Merry Christmas

We hope you all have a wonderful holiday season!

It's the Most Busiest Time...

I have really enjoyed this Christmas season...but man it really is the busiest time of the year! In one week we had class parties, dance recital and practice 3 nights, volunteer opprotunities at the school along with all other home responsibilities. No wonder no one had any clothes to wear and no where to sit on the couch! Needless to say Sophia did wonderful in the dance recital:)

We did take time to visit Callaway Gardens and see the lights. Thanks to my teacher friend we were able to get tickets for $5 each! Did you know they are $25 a piece now? $25!! It is very nice but I did fall asleep this time. Shame on me! It has lost its magic on me I guess!

One of our favorite parts of Callaway at Christmas is their Christmas Village where you can visit Santa and shop all the cool vendors. This part is free. One activity they added this year was cookie decorating.

As you can tell we had fun with this activity. Just hoped no one before us licked the icing knife and then put it back in the container.

We visit the Christmas Village at Callaway each year to paint a ceramic ornament. Not sure why i dont' have a pic of the finished project...but you will just have to take my word for it when I tell you they were scrum-DEE-lee-ooohhh-soo beautiful.

We were getting settled for the trolley ride through the lights. Love that scarf MK!

Nate and Wesley-getting ready for the light extrava-ganza! If you are excited tell your face Nate

Happy Thanksgiving~

Every year we try to get together to cook some bird and bread and laugh. We are getting better and better at it each time! I think we are moving out of the dysFUNctional family category;) hardy har de har har!

Trudy and I do not like turkey....but everyone else does so we have a turkey breast that is cooked in the crockpot. Sure wish I knew how to cook it so it wasn't so DRY! Trudy found a recipe for homemade cranberry sauce that was so yummy...it made the turkey taste divine:)

We also cooked a ham(a first for us...usually get them already cooked)...did you know you boil ham?? it was very tasty! and was nice that it didn't take up room in the oven! I made my stuffing, we had veggies, baked sweet potatoes and of course George's pumpkin pie(that TJ made).

Cheers to the Granny!

Don't mess with me. Who gave me that knife??

HappyBirthday Sophia!

Sophia is 10! I(and alot of other fans of the Fia) can't believe she is a whole decade old!

It just seems like yesterday we were in Sacramento picking up our little bundle! All 4 pounds of her! It just seems like yesterday when we discovered her soaked through her diaper on our first night with her. We were instructed to feed her every 2 hours but no one mentioned we needed to change her diaper after feeding her...oops!

There are so many things I love about our Tater. I loved how small she was....so so tiny. I loved how she plumped up and how smart she was(not that we could tell at 3 months....) because this disproved all the studies that said "breastfed babies are healthier and smarter". I have never felt so inadequate as I did with a newborn!

These pictures are from her scrapbook. Just look at those cheeks!

I love her smile. I always got this comment"she is the happiest baby I have ever seen!". She would smile at everyone and laughed often and so easily. And her smiles showed on her whole face....i mean look at the side of her head...it looks like she is about to pop a blood vessel:)

(These are my dad's feet-which are very ticklish:) )

Sophia was a very "easy" baby. She travelled very well, took great naps and rarely threw fits. When she was brand new we started her off in a bassinet at the end of our bed. Well I couldn't sleep because she was making all these noises. I would get up and feed her every 2 hours but it would take her about 1 hour to eat and then I really didn't sleep much during that second hour because of her grunts! She just seemed restless....so I just layed her in the bed with us and she molded her body into mine and we both slept like...well babies. She never slept alone again. We loved having a family bed.

I love how Fia loves life. I believe she will be one of those people that will have a lot of friends who just want to be around her because she is "Sophia".

yes...i am too cheap to buy the school pictures! Isn't she so cute! And she finally had hair that could be styled....a little! This was kindergarten I believe.

I love how easy-going Fia is....she loves to be around people and to please them.

I love how she loves to learn. She has always excelled in her studies and rarely needs encouragement to do her work. Here she is holding her certificate for winning a writing contest.

Sophia's full name is Enid Sophia Alisa. Enid is my grandmother's name and SOphia is Richard's granmother's name. I wanted to honor my Nannie by calling her Enid but she just didn't look like an Enid...she really looked like a Sophia...so it stuck. Nannie was very touched that we used her name. Alisa is what she was for 3 weeks...what her birthparents named her after she was born. We kept it as a way to honor them.

With the name Sophia you usually think the nickname would be Sophie....but I really didnt' like that name and never used it. Her best friend Lillian or "Lil" (whose mother didn't want her nickname to be Lilly) began calling her Fia...and it stuck.

