Christmas 2008

We've had a great Christmas season! On Christmas Eve we went to the candlelight communion service at our church. Rachel was funny when we got home. She said she wanted to start a new tradition - open one present on Christmas Eve!!! We told her we weren't sure if it would be a tradition, but since they had been good at church, we let each girl open a present that I picked out from under the tree. I picked our a DVD for each of them and we watched those before we went to bed.


On Christmas morning, Rachel woke up first, but went to the play room to color! So much for running downstairs to see everything!!! I got my cameras rounded up and we all headed downstairs to do our family Christmas. The girls got to see what Santa (aka mommy & daddy) brought. Katelyn got the Leapster that she wanted and Rachel got a 20 inch bike like she asked for. A surprise for both of them was an MP3 player. I got these during the summer for a GREAT deal and thought the girls would enjoy them. One of the best things is that they have a speaker made in them, so you can use headphones or just listen to it with the speakers. I liked that feature so that they don't constantly have headphones on blaring the music into their ears. I stayed up Christmas Eve and loaded some of their music onto the MP3 players, and they really enjoyed that! The girls also got clothes, books, and boots, along with a super cool mini tennis net and foam balls! We got this for them so that they can play in the driveway or maybe even take it up to the gym at church on a cold day.


After opening our gifts, eating breakfast, and getting ready, we headed to Puddin & Papa's house to celebrate with Robert's family. Everyone was able to be there! We had a good time and lots of good food! The girls got some fun gifts. Uncle Steve gave them each a bird house kit that he himself cut out each piece for them and wrote the directions on how to make it! I think that is such a cool gift!!! Brittany made the girls each a scarf too - very cool! Katelyn got books, a Lite Brite, a Leapster game, and a wooden game set. Rachel got books, clothes, an Easy Bake Oven, Twister Hopskotch, and Cosmic Catch. As usual, we ate too much, but thoroughly enjoyed an extra large piece of Puddin's peppermint pie!!!


The day after Christmas we hung around the house for a while and then headed over to Mamaw & Papaw's house to celebrate with them and Lloyd & Wendy. Papaw made us a great supper - breakfast! We had bacon, eggs, biscuits, and syrup. This isn't your regular maple syrup. This is a syrup that my mamaw used to make. It's water & sugar that you mix with butter and then soak your biscuits in it! It's almost like dessert it's so sweet! But it's really good!!!! After supper/breakfast, we exchanged gifts. The girls once again got lots of great stuff. They got a really cool Leap Frog interactive globe that we've all enjoyed playing with! Rachel got lots of books, clothes, art supplies, Sleeping Beauty DVD, Yahtzee, and money. Katelyn got books, clothes, art supplies, money, and a Leapster game. The funniest thing was watching Katelyn open one of her gifts from Lloyd & Wendy. You see, Katelyn loves to make stuff and loves glue, tape, and any kind of art supplies. When Wendy would ask her what she wanted for Christmas, numerous times Katelyn talked about wanting liquid glue. She just thinks liquid glue is the best! So one of Katelyn's presents from Lloyd & Wendy was a box full of tape and all sorts of glue - white liquid glue, clear liquid glue, gel glue, Dora fiesta glue, sparkle glue, glitter glue, glue sticks, etc.!!! The look on Katelyn's face was priceless! She was SO EXCITED!!!


Here are a few family pictures from our Christmas celebrations. I'll post more pictures another day.

This is all of the grandkids in Robert's family: Jessica, Ryan, Kayla, Brittany, Katelyn, and Rachel.


This is all of Robert's immediate family

This is my immediate family

We usually end up doing a silly picture because the girls think it's hilarious!! On our first attempt, the girls leaned back and pulled their legs up over their heads. So for our second attempt, Lloyd & I decided to try to do the same thing! Pretty funny!!!

