Christmas? No New Year's Ever!

Well it depends on who you ask. For several years now we have celebrated Christmas with Uncle Papa, Aunt Kim, Erika & Grace on New Year's Eve. It such a relaxing and fun time. No one is rushed or worried about what's next. It's kind of a down time and such a special time for all of us. I think everyone has a different reason that they love it so very much! This year we were blessed to have Kevin, Erika's boyfriend join us.

Food is always huge for us. At least for Uncle Papa and I. We love New Year's Eve because we can all choose something from wherever we want. No one place and that's it. Aunt Kim chose pizza, Erika & Kevin Longhorn's, Grace & Marlee Anne Zacby's, Mike Mandarin, Uncle Papa Krystal & Michala & I some of all of it. Mary Elizabeth enjoyed her own concoctions. I cannot believe I did not get a picture of the table with all the food. Amazing!

After eating we opened presents. This is always such a fun time. It always seems to be so many fun and perfect gifts. Mine included lots of fun pampering stuff. I almost forgot. Every year Grace and Marlee Anne get Mike & Unlce Papa with silly string. They surprised them right before we started opening gifts this year.

After presents it's usually game time for Grace, Marlee Anne, Aunt Kim & I while Uncle Papa & Mike take naps. This year they even stayed awake to play pictionary with us. We all had a blast with that one.

Midnight and time for toasts. Marlee Anne's toast went something like this, In the spirit of community thank you for the park for sister and Michala. Most everyday this little girl amazes me. What a way to start the New Year!

Mary Elizabeth usually picks each New Year's Eve to show off and gain a little extra attention. This year her temp dropped real low all of a sudden. Thankfully she had gotten some new blankets to help get her temp up. Just had to share the picture too!

Christmas picture challenge

I have a dear cyber friend, Angie, that's an amazing photographer. She challenged our group to take pictures of our Christmas trees. My pictures are no where near as good as hers but I said I would share them. Thanks for the challenge Angie!

Living room tree

Kitchen tree

Therapy room tree

Marlee Anne's tree

Pizza with Kylie's family

It is so funny how "c" families are recognized. It's usually not by their last names. Usually it's by the name of the child with "c". Well our dear friend's the Harris' are always known to us as Kylie's family. It's one of those friendships that you know why it was started, you know the connection but you can't or I can't put my finger of the time or day. Probably thanks to wonderful Camp Sunshine.

Well 6:00 couldn't get there fast enough. Marlee Anne watched the clock all day. She was so excited for Kylie to get there. Then Noah came to and oh boy it's a boy. She had such a wonderful time with Noah doing "boy" stuff.

Kylie walked in with an plate full of her delicious cookies. I am not even sure they made it a day. We ate delicious pizza and then played Disney DVD Bingo. Really fun!

Well we knew it was time for the decorations to come down after they left. Marlee Anne just couldn't wait to get started. She and Kylie took down all the Christmas cards from the stairs and some decorations off Marlee Anne's tree before Kylie and the rest of her crew had to leave.

After they left Marlee Anne and I finished taking down the decorations from the stairs. Before I knew it we had undecorated three trees. I stayed up and undecorated the last one. I was so tired but it felt great to get all that done.

Pot luck with the Malcom's

We decided that this should be a tradition. A couple of days after Christmas we will all get together and bring leftovers to share. It actually worked out great and we had a wonderful time together. This night was titled "stress free". Love it!

Bailey and Brantleigh even got busy on their scrapbook pages. It was hard for me to stay downstairs and visit and not be upstairs working with them.

Cindi got a new camera for Christmas. When I get pictures from her I will add some to the post.

Shopping!

Day after Christmas what else would we be doing. We stopped by to see Aunt Carol's house all decorated then headed to Conyers. Aunt Debbie, Marlee Anne and I made a full day of it. We were beat by the end of the day. Lots of great deals though, laughs and fun spending time together.

Happy Birthday Jesus!

What a glorious morning! It started around 2:00 AM with Michala beating on her new inflatable Elmo bed that Santa brought. I think it's going to take a while to teach her to sleep in it. Well actually it didn't take as long as we thought. She loves it as a bouncy toy more though.

Mike had told Marlee Anne to listen for Mary Elizabeth laughing because that would mean Santa was here. Santa must have stayed all night because Mary Elizabeth laughed all night long. Marlee Anne slept and slept.

Finally she was up and so excited to see the Leapster that Santa brought her. She was very impressed with Michala's new bed, Mary Elizabeth's umbrella for her wheelchair and her soft new blanket.

Usually we just hang out around the house but Kim's best friend was down from Michigan. Some of ya'll know Melissa who we sent cards and scrapbook pages to whose husband is in Iraq. Well we went over to Aunt Kim's and Uncle Papa's for Christmas lunch. It was such a very special time for us to get to spend time with them on Christmas day. It was a nice relaxing few moments.

