Christmas Card Photo Shoot

On Saturday, we had a spare hour or so before sunset to try and take out Christmas card picture.  The boys were surprisingly OK with it and even VOLUNTEERED to take an extra shirt to change in to.  Well, I wanted them to wear earthy tones and they (all) wanted to wear BLUE so I said “bring a blue shirt for the cotton field picture” expecting them to holler about going 2 places and changing clothes. But they surprised me by saying Ok and getting their favorite blue shirts!  So we headed over to our land and took the first set of pictures by the tree we marked where our house will go when we are ready to clear and build.  Of course getting boys into the woods is easy, getting them to stand still without acting crazy is another thing.  They were very good and so we headed to my parents house to change clothes and to drop Dennis off to hunt.  In their yard were some beautiful Fall colored trees so we took some more pictures (round 2).  After they changed into the all important BLUE shirts, we headed to a cotton field for an Alabama White Christmas picture (round 3).  The did really well but I have seen better cotton fields and I did not have the perfect picture so we may have to go onto round 4 (which won’t go over as well I am guessing).  PLUS after Dennis and my dad got onto Google earth and looked at where were were going to build the house, they decided it should be moved 150 feet more to the right.  NOW we may have to start all over :)!

Here are a few pictures from our (first) photo shoot.  They may or may not make the Christmas card.

 

  

 

WHITE CHRISTMAS in Alabama

Thanksgiving and Shopping!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.  It was especially nice to be here without having to drive 14 hours to visit family.  The kids even seemed to get that fact and were very happy to go to family dinners and events.  We had a “semi-secret” Thanksgiving here on Wednesday night.  I wanted my own turkey for leftovers and my own kind of dressing.  We did end up inviting my parents and had a nice meal in the dining room.  Grant and Ryan helped with the cooking and decorating while Preston was at basketball practice and Dennis was at work.  For dessert we had our $117 ice cream cake!   On Thursday we watched the parade and I made a few things to take to Dennis’s parents.  Besides his parents, there was an aunt, uncle, cousin+ son, my parents, Dennis’s brother Kenny, wife Nicki and their 4 kids, Dennis’s youngest brother Brent, his girlfriend and her 2 kids.  We had a nice time with lots of good food.

That night I took my 2 nephews and my boys to see The Blind Side with some other friends.  It was a great movie and a true story!  After the movie the men took the boys home and the girls headed out to start our marathon of shopping.  We started scouting out Wa lmart at 10:30 pm THURSDAY and ended up back at our cars at 1:15pm FRIDAY!!!  We hit all the major stores and a few smaller ones too and had a car so full we had to hold stuff on the way home!  We also stopped for a late lunch/breakfast at Cracker Barrel (where I shopped some more!). 

I was exhausted but on a shopping high! 

I got home just in time for kick off of the IRON BOWL!  The biggest game of the year in Alabama…between my underdog Auburn Tigers and the undefeated University of Alabama.  Many were expecting a blowout and I thought if it was I would just go to sleep BUT anything can happen in this game and Auburn almost pulled it out.  It was a nail bitter and I stayed awake the entire game!  Now once everyone left and I helped clean up a bit, I took a quick shower and was asleep by 6:30 pm….34 hours after I had gotten up Thursday morning!  Haven’t done that in a long time:)

Autumn showed up in an Alabama cheerleading uniform (UGH!) We quickly covered her up with an Auburn shirt.  Here she is with her favorite cousin Preston.

November Fun

November is almost over and BOY has it  flown by…the whole year has!  We celebrated my mom and my niece Autumn’s birthdays this month.  It was so hard to even find a time when we all could get together to celebrate.  My other niece Lauren was in a Christmas beauty pageant.  She did good but did not win or place.  It was fun shopping for dresses with her.

Preston is still playing basketball and has moved up to the JV team so now he will play until February!  Grant and Ryan are still practicing and have not started games yet.  Ryan’s team will be named the Hornets and much to Grant’s dismay, his team name will be Bama.  As Auburn fans it will be hard to cheer on a team named Bama :)  But I told him to think of it as representing the state! 

Last Sunday at church we had a fund raiser for the youth group called Cake Wars.  The men of the church had to bake cakes to be auctioned off.  Ryan was all over that!  I was going to have Dennis and him make a cake together but Dennis was gone alot and Ryan wore me down.  So I showed him how to use the hand mixer and let him go!  He did a great job.  Just needed help getting the cake in and out of the oven.  He then used the left over icing I had from making my mom’s cake to decorate it.  He was very proud and his cake sold for $40!  Dennis quickly made a sour cream pound cake (1st cake ever) and his cake sold for $90.  Dennis worked the crowd a bit more than Ryan did!  Then we got to bid on a great looking ice cream cake.  Ryan REALLY got into the bidding and we now have a $117 ice cream cake! (it is pretty good- we had a taste when we got home).  I guess an ice cream cake can be tax deductable right?

We are now getting ready for Thanksgiving.  I am going to cook a small dinner on Wednesday so that we can have the leftovers and my kind of dressing (bread-not corn bread).  ON Thursday we will all go to Dennis’s parents for a big meal (my parent’s too).  Thursday night I will be in line for the midnight opening of Toys R Us and will hopefully be at Old Navy by 3am!  The BIGGEST football game of the year here will be played at 1:30 on Black Friday (men planned that) so I hope I can stay awake for it.  Then it will be time to get the tree and decorate the house, and take our pictures, and wrap presents, and bake…….. all while basketball goes on!

Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving day.  We have so much to be thankful for this year and I hope you do too.

 

Lauren before the pageant

Autumn is TWO! and talking up a storm.  I like when she says, “Thank you Chelle”

Ryan made a Chocolate Dirt cake with Gummy worms.  I knew he could not mess this one up!  It looked really cool.

Ryan trying to light the candles on my mom’s cake. It wasn’t pretty but tasted great!

WAR EAGLE!! Here is an old picture of the boys in their Auburn jerseys!!  How cute!