Santa Isn't Real

Well, we knew it wouldn't be too long before we'd really be having this kind of discussion. At our house, we have done Santa with the girls. We don't make a really big deal out of it or anything - they know that the true meaning of Christmas is all about the birth of Jesus. And the girls long ago realized that the Santas they saw everywhere were all different, which led them to say that those Santas weren't real - they were just helpers. Well last night we had a little incident here that wasn't any big deal, BUT because both girls were lying about it, it became a big deal. Lying was the problem. So we had a huge discussion about lying, telling the truth, honesty, etc. Afterwards I was talking to Robert and told him that I felt a little convicted about the whole Santa thing. Here I was telling the girls not to lie, but essentially, that's what I was doing. The girls have gotten to the point that they would point blank ask "Is Santa real?" We'd always try to turn the question back around to them by saying "What do you think?" That worked for a while, but then they started with the "well what do YOU think?" So since they had already been asking Santa questions anyway, and since we had just had this long discussion about Santa, Robert & I sat them down and told them the truth about Santa. They handled it pretty well. I think Rachel kind of knew that there really wasn't a Santa that went around to every house - but she didn't realize that it was mommy & daddy. Katelyn took it really well - she was just kind of like "okay - cool!" And yes we went ahead and told them about the Tooth Fairy too. I think it was a little overwhelming for Rachel because at one time she cried a bit. She said it was a happy cry, but I think some of the emotions got to her. But, they both seem to be fine with it. I think it helps some that we've never made a huge deal about Santa. We did Santa, but Christmas was so much more than Santa.

Yes - we did tell them NOT to tell any of their friends. That's a discussion that needs to be had between parents and kids! Rachel said if anyone asked her, she's just tell them they need to ask their parents about that!

Afterwards, the girls called their uncle Lloyd and told him that Santa isn't real! He isn't a big Santa fan - he's threatened to tell them before!

So now, we won't have the problem of which presents are from Santa and which ones are from Mommy & Daddy. We told the girls that we'd still leave some presents out unopened just like we always do!

First Official Day of Christmas Break

Well, it looks like we've started out Christmas Break with fevers. Friday night Katelyn was complaining a bit about a headache. Saturday morning when she got up she had a fever, headache, and sore throat. Since one of her good buddies, Virginia, has strep throat, we thought it would be best to run her to the MinuteClinic for a strep test. Katelyn's test was negative, so it looks like she just has a virus of some kind.

By Saturday night, Rachel also was running a slight fever and complaining of a headache. This morning, both girls woke up with low grade fevers, but Katelyn seems to be feeling pretty much her normal self. Rachel is complaining of feeling just yucky all over, pretty much like Katelyn did yesterday. So I'm hoping that by tomorrow, Rachel will be feeling pretty much back to normal too.

We're just hoping that this is just a little 24-48 hour virus and that we'll all be healthy on Christmas!!!

Like Father, Like Daughter

Friday afternoon, the girls were upstairs playing while I was getting supper ready. They seemed to be playing very well together. After supper, we were getting ready to go look at some Christmas lights. I walked into Katelyn's room and happened to look at the wall above her bed. I was very upset to see handprints all over the wall. I could tell it was Rachel's handprints because of the size of the hands. Rachel admitted to doing it. It turns out she decided to smear some lipgloss on her hands, climb up onto Katelyn's bed, and then put her handprints all over the wall. I was so mad! Needless to say, she didn't get to go look at Christmas lights! (AND we had planned on taking them to see the Tale of Despereaux at the movie theater on Saturday, but that was taken away too!) I stayed home with Rachel and did manage to get the handprints off with some Dawn dishwashing soap. She never could give me a reason as to why she did that. I think she learned her lesson though.

Later I found out something about Robert that he was too chicken to tell me about. It turns out that when he was probably a few years older than Rachel, he decided to chase a grand-daddy long legs across the back of their house with a can of gold spray paint! They lived in a white house (not THE white house, just a white house!!!), so you can imagine the result of him spraying gold paint on the side of the house! So evidently, it's a genetic thing to do something bizarre just for the sake of doing it!!

KidStuf Christmas Program

Last night was the KidStuf Christmas Program at our church. The children's choir sang a couple of songs, the KidStuf actors did a skit, Pastor Chris spoke, and Rachel sang in a trio. The entire thing was really good! Robert was one of the actors, Rachel & Katelyn sang, and I just sat there and took pictures! Here's the video of Rachel singing and pictures of Rachel & Katelyn singing with the choir.

