Holiday Fun

It feels like ages since I last blogged! We have been busy, busy, busy. I will start with the cake. It was my dear Uncle Dale's birthday and so I created a fall pumpkin for the special day. When I posted the pics early last week we were trying to get ready to leave town and so I had no time to explain why I was creating a large pumpkin. Dale likes red velvet so inside the pumpkin was red velvet cake. Against my better judgement, I attached the stem (an upside down ice cream cone filled with icing and covered in brown fondant) the night before we left and so the cake caved in the middle and required much pumpkin makeover surgery the next morning. It never looked the same again, oh well. I did have my uncle go see the pics of the cake on the blog ahead of time so he could see what it looked like in case of pumpkin tragedy. Good call, self!

At Mimi and Bibi's house we were able to celebrate the big birthday and Thanksgiving with aunts, uncles, cousins, and 2nd cousins this year, as well as, my mom, dad, grandmother and my brother. What a great looking bunch! This year we decided not to slave in the kitchen and make a moderate Thanksgiving meal. Dad fried an amazing turkey and the ladies each made a side dish. Its funny how even though we chose to make less, there seemed to be more than enough. We had a great time visiting with everyone. After Thanksgiving when most people were out shopping for all of the great deals, my family was out shooting clay thingies again. Check out these macho men (my dad, far left, uncle, in the middle, and on the right, no its not Indiana Jones, its my bro). David has been asked to be Harrison Ford's stunt double in the next Indiana Jones movie but he has declined because my brother is way too cool for that!Shooting at the farm has become a favorite activity for the men while romping on the farm has become a favorite activity for the kids. 300 acres of private property with woods, farm land, ponds, and creeks. What more could we ask for? We have definitely found our new camping spot.That night we finished off the fun with Ernest Saves Christmas (a holiday classic, my mother found on amazon.com, and was absolutely giddy about, and my personal favorite holiday movie, Elf.)When things got too crazy at the house we had to take drastic measures. Alora and Andrew are seen here attempting a prison break. For all those who are not used to my wit, I am just kidding, the kids did not get locked in a cage but they did have fun playing in the dog pin.

We are very fortunate to have all of our family so close together and so we were able to have Thanksgiving lunch at MeeMaw and Poppies house and dinner at Mimi and Bibi's house. We had a great time dining with our families. After great conversation and a fabulous meal at MeeMaws, Andrew and Alora had great fun jumping in Poppies freshly raked leaf piles.
On Saturday, we headed back home to pick up our dog from the boarders and settle back into our house before church the next day. My brother came up late that night to spend some extra time with us so we went to church together Sunday and then we put on the 3D glasses and watched, our new favorite movie, Journey to the Center of the Earth.

On Monday, it was back to business, well, kindof. We started out with school work and then made snowflakes and decorated the house for Christmas. It is always a tradition of ours to decorate the house the weekend after Thanksgiving, and the kids were excited about decorating. Andrew must have talked 90 miles per hour the entire time.


Another tradition of ours is the Advent Calendar. Every year we get one and countdown the days of December with chocolate. This is something that I did when I was a little girl and the kids love it every year.Everyone crawled into the attic and retrieved the decorations and then wrecked the house with them. There was stuff everywhere. Andrew helped to assemble the tree and Daddy went back and reassembled the tree.
We talked about every ornament that we hung. The kids loved hearing the stories about why we have each ornament and where each one came from. They also enjoyed placing ornaments on the tree that they have made through the years. We did alot of reminiscing.
One of my students last year gave us a Christmas nail and Andrew found it in the decorations. It intrigued him so he took it out and read the booklet that came with the ornament. When I turned around and looked at him he was ghastly white so I asked him what was wrong. He showed me the nail and just looked at me. I asked him if it was kindof tough to read about how our Lord died and he shook his head again beginning to tear up. He placed the nail on the tree and looked at it for a long time. That may be one of the very first times that Andrew has truly grappled with what our Lord did for us on that cross. I don't really know what all was going through his head but Andrew was thinking. Andrew is always thinking.

While decorating it began to snow. How cool is that! We had hot chocolate, Christmas music, decorations and SNOW.

After an entire days work, it finally came together. It looked fanatastic. All that is left is for daddy to put lights on the house.