Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Seeing mom's blog inspired me to just slap a bunch of photos up with descriptions. Getting the photos ready is the biggest hurdle for me. So I sat down today and downloaded all the photos from my phone, and getting them organized. I also changed my blog format in honor of the new year. I'm always inspired by January and get all excited about cleaning. This year I took photos of the kids in the nursery and made collages for the teachers. Here I am reading a book to Lisa's daughter one Sunday morning.




















Here are some pre-Christmas festivities...We went to the Denton tree-lighting event in early December with friends. Our church does a living nativity every year, so we had to see everyone there. This was the first year it wasn't freezing cold, so it sounded like fun.

I went to Sam's Christmas performance, and watched the kids sing. It was hard to get a photo of him with his class because he was always behind other kids. But I got some good ones afterwards.


I made Aunt Boo Boo's sugared walnuts this year for everyone at the office and friends. I made a total of 50 of these little boxes-they held 1 cup of nuts each. Unfortunately I deleted some of the best photos, but these give you an idea.



The DeHarts came to visit for the week of Christmas. We had a great time, and they left Christmas afternoon. On Christmas Eve we invited three other families over, and had a big feast and a Dollar store white elephant gift exchange. I made pulled pork sandwiches with a huge pork shoulder. Here are the dog's enjoying their Christmas treat: the big bones.


Dan and Jacquie gave Sam an elaborate marble maze thing. It took all Christmas day to build. Thank heavens Dan was here!!

We were given ticket to the Army vs. SMU football game, so we went; It was the first time the kids had been to a live game, which is kind of sad here in Texas. We had a great time, and ate nachos, soda, peanuts and pretzles and cheese. We parked in the neighborhood around SMU, and I loved seeing the beautiful houses. That was worth the drive for me!

On New Year's Eve we went to our church's First Fruits celebration. Everyone was given noise makers, and we had a great time worshiping and celebrating. Robert Heidler gave a very interesting talk about the Jewish month that starts on January 6th. But that ended at 9:00, and what to do next?? For the last few years we've had a big conference over the New Year's holiday, and fit in celebrations with the Petersens when we could. So this year we were at loose ends. However, it worked out that Chuck sent and invitation to all the bowlers to come to the bowling alley where he'd gotten three lanes for the night. It turned out that the bowling alley was sponsering a party, complete with champagne and sparkling cider, and breakfast after midnight. So, that's what we did. The kids and Will bowled, I talked to people, and it was very festive.