Here Goes The Marathon Of Pics ...

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Ok so these pics were all taken on the 4th of December and were taken for our Christmas card so I didn't want to add them here till everyone that was sent a card actually got one :-) But I took so sooooooo many but wanted to add a whole bunch here for the grandparents especially so if there were any more that you wanted to print other than what I sent you, you could use these or ask me to send you the good quality one :-) Here goes ... hope you are seated, there are a bunch of pics.

This one was taken while Jade was still getting ready, Amber wanted a candy, I must have been mad all dressed up and all and adding candy, not a good combination but anyway she had just woken up and was not a happy chappy so the candy helped.



Eventurally Jade joined us and the marathon photo shoot started.







Her hair came so pretty after I washed it this day, some days if I don't put product, yes you head me correctly, if I don't work with her curls she can have dead straight hair but so glad I got it looking pretty for these pics :-)





This is my absolute favorite, so many of these pics the girls have their faces all scrunched up, but this one is totally natural and I love it, best pic of this group by far.







Love these lying down pics too.





Gosh hate this growing out fringe phase :-(



Ok yes I know ... I need a bigger tree, the kids make my tree look even smaller than it really is but yeah we do need a bigger tree in this house anyway, maybe next year. A nice 12 footer would be great.

And the modeling starts, you had to be there, this was all too funny.







Jade doesn't realize that Amber is wearing most of her old Christmas dresses and she feel like Amber is being spoilt with all the dresses and she has none, so I went out and got this what I thought was a more age appropriate Christmas dress for her, she totally loved it :-) hopefully she will still fit into it next year to get some more wear out of it :-)



Ok where'd my tree go ?



OMG it was too funny Amber was trying to copy all Jades 'modeling skills' that she has learnt over the years with moms excessive photo sessions.





You can only imagine how funny this was for Dave and I to watch :-)







My sassy girl growing up so fast !!!





Even thought I got a gazillion pics that afternoon this sweet one below was just taken at the right time and I only have the one ... it was not prompted at all, Jade just turned and kissed her and the moment was over with before I knew it, definitely one of my favorites.



Look how Amber is looking at Jade ... she totally adores her yet they fight like cat and dog you can hardly believe it.



So sweet ... I think they were tired of the pics by this point.



Oh wait ... maybe just one or two more :-)





And the absolute last one of Christmas 2011 is ...



Now that took forever to load so I am done for today, have a couple more to post but maybe another day :-) Hope you enjoyed these.

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One Christmas Eve Pic & One Christmas Morning Pic ...

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Yep can you believe you are only getting two pics ...

After we got back from our Christmas Eve tradition at Joe and Anne's house which is a bring and share evening but really they cater so much too that golly they really could feed the neighborhood even thought it's really just a good couple of families that attend, I think the count was about 75 people I think. They put on a wonderful spread of Honey Baked Ham, Pasta and Meatballs, Turkey and too many sides to mention and of course a dessert table to die for but as I was saying when we got home and the kids were asleep ... Santa got busy !!!

This one was take just after Santa visited our house on Christmas Eve, this is what the girls would see first thing in the morning, Amber was speechless by the way and wasn't sure about it all but once she got opening the gifts she wanted to open everyones :-)



Last year I took so many pics while gifts were being opened that it was no fun for me really and the pics didn't come out great and we all looked terrible so I passed on it this year so sorry this is the only one you are getting of the three of them while opening gifts.



Anyway we all had a great Christmas, were all spoilt rotten !!! At about 10am on Christmas morning we went over to Heather and Jonas which has now become tradition, they host a PJ Christmas Breakfast ... not sure if I covered this all in a previous blog, can't remember what I have covered and what I have not at this point. But yeah they do a huge bacon, sausage, eggs to order with amazing omelette's, pancakes, toast, bagels, English muffins, fruit and gosh so much else, can't say enough how much I love our neighborhood. Even Dave which is totally not a social butterfly I think is enjoying it all now :-) December is social overload for him though LOL but he survived that is all that matters :-)

Anyway another Christmas down, with some luck hopefully my brother might be with us next Christmas, hint hint :-)

I am almost up to date :-)

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Cookie Decorating Party At Our House.

