December Fun

Today I'm doing a little catch on the blog and talking about some of the fun we have been having throughout December.  December is just one of those months where you are on the go non-stop and doing so many fun things.  Yes we have a lot of Christmas activities, but we also are having football fun, basketball fun, birthday fun and everything in between.  While we have been going a lot we have also managed to have some time at home too.  I have told myself in years past that I want to stop and really enjoy the season and what its about and part of that is making sure we have some nights at home doing nothing! We always want to cram as much fun in as possible and that can all of the sudden make things not so fun so we are doing that.  I should have taken pictures of us laying on the couch doing just that but instead I'm only sharing the busy stuff!
Let me start with just a couple of this cute boy!  This first one says it all...he is a mess.  He has gotten into holding up the peace sign for some reason in his pictures.  He told me Josie Burton taught him how to do peace.  Well I get a kick out of him doing that and this will definitely be one of those bring out of the vault pictures when he is 18!  We are also still in the potty training process so that explains the no pants!  We are making some progress for anyone wondering...woot woot!

my cute little lunch date!  His face just barely meets the top of the table!

Right off our December got off to a GREAT start.  We spent the first Saturday out in Atlanta watching Georgia win the SEC Championship!  It was such a great game, for us GA fans at least!  The atmosphere was great and you could tell the Bulldawgs were out for revenge.  I loved watching this team clinch that division win and I cannot wait for the next game!  We all had the best time before the game, and after too.  And crazy, out of all 76,000+ fans in the stadium that day, one of our friends had the 2 seats next to ours.  We knew then it was going to be a good day! Ha!

the boys

the girls!

we added a friend in this group picture...bless him

These bulldogs enjoyed a day with Suzy. She sent me this from their trip to Cracker Barrel

The next day Cohen was riding in the Lavonia parade as Little Miss Echo.  She and Josie had a lot of fun and we found these pictures they took of themselves on Kelly's phone.  It was such a pretty day for the parade, I think they were enjoying a ride in the convertible!  A big thank you to Harold West for letting us use his car!

these girls were ready for some candy

We have had some pretty nice afternoons even though it is December.   While Cohen was at her baton lesson the kids got some time on the playground.  This is our church and preschool playground and I just sat there and thought how many memories we had made on it and how I loved it!

On Friday, December 8, Bryce had Polar Express day at First Friends.  I love that Margaret has read the Polar Express to all of my kids and continues to do so.  She is so special to our family so its little things like this that mean so much and I know will stick in their minds.  Bryce did pretty good during the story.  He is easily distracted but did pretty good.   When it came time for a group picture you can see he was more than happy to throw up that peace sign again...oh me!

And again when I took a picture of him at the table!  The kids ate their snack and then decorated waffle cones as Christmas trees.  The marshmallows were definitely his favorite along with sampling the icing!

more peace sign

That afternoon we got the unexpected (or maybe it was expected just not by me) snow.  The girls dismissed early from school.  Bryce had gone home with Sug from preschool so he got snowed in for the night with them.  We tried going to get him but decided not to risk it since some of the roads were starting to be a little icy.  When we turned around to go home we decided to stop to eat at Cracker Barrel.  The girls got to mail letters to Santa.  If you notice in Cohen's picture she has on one shoe and one fuzzy sock. We found out once we got to Cracker Barrel that Cohen had thought we would just be going to Pop & Sug's house and brought along her crutches to pretend her foot was hurt.  I'm not sure the reasoning behind this but that's what she had done and we had to take her into the restaurant in that one sock.

Cohen in her one shoe/one sock get up

While we didn't get as much snow as some of the areas around us, and in Atlanta, we did have enough for the girls to build a big snowman.  When we got back with Bryce most of the snow had melted but the snowman stuck around for several days melting slowly.

That same weekend the girls had their choir musical at church...Jingle Bell Beach.  I cannot say enough about how good they did!  The entire musical was so cute and all the kids did such a good job.  We had been listening to the musical over the last several weeks and both girls loved the songs.  They have still been listening to it since the performance.   Cohen was excited that her teacher Mrs. Robinson came to watch.  She really gets in her element doing these performances!

Our elf, Emma has been hanging around in December hiding for the kids, getting into mischief, and showing them tricks like this one with Skittles.   The kids loved this one and even I loved it too!

The kids and I took a Christmas tree to my Daddy's grave and when I snapped this picture I had to smile because again Bryce was flashing his famous peace sign.

Kate has now started her basketball season.  She has only had one game but they did win that game and she is having fun.  They look so cute out there!

Last week our church was helping with family night at the Lavonia Learning Center.  My Sunday School class was helping with face painting.  I took Cohen with me and she was so excited to get to help out.  She loves face painting and she did a great job!  She even had her friend Ella Grace paint her face.

Wednesday we celebrated Sug's birthday.  She is always going all out to make our birthday special and we wanted to try to do the same for her.  We may not cook as good as her but we try!   Happy birthday to our Suggie!!

We took this pictures of all the kids sitting on this sofa.  Years ago we took a family picture on this couch announcing that I was pregnant with Cohen.  IT was a self timed picture and Kelly shouted "Ashleigh's pregnant" right before the picture took. We laughed because everyone kept their smile so in the picture it looks just like everyone is smiling.  Sara was also pregnant, almost about to have Savannah in that picture.  Here we are 10 years later with now a couch full of kids!

This past week was really one of the busiest and we continued with Christmas fun on Thursday night at Bryce's preschool Christmas program.  I loved watching my little sheep!  He sang so good and was really into those songs.  It was so precious!  The kids also got to see Santa!  With everything we've had going on the kids had not seen him yet.  He was able to touch their nose and see if his finger lit up which tells him if they have been naughty or nice.  They loved him!  There were no tears from anyone this year!  yay!

Santa even tested Pop's nose and as you can see he was on the nice list!  It may have took a time or 2 :)

Bryce liked Santa so much he was trying to feed him cookies.  He asked Santa, "you like cookies" and when Santa said yes he wanted to give him one.  So sweet!

Cohen loves getting to see her best friends at preschool functions!  These sweet girls all have little brothers in preschool!

Now we are moving into the last 2 days of school since we are having to makeup some hurricane days.  They should be full of fun!  Christmas is coming quick!