JINGLE BELL JAM

Sam's school had their Jingle Bell Jam on Friday night. We started out with Spaghetti Dinner. It wasn't bad...I was surprised! Then they had games and crafts for the kids to do. Then everyone headed to the gym for a dance. The kids had a blast.

Sam and her buddy Penelope

Cuties

Doing the "Tootie Ta" Dance

Poor Randy was forced to dance with Sam.

All of the teachers were impressed with their "Dancing with the Stars" moves.

This is for you Gramma! Gramma wanted to see what Chelsea's new man looked like. Here he is....his name is Micah. He's a junior and Chels seems to REALLY like him.

Cookie Sleepover

This Friday night was our Christmas Cookie baking at Gramma's. Me, Chels, her best friend Kaitlin, Sam and Gramma do it every year. This year we made chocolate chip, white trash, fudge, hershey's kiss cookies, cut outs, chocolate covered pretzels, and bars.

Chels and Kaitlin are always in charge of the pretzels. They are so yummy. They are mini preztzels covered in peanut butter, caramel and dipped in chocolate. This year I had to make an emergency run to Kroger for more dipping chocolate! They turned out really good.

These two eat more than they make.
Geeks

Here's Bumpa with his usual job....walking around with the Saran Wrap. He stayed downstairs for about 5 minutes and then went upstairs to play Spider Solitaire for the next 6 hours. William left the house all together, good move Will.

Making Chocolate Chip Cookies

One of Sam's jobs is to unwrap Hershey Kisses

Sam and Gramma making White Trash. Check out the two dorks in the back. GET BACK TO WORK!

The next morning we decorate the cut outs. This is a recipe from my Gramma. They still make them up in Wisconsin every year. They have a special Santa face cut out that they use. We've never been able to find one that we like so we use the same recipe but make different shapes. We had lots of fun as usual and everything turned out yummy!

Our Annual Tree Cutting

Ok, so every year, we go to a local tree farm and cut down our Christmas Tree. This year was no different. Except for the fact that we brought Scrooge along, aka Randy! Chels and I laughed our butts off. At the tree farm they have teenage boys ride around in these motorized carts. They ask if you need help cutting your tree or bringing it back to where you pay for it. Well, first of all, the "noise of the carts" was driving Randy nuts. I mean, we were in a forest people! It was taking away from the "you are in a forest cutting down your own tree" feeling. So, one kid comes over asked if we need help. Randy says "No, we'd like to do it ourselves". Next, another one drives over in his noisy cart and asked us again. Randy thinks it's the same kid again and yells "WE GOT IT!!" He was Scrooge from that moment on! That kid drove off so fast probably calling Randy every name in the book. When I told Randy that was a different kid, he felt a little bad, but not much! Anyway, the rest of the day, we had a blast calling him Scrooge every chance we got. It was a fun day, really it was.

Ok, here's how it goes, everybody has to take a turn cutting it down. Chelsea is up first.

Next up, Sam. She doesn't make too much progress. Then Randy breaks out in a sweat doing the rest of it. Chels is enjoying herself as she does every year. Chelsea's other job is to hold tree while it's falling. I'm glad my only job is taking the pictures! She looks like she's in pain!
Then, we all drag it up to the entrance. I forgot I do have to help with this too. I'm laughing in the picture because I can see some "helpers" running up to us to see if we need help dragging it!!! If they only knew what was coming!!! HAHAHAHA!! Here is Sam with the Santa. I gave Santa the name and number to the nearest dentist. He had a couple teeth missing right in front! Working on the tree Ok, everybody sing it with me now..."I like big butts and I can not lie". Sheesh, Kim, get to the gym girl!!! The girls and I have our favorite Christmas cd we play while we're decorating. It takes a long time to decorate since we have to stop for singing and dancing quite often. DONE!

The girlies Sam in front of our fireplace

These are for you Aunt Jen!!!

Your boy got his uniform and tried it on for us!!! He doesn't like his hat but I think it looks ok! Apparently, when you have on this uniform, you are absolutely NOT allowed to smile...little booger.

THANKSGIVING

We had a great Thanksgiving. I have so much to be thankful for!! The night before Thanksgiving the little girls had a sleepover at our house. They had a great time and didn't get out of bed ALL NIGHT! Here they are being goofballs.

Sam and Big Al were the first ones up. THey looked so cute with their "bedhead". I just had to take a picture. Aren't they adorable?
We watched some of the Macy's Parade and then headed over to Gramma's. When we got there, there was a mean game of Wahoo in progress.

Randy and Troy (Troy looks like he's just done something bad, he probably had)

Loyal Packer Fans...the Pack made our Thanksgiving even better (we're not going to mention the game against Dallas since then....UGH!)

Aunt Amy and Chels

Chels always stay the night at Gramma's the night before Thanksgiving to help her get everything ready...here are the two cooks!

Perfection!

I thought my gravy stunk...but everyone else said it was good. They were probably just being nice since it was Thanksgiving and all.

The Carver

Bumpa just likes to give orders....too bad nobody listens.

Everybody helped to clean up. Justin came up from Valdosta. I'm so glad he came!

Clean up, clean up!

Bumpa giving orders again...he NEVER cleans up. He just walks around with Saran Wrap in his hand! Booger.

Randy and Justin
Chels and Justin. These two had lots of fun over the weekend. On Friday they had "cousins day" which involved shopping, eating, bowling, and more eating. They both had a fun day together.

We rounded out the night with 3 games of Pictionary. Us girls kicked butt in that game! Then me, Gramma, Amy and Troy played Wahoo until 2am. We let Gramma and Troy win those games right Ames? I love my family!!!

Happy 5th Birthday Big Al! My niece Allison had her 5th bday last weekend. We all drove to FLorida Friday night and the party was on Saturday. She had a gymnastics party and the girls had a great time. I can't believe our littlest girlie is 5 years old! Here's Allison and her cake. Troy made the cake as usual. This one caved a little on the way to the party but still tasted YUMMY!

The girls eating pizza at the party

Sam and Anne

Thanks a lot Amy! All of the parents were thrilled that Amy put recorders in the kids gift bags. Too bad we left Sam's recorder somewhere in Amy's house and couldn't bring it home with us. Amy, don't you dare find it!!!

Allison opening presents back at the house. She got lots of High School Musical stuff which she LOVED. Right before we left on Sunday the girls put on a High School Musical 2 show and sang us a bunch of songs. They did an awesome job and we cracked up watching them! They are headed to Hollywood.