It's a CANDY house!

Awhile back, my mom (aka Memere) bought a plastic gingerbread house for the kids, complete with frosting and a TON of various candy. We hadn't gotten around to putting it all together - and it was on my to-do list for the end of the week, after my lovely 13 hour shift on Wednesday. Well, about an hour into that shift, Todd called me at work and said they were headeed over to Mom & Dad's to put the gingerbread house together. Works for me - the kids got do do their house (and eat handfuls of frosting and candy) and I got one thing checked off my to-do list!

Photos courtesy of Mat's Mac

Cuddling with Memere - sweet kids

Kate, already busted!

Licking the icing, again

Look! Messy hands!

A day at Memere's does not equal a day without the naughty step

Getting some food, other than icing and candy!

Go HERE for a great video - to the tune of NKOTB Funky, Funky Christmas!

Christmas Carol

Kate's class had a Christmas party with the room moms and then sang some Christmas Carols for the parents at the end of the day. I was impressed that Kate actually sang all of the songs... much different than some other kids in her class :) There's just something sweet about listening to a group of 3 and 4 year olds sing some Christmas songs!

Christmas Center Chaos!

Brett's class did so well with their Halloween party, that we decided to do their Christmas party the same way... lots of fun centers with small groups of kids. Even though their head teacher was out that day and it was the last day of school before Christmas, the kids all did great! What a fun, sweet bunch of kids they have!! I love all of those sweet, smily faces!

Christmas with the Flanagan's

A few pictures of our fun Christmas celebration with our friends, Tammy & Jim, and the cutest godson ever! I could just eat up those sweet blue eyes!

Drew, opening his gift... I'm not sure if he was more excited about the present or the various Sesame Street characters on the outside of the bag!

Brett, tearing into his present - a new car track... definitely a favorite gift this holiday season!

Kate was all smiles opening her gift too - a complete princess art set! We've been doing a LOT of coloring :)

C-A-R-O-L-I-N-A!!!

I think the CAROLINA blue suits her well - don't you??! Kate's teacher sent us a warning e-mail that the kids were *definitely* going outside one day, so I dug up in the attic for some of Brett's sweatsuits and stuff and this is what I came up with! Add a cute Carolina bow and she's good to go!

C is for Cookie!

I spent the better part of Wednesday (and almost into Thursday morning) working on THE sugar cookies. With THE frosting and THE decorations. And almost all of these are for a cookie exchange. Next time around I think I'll choose easier cookies, although I do enjoy making these cookies!

18th Annual

Last night was the 18th annual National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation Christmas party. Last year, in honor of the 20th anniversary of the movie's release, we told people to dress up. Well, it's apparently now become tradition. We had 3 Clark Griswolds, 2 Aunt Bethanys, and an Uncle Lewis.

"Stuck-in-the-attick-Clark" (aka Sarah), opening Aunt Bethany's gift - a green jello mold, complete with Cat food!

Aunt Bethany's jello

Clark & Clark (Sarah & Brad)

Aunt Bethany & Uncle Lewis (Joanna & Grant)

The party-goers in costumes

In true Griswold fashion, our outside Christmas lights went out about an hour before the party started. After the party, Todd was determined to figure out why, which he quickly did... here's the proof that our lights DO actually work!

More snow

No, we didn't get more snow, but I did come across a few snow pictures from the next day... you know, the ones in the daylight :) Enjoy!

Visit

I'm cleaning off the SD card this afternoon and came across these two pictures... Brett cuddling with Grandma, watching something on tv; and Kate, sound asleep, on the step because she's too much of a nosy busy-body to sleep in her own bed. Funny girl!

Family

Family has always been a big deal, even as a little kid. We have a lot of it. My dad is the exact middle of 5 kids and my mom is the exact middle of 9 kids. My mom's family in particular has always been very close, using any excuse to get together. I've seen numerous pictures and home videos of my mom and her siblings when they were little. They were even on the cover of a magazine back in the 60's I believe. Well, today, they were the feature photo for a national ad by Philosophy. My cousin, Lauren, works for Philosophy and submitted the picture for their "Friends & Family" ad, and it got picked! The picture was used in the e-mail blast to approximately 562,00 people and it is on the website. This picture was taken somewhere around 1961. The little girl sitting on her dad's lap is my mom. I can only imagine what Memere & Pepere would think of this!

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow

Snow. In North Carolina. In December. It just doesn't go together, but it really happened on Saturday. I'd listened to the weather forecast and heard the dreaded 4 letter "S" word and sort of laughed it off. Brett even came home telling me that "Ms. Aimee said it is going to SNOW!" Of course, everything Ms. Aimee says is right in the eyes of her 4 year olds :) Well, Ms. Aimee was right, as were the weathermen! We got about 2 inches before it was all said and done. In fact, thanks to the highs in the 30's the last few days, it's still here. Luckily, it's not on the roads, so the kids have still had school - praise the Lord! I do not want a repeat of last winter!

"Fixin' to" go sledding down the hill in the front - sorry, that's just for Todd!

Kate realized that she DOES like sledding!

Snowball fights are fun (until your gloves get wet and your fingers start hurting - that's what your momma calls KARMA my dear sweet boy who hit me in the @$$ with a snowball!)

Kate was laughing too hard to actually launch the snowball very far

Countdown to temper tantrum over frozen fingers in T minus 10, 9, 8, 7...

Shoveling snow with Dad... because when you own a snow shovel in NC, you might as well use it whenever it is only mildly necessary

My favorite moment of the night - Brett shoveling snow onto sections of the driveway that Todd had just shoveled :)