My Favorite Christmas Moments...

We have had a simply wonderful Christmas...so many fun memories spread out over the entire month of December. I wish I could post all of my pictures, but there is just not enough time or space to do so. Here are just a sampling of my favorite moments ~

Every Christmas, up until she & my dad moved to Foley, my mom would cook a huge breakfast complete with quiches, muffins, and this amazing grits casserole. We decided to revisit that yummy tradition since every one was coming into town to see the Rockettes Christmas Spectacular. It was a great day!

This was Isaac's first Christmas. The very first present that he received was a Glo-Worm! I was even more excited than he was because my brother, Chris, and I both had one when we were little.

Noah received a Big Wheel from my parents, Mimi & Papaw, another classic toy! He was very excited as well and just could not wait for Jared to put it together for him, so he decided to do it himself. He worked very hard at it for a while, trying to figure out exactly how all the parts fit together.

Rach & Noah's preschool choir sang several songs as part of our choir's Christmas "Cantata" (love to Rose Potts!) Apparently our Noah was just too much for little Erin Faulkner. She decided to lavish him with kisses right in the middle of Jesus Messiah! I'm still waiting for someone to send me the pictures, but there's a great video of it already up on Facebook.

A new tradition, or what I would love to become a tradition anyway, this year was a trip out to the Howards' Lakehouse. We spent the night there with the Howards and the Merediths. Troy & Aaron lit a bonfire, and everyone enjoyed roasted marshmellows. Shortly after coming in from all that, Noah was hit with a stomach bug, and our family was up most of the night with him. Not the most fun memory of the season.

There are a very few moments in the year that I enjoy more than Christmas morning with the kiddos. Noah was not having a good day until he realized that there were more presents wrapped inside his & Isaac's new Auburn toy box.

We spent Christmas night with Jared's family at Pop & Mamaw's. This was the first year in a while that his family hasn't all been together. Nate & Hannah recently moved to Philadelphia, and we missed them terribly. After the traditional Sibling Photo session (which Kyle looks forward to any time we all get together), we ate supper and opened our Great Tower of Presents. Noah recruited Cousin Cynthia to help him with all of his gifts, and Rach made tea for everyone afterwards with her new tea set. Isaac is just waiting for the weather to get cold again so he can break out his new leather jacket, yep, thats right, I did type leather jacket. Gabby rocks!

What a great night...

I feel as though I am finally fully ready for Christmas. Today was Jared's last day at work for the year, well almost, he does have to go in Monday, but I'm not counting that day. Ha! To celebrate, I made a fruit pizza, which he and I are about to dive into as soon as I finish this post, so forgive me if I seem to rush! Also to celebrate, the whole family (yes, even Isaac) piled onto the couch after supper and watched the first half of "Its A Wonderful Life." Rach & Noah had their sippy cups and big lollypops (thank you miss anna and ms shirley) and were glued to the story. Noah's favorite part was the swimming pool under the floor and Rach laughed at Mary hiding in the bushes! They didn't want us to turn it off but considering it was past bedtime when we started the movie, we couldn't very well watch it all in one night. Besides, Jared & I are anxious to get to the fruit pizza I mentioned earlier. Anyway, here are some of our favorite quotes from the movie, from tonight's viewing at least,...anyone care to share theirs?

*Violet: "I like George Bailey."
Mary: "You like every boy."
Violet: "Whats wrong with that?"

*George: "Hey, Hey Mary."

*George: "Wait a minute, what am I doing? This is a very interesting situation. A fella doesn't find himself in a situation like this every day, not in Bedford Falls anyway."

*Mary: "He's making violent love to me, mother."
Mary's mom: "Well you just tell him to go on home."

Christmas Card Picture

Every Christmas, since we've had children, I have tried to take a cute Christmas-y picture to put on our Christmas card. And every Christmas, it turns into a huge hassle. It doesn't make any sense to me why my children can take adorable pictures during the year doing random stuff, but when it comes to taking a Christmas card picture, it just doesn't happen. Here are some of this year's attempts.....

Confessions of a Facebook Junkie

I am too weak for Facebook.
For weeks, no, months, I have turned a blind eye to this truth and pretended that I could handle it. I could log out when I needed to, well, when I wanted to. I could resist logging on when I needed to, well, when I wanted to. It didn't distract me from more important things, well, not very often. I hadn't turned into a facebook stalker, well, at least not every day. See, I reasoned with myself, I can handle this. At some point in this conversation with myself though, I realized that I was doing some serious rationalizing and begin to doubt my *mastery* of facebook.
"Okay, okay, fine," I said to myself, "maybe I have some issues, but no worries, I'll fix it. I'll set limits." So I did and my self-imposed limits lasted for about a week and a half.
Last night, I was talking with Jared about some recent facebook drama, and I was hit with this crazy realization ~ I am spending half an hour descibing to my husband a conversation that occurred on facebook....on FACEBOOK! What am I doing? I became so frustrated with myself because I could see the absolute absurdity of it and yet here I was getting sucked back in.
So, I've decided to bite a huge bullet. No, I'm not deleting my account. There are several redeeming qualities to facebook like keeping in touch with family and sharing pictures and videoes en masse. What I am doing is asking Jared to keep me accountable by changing my password and keeping it a secret. If I want to log on, I'll have to go to him. Now, some people may sneer at this, and maybe they have good reason to do so. After all, it is rather sad that my facebook junkieness has reached such a level. However, I think that one of the hallmarks of wisdom is knowing your weaknesses and safeguarding yourself.