MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Merry Christmas

Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and take time to remember the reason we celebrate. I am so grateful for the birth of our Lord and Savior. What a gift-that we certainly could never deserve!- Salvation and eternal life with Him!!

Tidbit Tuesday

Here is just a little tidbit about each of the kiddos:

Hollace: has been asking to get her haircut shorter for a while now. She was really needing a trim so I decided to let her get it shorter.

Here is before:

And After..............
She LOVES it!

Rhett: had a little choir performance last Wed. at church. He did such a good job and it was SOOO cute. I was so proud.
Thad: is still not a crawler per say. He does crawl a little, but with his head on the ground, so it's not real effective. He does get where he wants to go and manages to be into everything-without crawling. He is also pulling up a lot now. He did it for the first time in his bed a few weeks ago, but now does it quite a bit. He is so proud of himself when he does it. So cute.

One more little tidbit: we were awakened at midnight last night by a puking child (Rhett) and to another one this morning (Thad). Merry Christmas to us! Hope it makes it's rounds through all of us before Christmas and before our scheduled 13+ hr. car trip!!

Go Fight Win!!

This fall/early winter, Hollace participated in Upward cheerleading. I had never heard of Upward before, but it is pretty big here. They have basketball, football and cheerleading. It is sort of like Kids Inc., but organized through a local church. There is a big emphasis on sportsmanship, etc. It is not suppose to be real competitive or serious. The two cheer teams would cheer for 1 game each on Saturday and would just cheer for the players in general, not for any certain team. Ex: "Go, Upward, GO" (they are all upward), or "Defense-Defense" regardless of who had the ball.

I do think Hollace enjoyed this more than she did t-ball, but I don't think she's sold on cheerleading. I asked her what her favorite parts were at the end of the season, and she said "Meeting new friends and the snacks after the games and learning the bible verses." When I asked her which parts she didn't really like about cheerleading, her response was "When we do the motions and when we yell the cheers". HA HA HA- basically she didn't like the cheering part!!!

Another of my favorite stories from the season was on the final Saturday when the girls did a little dance routine that they had been learning for the past few week. They performed it at half time of two of the games. The first time, when the music came on it was so quiet the girls could hardly hear it and a few of them started the dance late. So before the second time, I gave her a lecture about paying attention and watching her coach so even if she couldn't hear the music start, she would know when to start. WELL.........she did not pay attention and was talking to the girl next to her and didn't hear the music start again. This time she NEVER realized the dance had started and continued talking to the girl for the ENTIRE dance. They finally noticed that all the others were dancing in time to run to their spots for the final pose! It was priceless.

HO HO HO

Here are our pictures from our little visit with Santa. We went Saturday to a little shopping center to see him, mostly because we heard he was a "good" Santa and you could take you own pictures. Well he was a really good Santa, but they wouldn't let us take our own pictures. We had to pay $20 for a CD with all the pics. I didn't really want to do that I just wanted a couple of good snapshots, but how do you say "Let's go see another Santa Clause, this one costs too much!". So we stayed and the kids did really well. No one cried or screamed or hid or anything. I'm pretty sure I could have taken pics this good myself. The kids seem strangely pale to me. They really aren't that pasty-especially Hollace. Anyway, here they are.

Wordless Wednesday

THREE

I was looking back at old posts today and realized I had started this and never posted it!! I'm terrible! Rhett turned THREE in August, yes, August. We had pictures taken by the fabulous Shannon Watson (shannonwatsonphoto.com). Here are some of my favorites of my favorite three year old:

A little about what he's been up to:

*He loves to go to preschool and from what I hear is really good at school.

*He still is NOT a napper. Occasionally he will fall asleep on his own, usually about 5 o'clock when it is too late to be napping. He is a super grouch, though, if you wake him, and if you try to MAKE him take a nap, forget about it!

