choice that I would gladly visit again!  When lunch was over, we headed to the Sepulvedas house on Signal Mountain but stopped at a lookout point first.  Looking over the Tennessee River Valley was simply beautiful.

A couple of hours later, our friend Emily Lovingood Graffius and her family came over too.  We enjoyed dinner together and letting the kids play while the adults chatted and caught up.  It was a great time.  We spent the night at the Sepulvedas (Lily was thrilled that Kaitlyn invited her to sleep in her room!) and then headed home on Sunday morning.  While we won't do the train ride again, we certainly hope to go back to Chattanooga and have fun with our friends again!