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As most of you know, this is a very sociable neighborhood but I have not found that something that I have been able to do at my house that would be fun for everyone, so this year I decided since tradition at our house is to make cookies for Santa a day or two before Christmas, why not open it up to my neighbors and we can all have fun together so that is just what I did, we had about 35 to 40 people over, of which at least half were kids and I put our some cookies and cupcakes and provided all the yummy stuff to go on top of them and then ... they got at it :-) next year though I need to take pics of what some of the cakes looked like, totally forgot about that.

Here are the tables ready for everyone to arrive.



We did three tables, the smaller ones for the little kids Ambers age.



There was lots of stuff for everyone and lots left over too :-( but rather too much than too little.



The first family arrived and got stuck in ...



Then the rest came in slowly but surely too :-)



Can you tell that Ambers having fun ... I just let her do her own thing so I know she had lots of fun.



But just in case you didn't believe me ... here's the proof.



Anyway I think a fun time was had by all and really the mess was not anything like I thought it would be so definitely going to do this again next year, this will have to be one of my things :-)

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Ambers First Christmas Show ...

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On the Thursday the 15th of December, Amber had her first Christmas Show at her preschool, her preschool is part of a church and the hall we had the show in is where the church services are held, we had never been in there before but Dave was very impressed but the huge screen they have up front, nice quality too and they had a coffee shop :-) Pity they were not selling coffee that night though.





Here are two videos from the show, first Ambers class singing Happy Birthday Jesus and the second is the entire preschool singing Celebrate Jesus Is Born Today. Can you tell that I have a little singer on my hands, too cute.

In this first one can you tell how distracted Amber was with the little girl next to her, so very thankful that she didn't join her in messing around. Remember if you can't see this well in here, copy the link and watch it in youtube itself, that way you can make it full screen too.



My future gospel singer (hehehe) she loved it up there, sorry for the unsteady frame, yeah next time I will do the videoing, sorry Dave.



This was afterwards in the foyer of the church. What fun this evening was, can wait to see what the future holds for my singing girls :-)



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Jades Christmas Show & Birthday !!!

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Another busy week ... On Jades actual birthday, the evening we just went out for supper as a family and ate so much that when we got home even Jade said she would rather eat her birthday cake the next day, can you believe that (hehehe) anyway it worked out well that way.

Her birthday was the Monday, on the Tuesday night the 3rd Graders put on a Christmas Show at St Matthews, Jade was an angel, Dave took pics but man the guy needs some lessons (hehehe) they all came blurry except for this one, thank Heavens we at least got one !!! The show was cute but very short.



We went in two cars since Dave met up with us on route home from work, anyway Jade drove with Dave and I went ahead with Amber, they stopped on the way home to watch a controlled house fire which I would have also loved to stop for but it was cold and Amber still had a snotty nose so we went straight home.

This was Jades cake this year.



Then while Amber and I waited we messed around with the camera.





Last year I took so many pics of Amber in so many different Christmas outfits but this year I feel like December was a constant rush and although she had many I just didn't have time for pics but anyway here is just one of them :-(



Eventually Jade got home, this was here and Amber doing candles, this was taken before Jade managed to catch her hair alight ... yep !!!



A rare Christmas / Birthday or Family Pic.



And zoomed in :-)



I guess that is another birthday down, next year is a big one, not only does she turn 10 but she turns 10 on the 12/12/12 ... should have been 12 right :-) but still pretty cool.

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Cookies With Santa At Our Clubhouse !!!

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Well after the Waxhaw Christmas Parade we were off to have cookies with Santa, yep it was a crazy long weekend full of cheer and Christmas.

Do you remember last year Amber wanted nothing to do with Santa, well I thought it might be the same this year coz after seeing all the characters at Carowinds, she really didn't want to get up and personal with any of them, she was happy to keep her distance. Anyway in the line outside we spoke with her and told her she needs to tell Santa what she wants for Christmas, not that she really understands it all but yeah we didn't hold much hope that she would really go sit on his knee or even get close to him. Then when it was her turn, I was holding her, I put her down and she walked right up to him and hopped on his knee and sat there a good while chatting with him, too funny, guess they will surprise you when you least expect it right ?



Thought this might be our last 'Santa' year with Jade but I think we might have one more at least with how this year went down. Anyway here she is chatting up Santa, her list was long so she took her time.