Future Wimbledon Champion!!!

Here are a few pictures from Katelyn's tennis clinic on Monday.

Way to keep your eye on the ball Katelyn!!!

Waiting her turn

Look at her turn her shoulders on that backhand! What form!!!!

Sunday Morning

Here are a couple of pictures of the girls Sunday morning before we headed to church.

Pictures with Santa

Today after church we stopped by Wal-Mart to pick up a few things on our grocery list. When we went in, the greeter told the girls that Santa was there! So they went back to see Santa. It turns out Santa was at Wal-Mart, and they were taking pictures with Santa and the pictures were FREE!!! Yes - FREE!!! The lady took several shots of the girls with Santa, and then told me to check at the photo department in 2-3 hours and they'd have the pictures there for me to have for FREE!!! So on the way back to church this evening, I ran in and picked up the pictures. They had all the pictures with Santa stacked on top of the photo counter. I looked through until I found the ones with Rachel & Katelyn. There were 4 different poses with the girls. I asked the lady "Do I just take these?" She said "Yes - they're yours!" And they printed them out as 5x7 pictures! Pretty cool, huh!!! I had to scan them in for you to see, so the color and quality doesn't look as good, but you can see that they turned out pretty cute! I picked out my favorite two pictures to post.

Time for a Change!

Yes - I've been messing with my blog layout again! I wanted something a little more winter-y or Christmas-y. I found this neat background (with my 2 favorite colors - brown & blue!) and then I made my own header. Not sure how long I'll keep this one either, but for now, it'll work! I like the colors!!!

Basketball and Tennis Have Begun!

Well, we had a short break after soccer finished the end of October, but now it's time for the girls to start the next sport season. Rachel had her first basketball practice of the season on Monday night. She had fun and did a great job! She has improved so much since last year. Robert is coaching her team again, and Katelyn is the assistant coach!!!

Katelyn isn't old enough to play basketball at our church, so she started a tennis clinic on Monday! She absolutely loved it!!! It's just for 5 & 6 year olds, and on Monday it was actually just girls - Katelyn plus 3 other girls. Of course, Katelyn is the smallest, but she did awesome! I think the tennis pro was a little surprised at how well she did. Two of the other girls have taken clinics before, but Katelyn and the 4th girl haven't. I think Katelyn hit the ball over the net everytime except twice! She would hit the ball and the pro would say "Excellent" or "Awesome shot!" Katelyn would just grin from ear to ear! I know I'm biased and all, but overall she probably did the best of all 4 girls. She definitely seemed to have the most natural ability and hand/eye coordination. The other girls were all bigger than her, so if they get a hold of the ball, they can smack it pretty hard, but Katelyn did GREAT!!! She's looking forward to her next clinic!!!

Young Achiever

Last week we got a letter in the mail that Rachel had been nominated as a Young Achiever! It is quite an honor to be nominated and we are so proud of her! She had to fill out a biographical sketch and return that. Currently, she is considered a classroom Young Achiever. From the classroom young achievers, they will review the teacher nominations and the biographical sketches and choose grade level winners. There will be a county wide awards ceremony in March that we'll attend. Rachel doesn't fully understand what this is, but I've tried to explain to her that it is an honor. We're proud of you Rachel!!!

And Robert Makes 4

Yes - Robert went to the doctor today and he too has a sinus infection. So that makes all 4 of us with sinus infections and all 4 of us on antibiotics! I guess the good things is that we should all be well by Christmas!!!

I'm a Turkey

Rachel wrote this at school the week before Thanksgiving. They were supposed to write a story about "I'm a Turkey." I thought Rachel's story was cute!

I've Been Tagged!!!

Okay - so I've been tagged by my friend Allison. Here's the deal - I'm supposed to post the fourth picture in the fourth folder on my computer, and then list four things about the picture. So here goes!

1. Katelyn is trying to catch snow flakes on her tongue.
2. Katelyn actually thought this was a lot of snow!!!
3. Rachel wore that hat for pictures she had made when she was 15 months old.
4. The snowsuit was a hand-me-down from a co-worker that I worked with at Taylor/Webster back in 2002!

