Florida

After Christmas we drove down to Florida for a few days. The weather was great, and lots of relatives nearby make it so fun! Kids had a great time, even though Luke had a nasty cold. He is much better now, btw. It is always fun to go to the beach in December and forget that it is winter time back home. It has always amazed me that some people can go to the beach whenever they want to!! Except some of my crazy ( you know who you are) relatives that live within a few miles from the beach, and NEVER go there...are you nuts? Anyways, we had fun! Went to a Japanese restaraunt one night. Luke and Sarah are still talking about how cool it was to watch the man cook in front of us. Here are a few pics from our trip! Hope we'll be back soon.

Thanks for everything Pete, Dea, DC and Gabe!

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

Christmas Eve we went to Mass - stood in the back because it was so crowded.. then went to Brian's parents house for dinner, and opening of one gift. The grandkids always get to open their new pj's that they wear to bed Christmas Eve and then Poppa reads "The Night Before Christmas" to them.

All the kids in their new pajamas! This year was the pink and brown theme.

Reading of "The Night Before Christmas"

We then came home and let Sarah and Luke write their letters to Santa and leave him some snacks. This year they left him apples, oranges, cookies and milk:). Later we went outside to spread out our reindeer food so the reindeer could find our house!

Christmas was very fun this year! Sarah and Luke got their requested items from Santa! Sarah fell down and laid on the floor for about 2 minutes after she saw that her bike was by the tree! Luke hugged his blue scooter and said "My blue scooooooooooter!!!"

We had a nice time at home, being lazy all day -- riding the new bike and scooter out in the culdesac, enjoying our family time. That night we went to Brians parents house for dinner and gift opening, and then home again for bed time so we could wake up in the morning and drive to mom and dad's in Hiawassee..for the rest of our Christmas.

Party and haircuts

Sarah had her school "winter celebration" yesterday. Brian took the day off - he had days to use before the end of the year. While Iwas at school for a couple of hours, helping with centers and the party, Brian and Luke went out shopping. Later in the evening Sarah and Luke got haircuts!

Sarah and her classmates having their party.

Sarah BEFORE

Luke and Sarah AFTER

Luke has blue ring pop all over his face - they always get one after haircuts!

Christmas is coming!

We have our tree decorated, we have our house decorated, we have snowflakes, garland and lights hanging from door frames, we have our stockings on the mantle - we are ready! Sarah made a construction paper link chain at school and they were told to take off one link each night, and when the last link is there, that means Christmas is the next day! Luke wanted one too, so we made one for his door. The only problem with his is that he keeps taking links off thinking that Christmas will come as soon as he can take them all off....so I am secretly adding more links to his to make it the right number! Ha!

We visited with Santa last Sunday afternoon. Sarah wrote out her letter to Santa, and made one for Luke as well. As soon as we got in line, not a long line, Santa came out and high fived the kids and said "I'll be back in 30 minutes!"...Break time. We waited, taking turns walking around the stores with the kids...when he did come back a family with 6 girls was first in line..they took at least 7 different posed pictures--taking about 20 minutes! Finally when they were done, each family took about 3 minutes and we got up there fine! This year was a nice picture. I need to find the past SEVERAL pictures where Sarah is screaming her head off :).

Would you care for a spot of tea?

Sarah had 8 of her girlfriends over for a Birthday Tea Party. They used real china, had finger sandwiches, and drank lots of decaf tea! Two hours later we had all our family over for a Family Birthday Party...no better way than to celebrate 6 wonderful years...Happy Birthday sweet Sarah.

Leaves

We have tons of leaves, which means lots of piles for jumping in...always fun.

Halloween

Luke the morning of Halloween

Sarah before school on Friday

Halloween was great this year because it was on a Friday, so it didn't matter how late we stayed out, or how late the kids went to bed!!

We started out the afternoon by going to Publix with some friends. Publix had several games set up in the store, and goodie bag stops along the way. We ran into some more people we knew there, and the kids loved it!

Next stop was a friends house for pizza, and then at dusk we met up with more friends and started our trek through the neighborhood. The kids had so much candy, they couldn't even carry their bags anymore - we knew we were done!

We had invited several people back to our house afterwards for a campfire and smores. Six families came, with their kids...and we had a wonderful time!! It was a late night, but it was great!!!