I need to look for it but I think I have this exact picture from last year, would be fun to compare.



Dave and Amber taking the train ride around the neighborhood.



Jade and one of her best friends Erin taking the train ride too. Erin came with us to McAddenville for Jades birthday too, always a fun trip for us all, only this year it rained so it wasn't quite as nice but still we had fun.



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Waxhaw Christmas Parade.

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After the long day and late night Cheer day the day before, the Sunday on Jades birthday weekend was the Waxhaw Christmas Parade and it was cold, or the wind made it cold but the girls bundled up and climbed up on our big rig and road the parade proudly. Here are just one or two pics I took.

Here they are getting setup on their rig.



Jade with some girls in her squad, on this rig were competition and basketball cheerleaders, you can only tell the difference slighting with their uniforms and their bows, the competition girls a little more sparkly.



Here they come Amber, here they come, here comes Jade ...



The rig pulling our girls.



Amber can you see Jade coming ?



There she is ... who's more excited to see who do you think :-)



Finally a weekend of cheer done only to go to practice again tomorrow, loving this sport but wow it takes a lot of time, cannot imagine when there will be two of them doing sport at the same time, golly don't know how large families do it.

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10th December 2011.

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This was a LONG day for us all. That morning Jade had another cheer competition and because she has another one this coming weekend I am not going to post pics or video of this one and bore you all totally to death but they won, that's all that matter and they won the Grand Masters Trophy too so they walked away with two first places so everyone was happy. Oh and this was their first competition in a big arena and it was really cool and way more professional and organized than the first few.

That night we had Jades squad over for the end of year party, it was a pj movie night so I had 17 kids and their two coaches and two moms here plus Dave and Amber, yeah Dave pretty much was invisable the entire night ... with all those girls around (hehehe) !!! But we had a lot of fun, we did a secret Santa which was cute too, I think we all had fun and as much as it was wild and noisy really there was not too much to clean up, just really had to vacuum and move the furniture back to the right place so even mom was happy. Here are a few pics of all the girls.

Pizza Time. Easy night for me really, I ordered in pizza, one of the moms baked a cake for dessert and we had movie type snacks upstairs :-)



Secret Santa Time. This was such fun for all the girls.





Movie Time. It actually worked out well other than I don't think the movie was great but they seemed to enjoy it. See if you can spot Amber anywhere ? Amber was in Heaven that night, the girls made such a fuss of her and she hung out with them all night till the last girl left which was about 10h40ish.



Wish I had gotten a pic of all the girls with their blankets, coach Barb made all these blankets for all the girls for Christmas, not sure how she had time she does so much !!! The blankets were too cool with their zebra and blue WAA colors. The coaches also got their gift that night, we collected money to buy gift cards to their favorite stores.



Think next year we will make this an annual event although Jade probably will have different team mates, never know who will be in what team next year, wish we could stay in the same team, these girls are awesome.

Oh what I didn't mention was that this was Jades birthday weekend and although we had our little sleepover the week before, she felt like this was another birthday party for her, which was cool :-)

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My New Ride ...

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This is my early Christmas present ... golly I got lucky this year considering I just got a new Washer and Dryer too, wow :-) love them both !!!





This is the new 2012 Honda Odyssey Touring if you want to go Google it you can get a better look. The color here does it no justice, it's a new color and so pretty, there are not many of them on the road. In the shade it looks gray, but in the sun it is a metallic brown, that does not sound pretty I know but it is a bronze like color and is really pretty. Online it is called Metallic Smokey Topaz which is crazy coz it is nowhere near topaz !!!

It came with so many bells and whistles that I have no idea still how to use half of them but I am learning slowly but surely. The worst part is that the car is a bit bigger than my last Odyssey which is not a bad thing when you have people in the car but just try and get it in the garage, that's no joke. The first day when I realized I could not pull it into the garage without folding one of the side mirrors in I just cried, it's not because I can't pull it in, it really won't fit in and I am just so scared getting so close to the garage that I am going to damage either my car or my house or both ... really a sad state of affairs but other than that, I totally love it. Thank you baby !!! You know it's nice when he wants to drive my car instead of his 'baby' his pride and joy, his BMW but I think it's coz my car has way more gadgets (hehehe) !!!

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