Early Christmas

We celebrated Christmas at Grandma & Grandpa Jones last night. It was great to see family we don't see often - Ed's brother's family, Aunt Connie/Uncle Dennie and Ed's grandparent's. The boys had a lot of fun playing with their cousins.

Connie surprised Dennie with a puppy. And I think by the end of the night he was named shadow. He had been found dumped with his brother. He was so sweet. . . .

The kids all enjoyed their presents, but by the end of the night they were having a ball with paper airplanes. It REALLY is the simple things they enjoy the most.

3 on 3

Basketball has started! Actually it started a couple weeks ago, but I have stayed home with little britches so he could take a nap. This Saturday we all went to watch Brady play. And I think basketball might officially be the hardest sport to watch as a parent of a kindergartner :)

But he's doing great. I look forward to seeing him grow and hearing what he does and doesn't like about the different sports. This summer I really got the feeling that he loved playing baseball so it was a lot of fun for me to watch. Right now we just want to know he's had the chance to try a lot of different sports.

GABL has a 1/2 hour of practice and then a 1/2 game at the end. The kindergarten league is 3 on 3 and there are 7 kids on Brady's team so there's plenty of subbing and sitting on the bench - but that's okay. Brady needs to learn how to cheer for his teammates too.

Should be a fun winter activity!

Starry Night, Noisy Night

Brady and Brett sang in the church Christmas program - Starry Night, Noisy Night - this year for the first time. They did a great job!

The preschoolers sang "Away in a Manger" and "Happy Birthday to Jesus" before the play. They were very cute!

Brady and his friend Cameron were shepherds. What a pair!

Christmas Party

Thanks to Dedra and a couple blogs featuring ruffle skirts, I had the bright idea of making a ruffle skirt to wear to Ed's holiday party. I even found this plain blue skirt in my closet. Yes, it was from high school, pretty ugly (and a tad snug :)





















I should have taken a closeup, but you get the idea. I took sparkly chiffon and made LOTS of ruffles.

Miss Frenchie's

Brady went to the movies with a friend (for the boy's bday) and Ed took Brett to do some holiday shopping, so I was able to go here by myself Saturday morning. It was fun to go check out some of the places I've only see via blogland!

Tree Farm Field Trip

I went with Brett's school this morning on their tree farm field trip. A tree farm (D&G) in Louisburg donates a tree to each classroom (very nice of them!). It was a lot of fun but pretty chilly.

I was responsible for Brett and these two cute girls - Alexia and Sophia.

After riding in a trailer out to all of the trees, it didn't take long for the kids to find the "perfect" one (thank goodness!) They all liked the ones that were their size (height) and they were all "perfect." Brett's teacher, Ms. Deja, is in the purple mauve coat.

Timber!

And it was small enough for the kids to carry to the trailer - they loved it!

The kids really liked watching them "shake" the trees out when we got them back to the barn.

And then we had hot chocolate and cookies. The kids started doing "cheers!"- it was so cute. The boy in the orange coat (Matthew) has gone to school with both boys and will be moving to California in January. We will miss seeing him!

Fun pillows

Inspired by these -

I really wanted to use pom-pom trim and experiment with adding a button to the middle of pillows. Let me just say, using a button-covering kit is SO FUN and EASY! 2 pillows with different fabric on each side.