Melanie's Program

Melanie had a program this week too.  It was "The Night Before Christmas"

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She was very pretty in her dress!  We were very proud of her.  It was one of her last programs, unless she joins the band or something.  I hope she does, cause I really enjoy watching her sing and dance.  Oh, and I have to say her school missed out by not giving her a biger part cause she could have been the life of the play!  OH WELL! Their loss I guess.

Will's Program

   Will was in the cutest program this past week.  It was called "Forty Winks 'Til Christmas".  He did a little dance.It was all very cute.  I have to say his teachers went all out.  At some of the schools you are lucky if your kids class sings a song, much less have a real play type program.  So we were grateful for the thought they put into it.

That is him in the green shirt kneeling.  Isn't he handsome. 

Ansley's Concert

On December 7th, Ansley had her first band concert.  She was wonderful!  We could not have been prouder.  They only played a few songs but you could recognize all of them.  Trust me that is very good. 

She practices everyday and hopefully will stick with it.                                              

Christmas Tree

                                                   We have a family tradition where we go to a movie and then cut down a tree. We saw "A Christmas Carol" in 3-D. It was very good. If you haven't seen it you should try. Then we went to a new tree farm ,since our old farm closed down. The new farm was in Clark's Hill, SC. It was nice but they cut the tree for you and our kids like to take turns cutting it down. Otherwise it was a nice setup. Anyway this is the tree we picked.

It only took 4 tries to get this picture with all the kids looking at the camera and not touching each other.  A new record for my kids. LOL

Funny

This has been making the rounds- I thought it was too funny, so I wanted to share.

"Good news is that I truly out did myself this year with my Christmas decorations. The bad news is that I had to take my fake man down after 2 days. I had more people come screaming up to my house than ever. Great stories. But two things made me take it down.


First, the cops advised me that it would cause traffic accidents as they almost wrecked when they drove by.

 Second, a 55 year old lady grabbed the 75 pound ladder almost killed herself putting it against my house and didn't realize it was fake until she climbed to the top (she was not happy). By the way, she was only one of many people who attempted to do that. My yard couldn't take it either. I have more than a few tire tracks where people literally drove up into my yard."

Things to do at Christmas

Silly Things To Do At Christmas

1. Stand in front of a supermarket wearing a Santa suit, ringing a bell and wishing everyone a Happy Hanukkah.



2. Wrap yourself in swaddling clothes and lay in the manger of the neighbor's nativity scene.

3. Put on a Santa suit and open a mall kiosk that sells reindeer jerky and Easter Bunny filets.



4. Call Park Rangers in your area and tell them Rudolph is sick.Ask if you can borrow one of their reindeers. If they tell you no, then yell at them telling them they are heartless bastards for ruining Christmas for all the children around the world.

 5. Wear a Santa suit to the nearest red light district and stand on the corner saying "Ho! Ho! Ho!" as women walk by.

 6. Get a job as a mall Santa and then tell all the children that they've been naughty and won't be getting any presents this year.



7. Create snow sculptures in your yard of snowmen in suggestive poses.



8. Buy a package of Keebler's E.L. Fudge Sandwich Cookies and hand them out to children saying this is what happens to the bad elves.

 9. Decorate your yard to look like a sleigh and eight tiny reindeer crashed and burned. Walk back and forth along the street muttering, "Oh, the humanity".



10. Get a job playing Santa at a corporate Christmas party and ask everyone if they'd like to see some naked pictures of Santa with the Boss's wife.

 11. Sell jars of water, advertising them as Frosty the Snowman urns.

12. Get a job as a mall Santa and then tell all the children they'll get what you give 'em and that's that!

 13. Get a job as a mall Santa and then tell all the children you are sick of the milk and cookies crap and you'd prefer a beer and a hot blonde instead.

 14. Sell Grinch-skin rug



15. Stand on a street corner selling dime bags of mistletoe.






16. Post a sign in front yard that says Carolers Welcome. Then when they get almost to the front door turn on the sprinklers.






17. Randomly replace one bulb in your neighbor's lights so they no longer work. Repeat this every day until Christmas.

 18. Decorate your yard for the holidays using you neighbor's decorations.



[Thanks to Randy Benjamin]

I have been so slack

I will catch up on my posts soon.