Now I'm supposed to tag 4 other people. So here goes. I tag:
1. Becca W.
2. Amanda N.
3. Christy P.
4. Ashley Z.

Black Friday Shopping

It's become a family tradition for me, Mom, and Wendy to go shopping on Black Friday. We started out several years ago all going in one car, staying out all day, and coming back with the car so full that all three of us had to sit in the front seat!! We learned after that to take two cars so that we could haul more stuff and make it to more stores if we needed to be at two places at the same time!! We would have lunch at Chick-Fil-A and then shop some more before heading home where we'd all have supper together.

This year, however, was different. Mom had sinus surgery a couple of weeks ago and is not feeling 100% yet. So she knew she wasn't up to shopping all day long. Her main goal was to get some things at Wal-Mart that she needed for the kids she has adopted for Christmas. Wendy & Lloyd are having fun in Orlando! They're watching the UT men play in a basketball tournament and going to Disney!

So if I was going to get out in the craziness of Black Friday, it was going to be by myself. Yes - I did get up early and was at Wal-Mart around 4:30 am! And yes - I ran into Mom & Dad there!!! I also went to Kohl's, another Wal-Mart, LifeWay, Cedar Springs Christian Bookstore, Michael's, Ace Hardware, and Chick-Fil-A. It wasn't the same eating lunch there by myself though. And shopping wasn't nearly as fun either! On the way home, I stopped at the CVS MinuteClinic. I was home before noon. I think the early quitting time was due to several things - (1) I had already done some shopping, (2) some of the things I still need to buy weren't things that were on sale, (3) I wasn't feeling 100%, and (4) it's not as much fun by yourself!

Antibiotics Anyone?

Yes - the three girls here at our house are all on antibiotics! I took Katelyn to the doctor on Monday and she was put on steroids for 5 days for the croup. The doctor said if she was still having problems later in the week, congestion got worse, etc. to call back and she'd call in some antibiotics for her. Well, she finished up the steroids on Friday and her cough is quite a bit better (we're still using the albuterol though!), but she's still got quite a bit of drainage & congestion. So I called the doctor this morning and she called in antibiotics for Katelyn.

I've had a cold now for about 2 weeks. I thought I was better at the first of the week, but by Tuesday night, I was more congested than I had been and I started coughing. By Thursday I couldn't breathe through my nose at all and was coughing quite a bit. So in the midst of my Black Friday shopping, I stopped at the CVS MinuteClinic (which by the way is awesome!). I got some antibiotics for my sinus infection and some powerful cough medicine. So hopefully I'm on the mend too!!

Rachel has had a cold for about a week now, and the past 2 days it's gotten quite a bit worse. So Robert took her to the doctor this morning. She has a sinus infection also, and is on 2 weeks worth of antibiotics. We have sample packs of steroids here at the house, so if her cough gets too bad, we can use those!

Hopefully, this means we'll be well at Christmas!! Robert said his throat is getting scratchy, so he may be getting what the rest of us have. If so, I'm sure he'll be making a trip to the MinuteClinic too!!!

Overall though, it's not too bad. We made it through October without the girls being very sick. October is typically a bad month for them with their allergies and asthma. (Of course, both girls were on steroids and antibiotics in September!!) They can't just get a regular cold and get over it - Katelyn's colds usually turn into the croup and sinus infections, and Rachel's colds usually trigger asthma attacks and turn into sinus infections. We look like a regular pharmacy around here with all of our nebulizers, inhalers, and medications, but I'm just thankful for all the stuff we have to try & keep the girls well.

So if you see us, we'll probably be coughing, sniffing, sneezing, wiping our noses, etc. but we're getting better!!!

Winter Fun at Dollywood

The girls were out of school on Wednesday, and Robert only had to work 1/2 day, so we decided to go to Dollywood! The weather was very nice! It was sunny and around 50 degrees. When we got there we sent to Santa's Workshop first - which was a great idea!!! There was one family visiting Santa and then we were next in line!!! Evidently not too many people go to visit Santa at 1:30 in the afternoon!!! The girls hopped up on Santa's lap and he just talked & talked to them about what they wanted for Christmas.