*Bedtime is not a lot of fun with him either. While Hollace goes right to sleep, he is usually still getting up an hour after we put him to bed. (which is NOT early, about 8:30-9). He gets up numerous times b/c he's hungry, thirsty, needs covered up, etc. Sometimes when we are in bed we will hear him running around upstairs well over an hour after he went to bed. Sometimes we will find him hiding under the dining room table long after he was suppose to be asleep.

*He still LOVES "Cars", and also monster trucks, and any other kind of race car or truck.

*Some funny things he says: savorite (favorite), chicken (kitchen), still Faddy (Thad-LOVE this!), bevy (for very) and mine (for I or I'm; ex: "My thirsty")

*He is still ornery, but looking back I can see a noticeable improvement in his behavior/obedience from a year ago this time. Whew- he WORE me OUT there for awhile. To cut him a little slack, he was 2- and moving to a new home/ town, and getting a new little brother-all at the same time.

*He is also super sweet, and loves to give kisses and hugs. I just love to hear him say, "My love you, Mommy"!! Aahh, just melts my heart!

Disney: Part 14 (of 14!!!!)

Our last night at Disney we ate out at a YUMMMMMY place called O'Hana. They grilled your food on skewers over a huge open fire pit then brought it straight to your table. It was oh so good! Most of the restaurants the food was OK, but you really pay for the experience with the characters. Here you paid for the FOOD! If you go to Disney, you should really try this place. I should have gotten some pics of the food, but I didn't think about it. Here is the final family pic.

More of the work by photographer Hollace:

Hollace does pretty well, but we decided to as a passer-by to get one of us together. Don't I have a handsome husband?
Well, that's all folks. That is the last picture from our Disney vacation. I'm not sure if anyone actually looked at ALL 14 POSTS!, but I mostly did it for my benefit. It may be years before I get these pics in a real scrapbook, and it will help me remember things when I finally do get to scrapbook it.

Disney: Part 13

Here is the rest of our last day at Hollywood Studios

Hollace and I (in the second row) on the Rock-n-Roller Coaster. It goes from 0 to 60 mph in 2.8 seconds!!

Hollace in front of her favorit ride. I mentioned it before, the haunted house with a 13 story drop on an elevator. She wanted to do it again, and again.

The haunted elevator.....
I doubt you can see this very well, but the four of us are on the front row on the left. This was one of the rides Rhett was a little over an inch too short for, but we snuch him on it one time.

Disney: Part 12

This is actually my second post today. I am really ready to get the Disney posts DONE. I'm almost there.
Anyway, we spent our last day at Hollywood Studios. There is a lot to do here for little ones and we didn't get to everything, but here is some of what we did:

The parade/block party

The kids dancing at the block party

We went to an extreme stunt/car show. It was pretty impressive.
This guy actually caught on fire during the show (on purpose)

This was part of an Indiana Jones stunt show. It had a lot of fighting scenes in it and afterwards, Rhett went around punching everything and making sound effects.

We became Idol fans this year, so we had to do the AI experience show.
This was the Beauty and the Beast show, which was really good!

Disney: Part 11

Our fourth night we went to Epcot. There is not a whole lot to do there with little kids, so we didn't spend a lot of time there. Our dinner was at Garden Grill and we ran into a few fun friends while we were there.....

Chip-n-Dale: not sure which is which

Pluto

Mickey

Disney: Part 10

While we were at Disney World, tinker bell made a little visit to our hotel room each night while the kids were sleeping. If they had been good that day, she left a little surprise for them and a little fairy dust behind. They were SO excited about this and couldn't wait to get up in the morning and see if she had been there.

Here is one of the surprises she left one night. Can you see the fairy dust??

We waited in a LONG line to meet the fairies. Hollace kept saying how when she met Tink she was going to tell her thank you for leaving her the surprises. I was wondering how this would go over.

Here are some of the fairies, I forgot their names and Hollace is not here to tell me.

Hollace had been saying that when she met Tink she was going to thank her for the things she had left, but when she finally met her she was so excited that she forgot. I I didn't remind her...