Sophia has never met a stranger. She loves to play with anyone of any age. She has developed some great friendships in her 10 years. And they stand the test of time.

While in the Philippines she bonded quickly to her cousin Molly. It was so sad to leave her.

Sophia is a great friend and tries to include others. She also stood up for a little girl who was getting teased on the bus.

I keep telling Nate that Fia could be his best playmate...if he would.just.stop.teasing. She is also a very forgiving child!

Movie Stars

We had so much fun planning this party together. I went shopping at Goodwill and Salvation Army for the dresses and had to control my spending or I would have had a whole closet of fun dresses and accessories! I bought make-up from the Halloween clearance and dollar store and dusted off my hairspray bottle and comb.

After getting all made up and hair teased and stiff the girls did a photo shoot. I turned on the fan so their hair would blow just like all the models and singers do.

Watch out Hanna Montana!

I don't know if I like these photos....she looks older than 10!

After the photo shoot the girls divided up into 2 groups and created a commercial. One was for poptarts and the other for hairspray. We video-taped each one and then watched them. They were so funny and very persuasive(thanks to Mrs. Tanner!). After watching them I gave out awards and the girls gave acceptance speeches...a few got emotional just like on the Oscars:)

isn't it funny how everyone acts like they are blowing out the candle too?

We had originally set the time for the party 3-7pm but I realized at 530 that we weren't going to have enough time so each girl called and asked if they could stay until 8. That way we didn't feel rushed and what movie star wants to be rushed!

And no party would be complete with out karaoke! And Dad couldn't resist showing off his skills!

Happy Birthday Fia!

happy halloween!

Sophia loves to do crafts...and i love doing them with her. Hallowen has LOTS of fun crafts! Sophia went on familyfun.com and printed off a few ideas.


These weren't from Family Fun but aren't they cute! I have admired these little guys every year at Chris's house and would think "they look easy enough to paint!". This year we got together and painted these. I learned a couple painting techniques and they weren't as easy as I thought:) By "easy" I mean I wouldn't have been able to recreate these beauties on my own! One of my new favorite quotes came from our painting time together...."it's only a candy corn". I would say this when I would be frustrated about what how mine were looking...and then i would remind myself that they were only wooden candy corn people!

I made these a couple of years ago and thought they looked so cool. The hardest part is finding the cheesecloth but they turn out so cute. The first time I made them I painted ovals for their eyes...

These are our ghost people. You make them from salt dough and harden them in the microwave. We couldn't get our dough stiff enough so they began to droop and sag. I looked at them and wondered what I could do to make them look like they were "doing something" instead of looking like they were melting. Can you guess what they are doing???

Obama speech....

I like to DVR Glen Beck and watch it when I am doing laundry or late at night. I was watching his program from yesterday and he played part of a speech from Obama that really shocked me...so I googled it. My parents are worried about where the country is heading with this President and I really don't understand enough to be worried...I think...but this pretty easy to understand.

Glen Beck and other passionate journalists can sometimes take quotes out of context and when I hear something as radical as this I am curious what the whole speech was about and if it would take on another meaning.....so anyway...here is the quote....at the bottom is the link to the page I copied this story. It also has a video of Obama giving the speech.



Christian leaders in the U.S. are demanding that Sen. Barack Obama apologize for comments he made referring to babies as a “punishment”.
While addressing a campaign rally in Pennsylvania last weekend, Sen. Obama said, "When it comes specifically to HIV/AIDS, the most important prevention is education, which should include -- which should include abstinence education and teaching the children -- teaching children, you know, that sex is not something casual," he said.
"But it should also include -- it should also include other, you know, information about contraception because, look, I've got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old," he added.
"I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby," Obama said.
The Christian Defense Coalition responded to Obama by saying that his comment is “not only a slap in the face to every child born to a young mother, but it diminishes the great joy that children bring to their families regardless of the circumstances in which they were born.”
Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, Director of the Christian Defense Coalition, also commented on Obama’s campaign for change, saying, "Senator Obama talks about bringing change to America. However, when it comes to his policies on abortion he is strictly 'old school.' Every recent poll shows that America's emerging generation is embracing a culture of life and desires and end to the violence that has resulted in the deaths of over 50,000,000 innocent children and wounded so many women.”
A demonstration protesting Obama’s pro-abortion policies was held yesterday at 3:30pm at West Chester University, where Sen. Obama made a campaign stop

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=12231

Barbie vs. Obie

I guess Obie and Barbie had a fight.