After visiting Santa, we decided to ride a couple of rides. Katelyn was able to ride the bumper cars for the first time ever!!!! I think it was a combination of two things - she has grown a little bit since summer AND she had on boots!!! She was finally tall enough!!! She rode with me while Rachel rode with Robert. After the bumper cars, Katelyn & Robert headed over to the VeggieTales roller coaster while Rachel and I went to ride the Scrambler. We were first in line to ride it the next time when Rachel decided she wasn't sure if she liked it or not. We rode it several times this summer, but all of a sudden she wasn't too sure if she liked it or not. So we went to find Robert & Katelyn. After Robert & Katelyn rode the roller coaster, Rachel rode it with Katelyn a couple more times.

After the rides, it was time for a few shows. We got to see Babes in Toyland, O Holy Night, and 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. We all agreed that our favorite was 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. The only thing that we didn't get to do that we would have liked to do was the Polar Express 4-D! But every time we walked over there, the wait was like a 2 hour wait!! We didn't have 2 hours to spend waiting in line, so we never were able to do that. Who knows - maybe we'll be back before the Christmas season is over. If not, we had a good day at Dollywood!!!

Here are some pictures from our day.

Santa talking to Rachel
Santa talking to Katelyn

Mrs. Claus giving the girls candy canes

Robert & Katelyn waving on the VeggieTales roller coaster. Poor Robert - he's just about too tall!!!

Katelyn waving

Rachel & Katelyn

I thought this next picture was really funny. You see, Katelyn screams at the top of her lungs on this roller coaster!! You can see Rachel covering her ears to try to minimize the noise!!!

Katelyn's Thanksgiving Program

On Tuesday, Katelyn's class, along with another class, performed a little Thanksgiving program for the parents. They sang 5 songs. Katelyn's class was dressed as Pilgrims, and the other class was dressed as Indians. I have the video, but not sure how long it will take to upload it. I may try, but if it doesn't work, here are some pictures.

This is Katelyn the Pilgrim with Christa the Indian. Christa is in the other class. She also lives next door to Lloyd & Wendy, so anytime we go over there, Christa runs out to give the girls hugs!!

Here is Katelyn with two of her friends from class - Stephanie and Haley.

Haley & Katelyn are buddies.

Sitting on stage

The entire class of Pilgrims

Rachel the Magician

Last Sunday night we had our Thanksgiving meal at church. Afterwards, we had a special program with a special speaker, Barry Mitchell. He is a Christian comedian/magician. At one point, he started to tell a story and needed some help on stage. Rachel raised her hand and he picked her to come up on stage. She would portray the part of the "penniless peasant." Whenever he tapped her on the shoulder she was supposed to say "I have a big heart." There were 3 others in this story also. The sultan was played by our worship pastor, and then two other kids played the parts of the pretty professor and the studly sportsman. The story itself was quite humorous and did involve some "magic." The other 2 kids were pretty funny. They both forgot their lines, but the funniest thing is that Barry also forgot one of the kid's lines for a second!!! I must brag and say that Rachel remembered her line and did so good getting up there on stage and speaking out so loudly and clearly!!! For being part of the show, she got a little magic kit! So this week Rachel has been practicing her magic tricks! She does pretty well on the tricks, but she still needs to work on her showmanship! But she's getting better. She has performed for her class at school, Robert's family, and Mamaw & Papaw. It's kind of neat because she realizes now that the "magic" is just a trick.

Sunday Afternoon Silliness

Last Sunday afternoon I was doing some work on the computer. I kept hearing lots of laughter and silliness coming from Katelyn's room. I went in there to see what was going on and this is what I found! Robert was in bed with both girls and they were listening to a silly songs CD and singing along with it. They were quite funny!!

Tooth #11

Yes - Rachel has lost yet another tooth! That makes number 11! She came downstairs after lunch with a kleenex and asked Robert to pull it for her. Robert told her that he didn't think it was ready to be pulled. She proceeded to then pull it herself!!!! Looks like the tooth fairy will be making a visit to our house tonight!!!

Happy Birthday to Lloyd! Happy Birthday to Laura!

