GEMS Cookie Exchange

GEMS had a cookie exchange in December.  We were in charge of Peanut Blossoms.

Devotion time:

They made these really cute snowmen out of white chocolate covered Oreos.

Look at the bounty we came home with!

And the patch they earned:

Christmas Day

We opened our family Christmas presents on Christmas morning. I got PD these yard waste cans and a big tool chest.  I don't know why we only have pictures of the trash cans, the chest is really cool.  I had to hide it all at Gram and Papa's for weeks leading up to Christmas.

We really only get the girls a few little things.  They get SO much from the extended family.  We gave them some books and puzzles:

These Muppet Baby toys..they are very into the Muppets right now:

I found these dolls at IKEA for a steal and they were a HUGE hit.  The girls aren't even that into dolls.

Oh and look who got the biggest gift this year! PD got me a new bike on Craigslist!

Then we had our family devotions and Christmas breakfast before heading over to Grams.

At Grams we had a great time eating and exchanging presents with these guys until we had to rush home and finish packing because we left the next day for our Wichita Christmas!

Christmas Parade

Had to post a few more pictures of the parade the girls set up. Santa took the lead...strapped to a car from the 2009 Pinewood derby.  You can see the Russian Nesting Dolls behind him.

Here are some onlookers.  They are fans of the Dinosaur train:

Here come the Dinosaurs now!

No parade would be complete without the public safety workers:

Barney and the gang:

Animal Safari..or wait, is that just Zanesville, Ohio?

The parade wrapped around the whole house, so I couldn't get an picture of the whole thing, but you get the idea.

Christmas Part 1

As always there were so many wonderful activities leading up to Christmas.  We attended a beautiful staff party at the Governor's Residence.

Gram and Papa took the girls to the Living Christmas Tree pagaent at their church.  PD and I did a little Santa shopping that night.

The girls were in a Christmas on the Ranch program at our nursing home ministry.

The girls made a Christmas parade with all their toys.  SO cute and it took them half a Saturday.

PK2 recieved this gift of a candy cane and Christmas pencil from her friend who is a dear family friend of ours.  He is an 11 year old boy who shoots hoops with her and he sent this over with his mom a few days before Christmas.  He is a gem! (they also share a Spanish tutor, which is why the note is in Spanish).

We went to a beautiful performance of the Nutcracker with our besties and some other home schoolers:

Isn't this venue beautiful?  We were able to go for just a $5 education rate.

The girls got to meet a miniature horse (dressed as a reindeer) at the nursing home minstry. 

When I showed PD the pictures of the miniature horse, he literally fell to the floor laughing because of this.  If you aren't a Parks and Rec fan, you should be!




Annual Zoo Lights experience:

Of course we did our Advent reading again.  Thank you mom for giving us my childhood wreath!  The girls love hearing the stories about how we did Christmas when I was a child.

PK1 took this on Christmas Eve.  Wouldn't PD make a good Mormon?

Second year in a row for these outfits, but they still fit!

It must be Christmas Eve, baby Jesus is in the manger!

OK, if you are a Parks and Rec fan, you will enjoy this, from Little Sebastian's funeral.

Thanksgiving Weekend

Thanksgiving weekend started off, of course, with an insanely good meal at Gram's. Guess what we brought?

I took pie too, but I don't have a picture of that.  I do have a picture of this pretty girl who LOVES to eat Thanksgiving.  She talks about the food for DAYS leading up.

We started the day watching the parade.  Mostly the girls watch it with PD while I sleep in, cook, and curl my hair.  I yell in, "call me when Snoopy is on!" so I don't miss my favorite balloons.

With my mini-me at Thanksgiving dinner.

In addition to making an amazing meal, Gram gives the grandkids an ornament every Thanksgiving.

Then the day after Thanksgiving, the only Black Friday shopping we did was to go to our neighborhood Home Depot to buy 20 poinsettias for 20 dollars.  I did give some away.  Here we are loading them up!

We saw the Muppet Movie with the whole family:

And we got all the Christmas decorations up.

It was a such a blessed weekend.

November Wrap Up

Here are a few miscellaneous things that happened in November.We shopped for our Operation Christmas Child boxes:

And sent them off.

We dressed as Native Americans for our nursing home ministry.  Don't you love the papoose?

Here is a round up of some of the fall crafts we did.  Had to take a picture before we took them down and started in on the Christmas crafts.

We went to Cincinnati for Cincinnati cousin's birthday.  He is the whole package:  cute, smart and FUNNY.

Speaking of smart, PK2 is very into puzzles.  She can do a 100-500 piece puzzle all on her own.

This was actually a 1,000 piece puzzle and we helped her some with that, but still impressive. I actually really like puzzles too and may have let my chores go a little in order to work on this one.

Our good good friends went all the way to Uganda this month.  They carried with them our favorite Bible story book, The Jesus Storybook Bible for our sponsored child and hand delivered it to her. Amazing.  It was so special to pray each day with the girls over their trip, and that Patience would read her Bible and have faith in God. And special that they took a picture of her for us!

On a much more worldly note, I got PD to grow his hair out and wear it a bit longer.  Oh my land...does he look good!  Why do men age so much better than women?

Last but not least, the girls created a Lego Stonehenge.