Christmas Day 2010

Christmas morning finally came.  We always wake up to our living room filled with goodies from Santa.  Papaw always joins us a little bit later for breakfast.  This was the first year my mom was not able to watch the kids open up Santa, but we headed downstairs to see her just after breakfast.  My favorite part was when the kids looked at us and said "this is the best christmas ever!"  Funny thing is, I think they say this every year, but that's ok with me.  I love it when they are happy.

And then the best gift of all came...... It started snowing beautifully!!! This was the first snow on Christmas Day in 120 years.  What more could our family ask for..health, happiness, each other and a beautiful snow to enjoy on this day.  Thank you God for continuing to pour your blessings upon us.

Christmas 2010

Christmas Eve finally arrived and the kids were so excited to get presents.  We loaded up to make our annual journey to Dalton to spend some time with the Norris side of the family.  Each year we go to my Aunt Lorine's where we enjoy playing games, eating and opening gifts.  This is something I can remember doing every year on Christmas Eve since I was born.  The only thing that ever really changes is we all get a little older and the tree gets smaller (a joke for my Aunt "rene").  She used to decorate with the biggest tree complete with the train tracks around with a working train.  I have always loved it, but over the years in our hectic world she has put up a smaller tree and we kid her that the tree gets smaller every year.  This year I promised that I would decorate her house next year....Oh my! I may just have to do that. 

You never know what tricks my dad may have up his sleeve and the one this year was right up there.  After a late lunch and exchanging presents, dad summoned my children to the kitchen. If I had only known what he was up to, I probably should have ran. Dad and the kids came out spraying silly string in the air and before we knew it, the entire room had broke out into a silly string fight.  The children loved it and thankfully my aunt did not kill them for messing up her house.  She was laughing right along with them, thank heavens for her being a good sport about it.  I myself would have passed out if someone had sprayed silly string all over our house.  The kids definitely have a funny memory from this to share with their friends and I probably have video to share with Americas funniest home videos.

After our trip to Dalton, we came back home and went to the Christmas Eve service at Church. Due to the different time of the festivities in Dalton this year, we were able to go for the first time.  We saw family earlier so Grandma could get home before dark, after all she is only 93.  Attending Church on Christmas Eve made Christmas so much more special, after all Jesus is the reason for the season.  This will definitely be added to our list of traditions and will be one of the most important ones.  Don and the kids said the best part was singing Silent Night by candlelight.  I must say that was my favorite too.

Christmas Eve is so busy...family, church, baking cookies for Santa and putting out the reindeers food.  After all that we were tired and ready for bed to wait for Santa.  Grayson and Parker had been tracking Santa's Sleigh earlier from Don's IPad.  That's pretty cool, I wish that technology had been around when I was a little girl.

Our Tree

Grayson and Grandma Norris (excuse the blurry picture)



My Aunts living room at the end of the silly string fight



After Christmas Eve Service at Church

Tyler and Kanon clowning around, look at those smiles!

Putting out reindeer food

After putting out the food for the reindeer, to cold to take too many pictures outside

Grayson and Parker's cookie creation for Santa

It's Christmas Time at our House

Ok, so I'm still missing a few posts and I promise to go back and catch up after Christmas, but I have to share pictures from some sweet moments during this Christmas Season.  I also have to share Grayson's latest "Kanonism" as we call them.  These are unique words made up to represent something to them and were coined "Kanonisms" because he first did the same thing and still does. Kanon and Grayson both have a way with their use of cute words.  Grayson's latest was last night when she was about go look at Christmas Lights and she proudly announced to me "not to worry she wouldn't get cold because she had on her LLAMA JOHNS.  She meant her "Long Johns or thermal underwear".  I love it when she and Kanon do this and definitely have to document it so we never forget.  I can't wait to share with their children someday.

We spent Sunday in Monroe with Don's side of the family exchanging presents and eating some great food.  The children also got to spend some quality time with their cousins.  My side of the family in Dalton is not until Christmas Eve, then we will come back home and attend Christmas Eve service for the first time.  We always try to attend, but never seem to make the 10 o'clock service. This year we are seeing family earlier and hope to be able to make the 6 o'clock service.  I really want this to be something we add to our family traditions.

Another sweet moment was today when Parker and his little friend Ally exchanged presents.  He was so excited and had been asking for days when would they get to exchange.  Ally's mom was kind enough to bring her over today for them to spend a few minutes seeing each other.


On our way to Monroe




The Girl Cousins




I was trying to get some brownie points with Lauren




Where are you Don? Me and part of my boys



Parker and Ally exchanging Christmas gifts




She got him a basketball ornament (basketball is his FAVORITE)



It's a Birthday Party!!!

Grayson and Parkers birthdays are in the midst of summer when it is at least 1000 degrees.  Too hot to ride horses, so we saved this party for the fall when the weather was definitely cooler.  I'm so glad we did, the weather for their joint birthday party was perfect and the place was perfect.  Thanks to our very special friends, The Warners, we had the best time ever.  The children rode horses, played tug of war, ate their snacks around a campfire and enjoyed playing with their friends.  Grayson wants a horse so bad and loves when she has the opportunity to ride.  Horses are Grayson's favorite, but Parker was a great big brother to share the same themed party for her sake. I think he enjoyed it just fine.  Thank you to everyone who came and for all of the wonderful gifts.  We are so blessed to have so many great friends.

Always running behind.....

This seems to be my MO lately.  I am always running behind trying to catch up.  Don was reading the paper the other day and said "Hey Christi, here is an article on procrastination...Do you want me to save it? or let me guess you want to read it later?  He thought he was being funny, but it's the absolute truth.  Now I am even behind on updating our family blog.  I'm ashamed that I have let it get so far behind, so here goes my attempt to catch up.  We have had so many wonderful, exciting, fun things happen lately I'm not sure where to really begin.  Forgive me if it all seems a little out of order. After all, the most important thing is to capture our special family moments, right? I want to remember and savor each and every moment of our children's lives, but it seems to be passing by so quickly, I can't even keep up.  My thoughts and prayers lately have been simply, "Lord, let us slow down and truly honor you and enjoy all of these moments you have given us". that seems like such a simple prayer, but it is so much more complex than that.  My kids are growing up at break neck speeds, our days on the calendar are filled and the older our children get the more and more they need us to provide good, solid direction and guidance.  The choices and decisions that our teenagers face are getting harder.  Our children are wonderul and I love each of them dearly and I so hope that I don't screw up raising them. 

Since my last post, we have had...... Music Man, football championship, football banquet, Parkers first basketball game, cross country banquet, Parker and Grayson's birthday party, Thanksgiving, Breakfast with Santa, Georgia Game, Fly-In in South Carolina, Kanon's Birthday, and our anniversary, whew!!! I'm sure I have forgotten a few things, but don't worry I will add them along the way.  Rather than make this the longest post ever, I will probably have to catch up over the next few days. So for today.....

Kanon was in his first ever musical last month.  The first night, he actually not only had to learn his lines, but filled in for another boy who was sick.  I was so proud of him.  Grayson and I went to the first performance night and then Don and I attended the second.  Don and I didn't have much time to go eat before the play so we just grabbed something at Wendy's next door.  He then joked that he took me to dinner and a musical and that should earn him some major brownie points :).

I really enjoyed seeing Kanon do something like this.  After the performance on Friday night, they all went to El Nopal to celebrate.  He has a great group of friends and I know this will be something fun for them to look back and remember someday.

Blessings for now....