Christmas Cards

When doing your Christmas cards this year, take one card and send it to:

A Recovering American Soldier
c/o Walter Reed Army Medical Center
6900 Georgia Avenue, NW Washington , D.C.
20307-5001.

Think of how many cards these wonderful folks who have sacrificed so much would get. Our Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen who can't be home with their families will really love this!!

Thanksgiving

A friend sent this to me and I thought it was to cute not to share. I apologize I have no idea who originaly wrote it.


'Twas the Night of Thanksgiving

With apologies to Clement C. Moore, author of


A Visit From St. Nicholas ('Twas the Night Before Christmas)

'Twas the night of Thanksgiving, But I just couldn't sleep.

I tried counting backwards, I tried counting sheep


The leftovers beckoned --- The dark meat and white,


But I fought the temptation with all of my might.

Tossing and turning with anticipation


The thought of a snack became infatuation.


So I raced to the kitchen, Flung open the door,


And gazed at the fridge full of goodies galore.


I gobbled up turkey and buttered potatoes,


Pickles and carrots, beans and tomatoes.
 I felt myself swelling so plump and so round,


Till all of a sudden, I rose off the ground !!

I crashed through the ceiling. Floating into the sky....


With a mouthful of pudding and a handful of pie,


But I managed to yell as I soared past the trees ...

HAPPY EATING TO ALL !!

PASS THE CRANBERRIES PLEASE !!

More Thanksgiving Fun!

Here are some more Thanksgiving Quotes and Jokes. Just so you know my kids loved the ones from before, hope yours do as well.

*Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence. ~Erma Bombeck

*How many cooks does it take to stuff a turkey?

One but you really have to push hard to get her in there.

It has been an unchallengeable American doctrine that cranberry sauce, a pink goo with overtones of sugared tomatoes, is a delectable necessity of the Thanksgiving board and that turkey is uneatable without it. ~Alistair Cooke

Ah! on Thanksgiving day....



When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,


And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before.


What moistens the lips and what brightens the eye?


What calls back the past, like the rich pumpkin pie?


~John Greenleaf Whittier

Happy Birthday Dad

HAPPY BIRTHDAY !!!

to my dad

Thanksgiving

I love Thanksgiving!  Is there a better holiday out there? I mean family, food, fun, and football.  Ok, I could take or leave the football part, but I do love the rest of it.  Think about it no gifts to buy, wonderful food to eat, sitting around catching up with all your relatives and friends, and it is ok if you just sit around after watching tv.  I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving, I know I will.

These are some things I found to get us into the spirit.  I will try to post more all the way up to the big day -enjoy!

Thanksgiving Day is a jewel, to set in the hearts of honest men; but be careful that you do not take the day, and leave out the gratitude. ~E.P. Powell

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. ~John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Some Jokes

*Why did the turkey cross the road?

(It was the chicken's day off)


*What key has legs and can't open doors?

(A Turkey)

 

 

*If April showers bring May flowers, what do May flowers bring?

(Pilgrims!)

Freedom Cookies

http://www.freedomcookies.org/   Today I ran across a lady in one of my groups that has a wonderful organization to send love and cookies to soldiers that otherwise wouldn’t get either. If you can in some way help her out with her cause please do. Even if you can’t help out money wise go by the site and pass it on to your friends.

Mountains

Billy and I went to the Smokey Mountains this past weekend, it was wonderful.  We went to the casino. I lost but I am not much of a gambler so it wasn't very much. Billy won a little so that was good.  But best of all we were together alone! That does not happen very often. I love him so much, and I am glad he is in my life.

Favorite Pie Crust

Best Ever Crust

Sift together
1 1/4 Cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt

cut in  1/3 cup of lard
until mixture is in pea size pieces (I use a fork for this)

Start adding ice water 1 TBSP at a time tossing flour mixture with a fork pushing moisened dough to the side of your bowl until all the dough has been moistened.

This should take 3 -5 TBSP of water.
form dough into a ball and roll out on a floured surface.
Will make a 12 crust.

*Try using this dough for pot pies it is wonderful
* Using lard will make the crust flaky

Art Show

The Washington-Wilkes Arts Foundation put on a wonderful display November 7th & 8th. There were a lot of free craft and art projects provided for the kids as well as some incredible talented artists. If you get the chance to stop by next year, please do, it was terrific. Melanie was one of only a handful of kids that had art displayed during the art show. We are very proud, and of course, I think her picture was the best one there, but then I am biased.