Back home for my family to come over. You can never have enough time to prepare for that. Actually it all turned out wonderful and everyone acted good. Even granmama after Uncle Bryant straightened her out.

After everyone leaves Christmas night we usually start taking down the Christmas decorations. This week we have two nights with special families coming over so we decided to leave the decorations up.

Cookies for Santa & Reindeer food!

It's so much fun to see the girls get so excited about Santa. Marlee Anne was so excited to put out milk and cookies for Santa. That of course had to wait until Michala was asleep so that she wouldn't get it. Then of course we had to put out food for the reindeer too.

Christmas Eve

What a day filled with excitement! Christmas is always so hard for me. I miss my daddy around this time more than ever. He was a big kid and made each and everyday of my life happy, exciting and fun. Christmas was no exception. Then it's also hard because that's a time I would love for the girls to be able to get out and go be around people. We are blessed with our "c" family because activities they are involved in we can go to and usually not have to worry about the girls getting sick because everyone is always concerned about the other families. We do miss out through the holidays with our immediate families sometimes.

Well back to the day it was great. It was hard to get the girls to bed, even Mike and I were excited.

PREGNANT!

Here it is 3 days away from Christmas and I am feeling so VERY PREGNANT! Don't get me wrong now that's a good thing. My mom says I am waddling. The lady at Kmart today said oh girl you are carrying that baby so low. If she only knew. Every move I make takes a little more effort everday. I am so excited to get to see this little fellow real soon. I would like it even more if he had a name. Everyone says that will come to us. We shall see. Well I just thought I would share this pregnancy thoughts with you. Here is a picture of "us" at Mike's Christmas party.

TRUST

As I was looking through the past few weeks of pictures that I just now had a chance to download this one popped out at me. This one little picture brings floods of memories to me. The first memory was of me holding my daddy's hand. I can still remember how that feels. For me it was a feeling of trust.

I honestly believe that must be how Michala feels when she reaches out for her daddy's hand. She must have a huge amount of trust that he will always be there for her when she reaches for him. I don't see this often enough but I - we are truly blessed to have such a man in our lives that we can put our trust in him. We know when we reach out to him he will be there.

If you have ever reached your hand out and just let her touch your hand you know how much she feels with her hand. There are of course times when she gets too rough and aggressive and can hurt. Those other times when she touches your hand you can feel so much love and tenderness come from her.

I wanted to do something a little special with this picture instead of just posting the picture by itself. This is the quick layout I came up with. I don't often post my layouts. I am trying to do better with that though.

Well I am off to get caught up on the past few weeks of Christmas fun.

Perfect Pictures

Every now and then you get the "perfect" picture. Well at Mike's office Christmas party I got a picture of Mary Elizabeth and one of Michala that I couldn't resist sharing. I think that the pictures capture the girls personalities so much. They were so very happy that night.

Christmas Vacation

Every year for about 14 years or so we have been getting together with some dear friends of ours and their families. We celebrate Christmas by getting together some time in December. Our traditional menu, which the kids wouldn't even let us change this year, consist of taco salad, hot wings, and some type of dessert. This year we cut out exchanging gifts and just enjoyed the time together. We always watch the Christmas Vacation movie. Each year we laugh and laugh even though we have seen it so many times. We have even thought to change the movie but no go there either. Why mess with a good thing right. Well this year was no exception. It was a good thing. No a great thing. Now that the kids have gotten older and one is even married it's harder to get everyone there. We were missing one and had one leave early. Michala slept through picture time.

Camp Sunshine Christmas party!

We always love seeing our Camp Sunshine friends. I love shopping at the camp store. The girls all get gifts, get to see Santa, eat lots of sweets and get to see their special friends.

One of our Camp Sunshine make it all happen friends whom we love dearly! Doesn't Mary Elizabeth's smile tell it all Sally!

My dear friend Julie, who I could not make this "C" journey without!

Marlee Anne with her friends Evie and Elise (Julie's two girls).

Another we can't do without person - Bubbles!

All of us with Santa & Santa's top notch elf aka #1 nurse!

Mike's work Christmas party!

This is such a special event for me. I love having my friend come as Santa. It’s the only time we get to see each other any more. Kim came and took pictures. We had a great meal. All the kids get presents from Santa. It’s truly a great night of fun.

The Lighthouse Christmas party!

What a party it was. Such a blessing to see all our Lighthouse friends and family. What a wonderful group this is. It’s such a nice peaceful haven to be engulfed by. We love it! Lots of food, fun, laughs, music and the most beautiful Christmas Story play. Thanks Lighthouse!

KJ & Marlee Anne

Kimberly & Marlee Anne

Christmas Story play

Our angel Kylie

Our Lighthouse Family with Santa