It's always interesting to wait for about a month after Christmas and see what toys the children are continuing to play with.
Andrew's big gifts were the wii guitar hero and an electric guitar. We keep saying how lucky Keith is because Andrew got everything Keith wanted for Christmas :-). They are still playing with both.
Anslee loved some princesses she got in her stocking and plays with them constantly. She plays with her doll house. The dolls that came with the house can't be in there though because Anslee only lets penguins live there. She also LOVES watching the movie Happy Feet she got in her stocking. Gommy and Granddaddy gave her almost life sized stuffed penguins which she plays with all the time.

The biggest loser of all the presents was Anslee's American Girl bitty baby. I was so excited about it but she has held it maybe two times.

We'll have to see in a couple of months what is still being played with...

What an artist!

Andrew entered the PTA Reflections competition. The theme this year was "I can make a difference by..." The students could choose to do artwork, a song, photography or literature. As you can see, Andrew chose to paint. He thought about what he wanted to draw and told me he wanted his boy to look like famous painting of the man and his wife holding the pitchfork.

We were so excited for him when his painting was one of the winners for his school and went on to the next level of competition. It didn't win the next level, but we are so proud of his hard work!

Anslee is THREE!!

And we celebrated for three days :-) Keith brought Anslee to school on Friday and Anslee met the other two adults in our class and met the children. Then we all three ate lunch with Andrew. During lunch Anslee didn't have enough time to eat because she was too busy making the rounds talking to all of Andrew's friends.

Saturday night we had lots of relatives over for dinner. Anslee L O V E S playing with her cousins and was so happy that her "big" cousin Amanda played with her a ton.

Anslee was so excited about her long beautiful princess hair. Her very favorite thing to do right now is to dress up in her princess clothes.

On Sunday we had Anslee's princess tea party.

We used the fine china and had pink everywhere. Andrew served finger sandwiches on a cut glass platter and we had lots of other tea party foods. We played the Disney princess CD and all the little girls wore their princess dresses.

SNOW!!!!!!!!

On Wednesday night we had a lot of snow and we played in it late thinking school would be cancelled the next day. It wasn't! All the children were so dissapointed and of course the snow had melted by the time school was out. When the weather forcasters said we would get snow again on Friday night, we were excited again. On Saturday morning there was no snow. Then about 9am it started snowing and snowed all day!!!

We played in the snow for several hours. Keith and Andrew built this big snowman.Then we walked to a friend's house to play and have dinner where Kayla and Anslee built this cute little snowman.
The big kids loved wrestling, throwing rock hard snowballs, and basically just tried to hurt each other :-)
A big kid using Andrew as a snowplow. It is amazing that if all this is done in the snow, no one cries or gets mad....

Thrashers Game

We love going to the Thrashers games! There is so much action and excitment that it keeps Anslee's attention the entire time. Andrew pays attention because he doesn't want to miss the fights :-)

What we were doing during the time I was so slack about posting :-)

The leaves were so beautiful this fall! I thought since we've had such a horrible drought, the leaves would just turn brown and fall off the trees. It was just the opposite. The leaves were incredible colors and they stayed on the trees much longer than usual. The temperature stayed really warm all fall so the children were playing outside constantly.
We spent Thanksgiving with my family in North Carolina. As usual, we ate entirely too much food. My brother brought up fresh oysters from Apalachicola, Florida. The guys smoked them on the Big Green Egg. They were delicious! If you don't know what a Big Green Egg is, go to the link.The day after Thanksgiving Andrew loves to go to work at the Christmas store with my Dad. This year he was promoted to fudge sample cutter. The employees of the Christmas store are so patient and sweet to him that it really is one of his most favorite things to do.

Keith got front row tickets for my mom, Anslee and myself to see Disney Princesses on Ice. It was even more exciting than I had imagined. When the guy was going to try the glass slipper on Cinderella, he came off the ice and tried it on Anslee! She was stunned but then talked about it for days afterwards. After the show she was able to shake Minnie Mouse's and Ariel's hands. Ariel has been her very favorite princess and that cemented it!



Breakfast with Santa at the Buckhead Diner starts the Christmas season for me. The real Santa comes on a firetruck and talks with each of us at our tables and then the children all get a chance to sit on his lap and read Santa their Christmas wish list. He is amazing!
The weekend before Christmas, my parents, two of my sisters and their families, Keith's mom, his sister and her family all came to our house for a great get together. Andrew and Anslee adore their cousins and love getting to spend time with them.

Happy 2008

Our New Year tradition continues... We started spending it with our friends the year Keith and I were married. Now five children later I think we have only missed two years! The children had their jammies on and were outside watching fireworks.

The day before, we went to the Georgia Aquarium. We had a really fun time!