New Year's Catch-up

Happy New Year's! I have not posted in a very very long time and I thought today was a great day to catch up on everything that has been going on with us since Halloween or what I can remember. We have been busy with the holidays and the last two months seem to have flown by. We hosted my family at our home at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Eve so our house really has been the hub this holiday season and seems like it was always filled with grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles.

For Thanksgiving, we had our traditional meal with my family. My parents and sister Katie's family spent the weekend at our house. The Lyon's family made a family slide show of all our Thanksgiving pasts and Rob led the kids in a Pilgrim and Indian Thanksgiving pageant which he wrote and narrated.
The pilgrims coming to America on the Mayflower.
The Indians welcoming the pilgrims to America

The day after Thanksgiving, we decided to repeat from last year our outing to the Lake Louisa State Park a mile from our house. It was fun to take Katie's family there this year and the kids enjoyed walking along the nature trails and lake and climbing the trees.

One of the many huge spiders we saw on the nature trails
Rob insisted on wearing these shoes that he has had since high school that I am still not sure why we still even had in the house. The shoes completely fell apart on the nature trail and he left a trail of pieces of the rubber sole as he walked. By the end of the walk, both of the soles were completely gone and he threw them away in a trashcan in the parking lot and drove home in his socks. I guess he learned his lesson about wearing shoes that were probably 12 years old but it definitely provided the entertainment on the trail.

The weekend after Thanksgiving we put up our Christmas tree and decorations. Also, for the first time, Rob decided to put lights on the outside of the house.

He bought the ones with a remote and the kids loved turning them off and on with the remote. We found out a few days later that our across the street neighbor had the same remote system and a few times when our kids were playing with the remote it would turn the neighbor's lights off and on as well and they could not figure it out and thought they were having some electrical problems with their lights. So we had to be more careful with the remote from then on. Rob also enjoyed setting up Jack's Geotrax train around the tree.

The next weekend was Jack's best friend's birthday party. He was soooo excited to go because all he talks about is Kiara when he comes home from school and most every other day too. He had a really fun time even though he was the only boy there. Kiara

Rob and I also celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary on December 15th and Grandma and Grandpa babysat while Rob and I went to our favorite restaurant Seasons 52 and did some Christmas shopping. While we were out, Grandma and Grandpa helped the kids build and decorate a gingerbread house.

The next week Jack had his Christmas program and party at preschool and his class were stars. He was so happy that Daddy and Grandma could come to see him sing.


The weekend before Christmas, Rob and I went to our friend's The Dewberrys annual Christmas party. Their parties are always so much fun for the adults to get away and they always have great food and a fun themed gift exchange. This year's theme was based on Christmas song. You had to decorate your gift and choose your gift all based on a Christmas song of your choice. It turned out to be a pretty hard task to come up with a gift inspired by a song and a fun way to wrap it. After changing our minds several times, we finally at the last minute based our gift on the song "All I want for Christmas in my two front teeth". We wrapped our gift up as two teeth and put inside the new tooth tunes toothbrushes, fun flavored floss, peppermint toothpaste, and some candy for your "sweet" tooth. It was a really fun night and the gifts all were so cute and clever.


On Christmas Eve, the kids got to open their Nutcracker themed presents from Nana and Opa.

We also watched Christmas movies and Callie did every one's hair-her new favorite hobby. Callie putting clips in Aunt Nancy's hair

Christmas day we opened presents and all enjoyed our new gifts. Callie's big gift was a princess vanity which she love even more than we expected. She spends a lot of time pretending to do her hair and anyone else who will let her do their hair.
Jack's big gift was an ant farm that he had been anxiously awaiting.
Jack also really enjoyed the new webcam we got from Nana and Opa and spent hours at the computer trying out all the fun faces and laughing hysterically.



Aunt Katie's family also spent my Birthday and New Year's Eve at our house. On my birthday, Aunt Katie gave me a pedicure and of course Callie insisted on one too. On New Year's Eve, Rob and I went to P.F. Chang's with Jeff and Katie while the grandparents babysat all the kids.

We were really bad at taking pictures this year and have very few at Christmas and on my Birthday. There are actually no pictures of me personally at Christmas or on my Birthday which is very sad. I think the few pictures we do have I was taking so I never was in them. Rob did have the video camera out a lot though so we will have those memories.

Sorry for the long blog but now I feel all caught up and ready to start 2008. I hope everyone else had fun and happy holidays!