I know it is not a great pic of a great pic but here it is anyway.

This is Melanie in front of the window display where all the student pictures were displayed.

There were some great pictures. I guess we must have a lot of talent here in the tiny town of Washington.

As I said they had many booths set up for the kids to make different crafts. Here is Melanie and Kayla (in the background) making tie-dye t-shirts.

They made hats out of newspaper (with a little help) from some of the volunteers.

They made turkeys out of sandwich cookies, candy corn, and icing.

They got to finish pictures.

They also painted pictures and sun catcher key chains.

They have been bragging about everything they made that day ever since. It was a great day and made me remember one of the reasons I moved here.

Football

Well, the Cowboys (blue) didn't win their first game today against the Falcons. They all played hard and for some of them it was their first time ever on a football field, so I thought they did well.

This is Will's (#10) first play ever, in a real game. He played quarterback and he was great. He threw the ball 3 or 4 times. He ran the ball once, and he recovered a fumble. GREAT JOB WILL!!!

The other team was very good, well coached and had some great plays.

I told Will if he got hit in the game and laid on the field, I would come running out there screaming "MY BABY, MY BABY, WILL! OH MY GOODNESS, HE'S DEAD." He did NOT think this would be a fun idea for him. Can you believe that? He even called it embarrassing. Just hurt my feelings, I tell you what.

This was taken at halftime. Things were already a little rough in the game but he was in a good mood and was a great sport about it all.

Last play of the game! It didn't work the way we had hopped but maybe next time. They play again on Tuesday, lets keep our fingers crossed.

Football

It is football season! OK it is a bit late I know, but Will's team just started practicing last week.

Here he is playing close attention to the coach.
Yeahhhh! He's the quarterback and he is pretty good.

He is practicing how to tackle. He is so small, but he is really trying hard. We are so very proud of him.
His first game is November 7th. I will post picks and how they did.

Fall

Zane used his artistic abilities to draw this for us.

Well, its that time of year again, when the leave fall, the crisp air carries with it the faint smell of a distant fireplace, and there is the slightest twinge of excitement for the magic to follow. I love this time of year. I will be looking for some traditions to carry out with the kids, as well as some new recipes to try out this year. I will post what I come up with here, just in case anyone else needs some inspiration. Please feel free to do the same.

Halloween

So these are this years costumes.

I was a witch.
Zane was the cutest tiger ever.

Billy was not a clown, He just put this on to irritate me. I have a little clown phobia.
Ansley was a China doll.
Kayla was a vampire.

Will was a pirate.

Melanie was a beautiful fairy.
Mattlyn was a mime. Another play on my clown fear.
Zane was so cute! He could not say "trick or treat" but he yelled "thank you" to everyone.

We were very disappointed with the number of houses that gave out candy. There were very few! There was one house that was having a party outside and did not give out candy! How lame is that? We live out in the woods but when we did live in town we did Halloween big time. Well we still decorate big time but we never have trick or treaters. In fact I made the kids go outside and knock on our door so I could give out candy this year.LOL I told them we needed to practice.

Any way all I can say is THANK YOU! to the people that decorate and give out candy and try to make the holiday nice for other people, and a big pile of pumpkin guts to those that couldn't be bothered.

Halloween Party

So last night we had our annual Halloween party. It was a lot of fun. I forgot to take pictures, which is so not like me. We did our haunted hayride, it was fun,but some of the kids were not so scared. Next year we need to come up with something really scary to get them. Any ideas?

Pumpkin

We carved our pumpkin last night. It looks a bit strange, because we let each of the girls carve a piece. Ansley was left eye, Matti was the right, Melanie was the nose and Kayla was the mouth.

Kayla's Riding Lesson

So, Kayla had her 2nd riding lesson today. She is doing so great. She remembered everything she was taught the last time. She and her teacher played follow the leader. I think Kayla could stand to be a touch more firm with her horse, but overall we are very proud of her. Her teacher is the best, she could not be more patient and wonderful when working with Kayla.


I know it doesn't really look like it, but she is having a lot of fun. She is very serious at the lessons though.

I have no idea why she has this look on her face, she makes me laugh.The horse she uses is Luce, he is so sweet. She saved him an apple today from her lunch, so they are becoming fast friends. Best money I ever spent.