Gingerbread Houses

I've had to work hard to get all of our traditions done before we fly to Utah Tuesday...cards out early, ornaments bought, and the gingerbread houses!!!!!

So, I had them all ready to go, and the kids were excited...for about ten minutes. Then, their friends came over and wanted to go to the fort, so they didn't want to finish at all...ughhh... So, I sat all the friends at the table and had them help!


Carter and Amelia were experts on making patterns on the roof. Evan was the expert on making sure the little people were standing up and making "Christmas lights" right under the roof on Mik's house. Lexie was the expert on checking everything out and Mikayla was the expert on tasting all the candy.

Here are the fabulous results (and then they were off to play!!!)

Gift Dilemma

Okay, I need some advice (from all three of you who read this)... I tried to be on top of things this year as far as teacher gifts. I sent out a letter a month ago asking for everyone to send in $5 or $10 to go toward a Visa gift card. I know as a teacher I thought this was the most thoughtful and useful gift, BUT not ONE person sent money, so I went ahead and picked up Wal Mart gift cards just from my girls. I can justify spending $20 each (to make the card worth it but would have only done $10 if everyone would have participated) for the teachers that are with my girls every day.

However, what do y'all do about all the extra teachers: science, Spanish, art, music, media center, computers, P.E., etc. I realized this morning that this is the last week they will see those teachers so I grabbed candles, ornaments, lotions, etc. off my "gift shelf" and hurried and put them together last night...NOT THE IDEAL. What do you do for all the "extra teachers?" I want to be better prepared in the future... I can't spend more than $5 because all together it is 8-9 different teachers....maybe a cookie mix and a cute Christmas dish towel? Nothing??? Plus two of the teachers are men, and I'm sure they don't want a candle or lotion!!! What do you do?

Marriage

Dave's parents are celebrating their 50th Wedding Anniversary on the 19th. It has made me think a lot about marriage and how people make it that far. Divorce is plaguing the nation, and has especially hit home lately for me because of a few different friends that are struggling with the issue or have already divorced.

We had a long talk with our girls when they started asking questions. Dave explained to them that who they choose to marry will be the most important decision of their lives. I guess it's never too early for this discussion. I look back to 1993 when I met Dave at 19 years old, and it seems crazy that fifteen years later we have had two kids and moved across the country and now in a different state away from everyone and everything we knew growing up. We have had our down times and our bad times, but there is no one on earth I would rather be with.

It's been on my mind a lot lately and after Grey's Anatomy last night (love it), Barbara Walter's 10 Most Fascinating People came on, so I watched for a minute. Will Smith was first and I LOVED his view on marriage. I couldn't find the exact transcript, but it was similar to the one below:

"What I found is divorce just can't be an option," the actor explained. "It's really that simple. The secret to their success? "We're like listen, we're going to be together one way or the other so we might as well try to be happy," he said.

He also said something about how if you go into marriage thinking that divorce is always an option, you will end up divorced. Now, I don't consider Will Smith the expert on marriage, but I totally agree with what he's saying.

So, here's looking to our 50th Wedding Anniversary, 38 years from now. I know there will be more rough times, but I plan on having enough happy times to overshadow those. And, divorce is not an option. I think we can work on a lot of things...loving more, spending more time together, not letting kids be a priority over our relationship, but we're in this forever and I'm excited about the ride.

A Thankful Thanksgiving

Last year Dave and I and the girls ate Thanksgiving dinner with just the four of us. We had fun, but after dinner, it was just a little lonely. We both grew up with big families and had never had a lonely Thanksgiving, so we packed up our desserts and walked over to our friends' house and shared desserts with them and their families in town.

So this year, we decided since we couldn't be with "family" we would be with our "family" in GA. Jen and Eric invited us down and after a six hour drive that should have been 3 1/2 hours, we arrived. I know I miss my friends every day, but I didn't realize how much until they were all standing on the porch when we got there. Seriously, I miss them. We had so much fun. Here are the highlights:

Getting to see Jen, Terah and Miki and all the husbands and kids except Tripp who was in bed for the festivities before the Morris clan left for Alabama.

Preparing the best Thankgiving Dinner I've ever had: Jen's fabulous strawberry salad, Eric's fried turkey, Dave's potatoes, Jen's recipe for the best broccoli cheese casserole ever, gravy from a jar (my contribution), rolls, Jen's homemade Dutch-apple pie and razzleberry pie.

We sat down to Jen's beautifully decorated table and Doug joined in the festivities.

We all named three things we were thankful for:

Amelia: Friends, Family and Toys

Mikayla: Uncle Doug, Aunt Marla and Kaitlyn

Jack: Ho Ho (Santa)

This is why the dinner was so darn good....fried turkey!!! Seriously, I think it's a Southern thing because until I moved here, I had never even heard of it, but it is better than you can imagine. Dave and Amelia made the potatoes...so yummy, except for the fact that we decided Baby Grayson should get to try some of Thanksgiving Dinner and when he ate the potatoes, he gagged and threw them up!

It takes a minute for kids to warm up to us after being gone for so long, but when Jack fell head first into the fireplace and had blood streaming down his face, he wanted Aunt Chaun to hold him and calm him down and I loved EVERY MINUTE of it. From then on, he would walk around and say (with his binky in his mouth) "Aunt Sawn, Aunt Sawn."

And when it came time to clean up, Doug and Jen did all the dishes, Eric and I cleared and did the other stuff and Dave went to sleep on the chair. I went over and said (yelled), "DAVE, IF YOU ARE NOT GOING TO HELP, DON'T SIT HERE AND SLEEP ON THE CHAIR WHILE EVERYONE ELSE CLEANS!!!!" So, he went up to bed and slept. We'll blame it on the tryptophan or whatever it's called.




The next day we shopped till we dropped at the outlet mall that I miss SO MUCH that is only five minutes up the road. It was packed and crazy, but so much fun!!!!

I got to talk to a great friend who is going through a horrible situation and realized how strong and amazing she really is...it was inspiring.

I got to stay in a house that I felt so comfortable in, I stayed in the one pair of pajamas that I brought about 90% of the time and didn't realize it until now.

The downside? Amelia threw up all over the carpet (twice) and on Jack's beautiful down comforter.

The very best thing? I got to experience Thanksgiving the way I did growing up...with people I love.
I love my GA Family!!!!!