My brother, Lloyd, turned the big 36 on Thursday and I turned the big 38 on Saturday! We all celebrated last night at Lloyd & Wendy's house with a spaghetti dinner and chocolate cake!! YUMMY!!!!

So What's Been Going On?

Yes - it's been a while since I've blogged. Has anyone even noticed besides Mom and Wendy? Not sure why I haven't been blogging - guess I just needed a little break! In case you're wondering, here's a list of some of what has been going on around here:

1. Upward basketball evaluations (Rachel is playing and Robert is coaching)
2. Report cards - Rachel made straight A's and Katelyn made all perfect scores too (they don't get letter grades in kindergarten)
3. Girl's week-end with all my FBC Smyrna buddies
4. Lots of mornings spent in the freezing cold opening car doors at school
5. Volunteering in the girls' classrooms
6. Rachel continuing to make perfect scores on every spelling, math, and vocabulary test
7. Katelyn doing double digit addition (like 43+54)
8. Working out
9. Playing tennis
10. Tutoring a high school junior in Algebra II
11. Rachel reading 7th grade level books!
12. Katelyn reading 1st grade level books!
13. My mom having sinus surgery
14. Celebrating mine & Lloyd's birthdays
15. Rachel pulling another tooth!
16. Katelyn wiggling a tooth that is slightly loose!
17. Church (KidStuf, choir, AWANA, UpStreet)
18. Online Christmas shopping
19. Cleaning out some toys
20. Selling SEC championship tickets (that Robert, Mark, and Lloyd won at the Gladiator Games back in August!)
21. Argued with Snapfish about the Oprah free photo book offer
22. Jumped up & down when I got an email from Leap Frog with a 30% off your purchase coupon!!!! YEAH!!!
23. Made a really cool gift for Rachel's teacher with an Uppercase Living expression and a ceramic tile
24. Put Mom's Uppercase Living expression (Wise Men Still Seek Him) on a tile for her
25. Helped Wendy put her Uppercase Living expression on a glass frame

Election Day

So what did you do on this Election Day? Well, I must say that I didn't vote today! Of course that's because I voted early a couple of weeks ago!

The girls were out of school today since many of the schools are used as polling places. But the girls didn't have a vacation day because they both had doctor's appointment today. Katelyn had a dermatologist appointment this morning to get a wart frozen off her face - again! We had it frozen off in March and it fell off, but it has grown back. The doctor warned us that it will probably come back again because he doesn't want to be too aggressive since it's on her face. He doesn't want to scar her face. So we'll hope this time will do the trick, but we know that it'll probably come back again.

Rachel had an appointment with the eye doctor this afternoon. When she had her 7 year check-up at the pediatrician's office, the doctor recommended we take her to the eye doctor for a real eye test since she had a few problems with the basic eye test. Rachel did well at the eye doctor. He said that she is slightly near-sighted, but it wasn't bad enough to worry about glasses at this point. He wants to re-check her again before school starts next August. Rachel did have her eyes dilated, so even though it was a gorgeous afternoon and we would've loved to have been outside playing, I knew that the bright sun would probably be too much for her, even with those lovely & stylish sunglasses they gave her at the eye doctor! Instead, we headed over to Mamaw & Papaw's house for a visit. The girls had a blast making things with construction paper & tape. They had us laughing at their creations!!!

Father-Daughter Hike

A friend of ours, Steven, has told Robert before that he knows some really good hiking trails that would be perfect for our girls - not too long and not too strenuous. So when it looked like the weather was going to be beautiful on Sunday afternoon, Robert and Steven decided to take the girls hiking. I had planned on going, but then was subtly told that maybe this could be just a father/daughter thing. So I agreed. We took clothes for everyone to change into after church, and the fathers & daughters were on their way! They had a really good time on a gorgeous day in the mountains! And they made it back in time to get cleaned up and head back to church! Here are some pictures from their hike. By the way, if you looked at the Halloween pictures from a previous post, you might recognize these girls as Rachel the doctor, Natalie aka Cleopatra, Suzanne the cowgirl, and Katelyn the nurse.

Oh, and if you're wondering what I did while they were gone, well I took a 2 hour nap and then cleaned the bathrooms and mopped the kitchen floor.