Hello there New Year

2012 is here. I haven't felt like blogging yet this year. I dunno why. Actually, I think it is because my head is still spinning from the whirlwind that was December. A good whirlwind but a whirlwind just the same. Also I am reading a really great book series. I loooove it. At Home in Mitford by Jan Karon. I think there are 6 books in that series. I am now on #2.

Here is how December went:


Free pony rides and face painting at the garden center on Old Apex Road (every Saturday in Dec.) Parker chose to stay home and play wii with Dad this time. Meadow and Liam loved it and Liam squealed with delight.










The Nativity was a joy as always. Greg’s parents and two of his aunts drove down for it. They loved it so much last year that they took the idea back to the Hickory Stake and they held their first Nativity there this year. This year at ours, when you walked into the lobby there was a little rustic hand carved empty wooden manger set up off to the right and It looked pretty ancient. Ancient enough to make it easy to imagine the baby Jesus having laid there. It made my eyes water at the thought.






Parker’s favorite nativity was a lego nativity that someone had built from different lego set pieces. I recognized some camels from prince of Persia lego sets and there was even a ninja lego with a sword hanging from a building. Lol. The ninja seemed a little out of place but it was pretty cute! Meadow loved all of the little tiny nativity sets. While we were there a gospel choir sang on the back stage and they knocked my socks off. They were amazing!!! It was a little different hearing that style of loud singing in the gym at first but they were fantastic and the words to the songs were beautiful. We heard from David Creech (who was the coordinator this year) that a Hispanic church also sang and played electric guitars! I hate we missed the electric guitars! It was very neat having so many faiths under one roof all celebrating the birth of Christ. :)









Parker created his own Nativity at home.





He also created a pretty sweet fill in the blank worksheet at school. We love this guy.





We loved watching Meadow perform in her Christmas Program at preschool. She sang her heart out, made sure we were clapping at the appropriate times and had a couple of cute imprompt dance moves to Feliz Navidad. :) We love this Gal.








I got to take sweet Meadow to Disney Princesses on Ice "Dare to Dream" since the boys got to go to Lego Fest. It was amazing and we loved every second of it! (oh, except for paying TWELVE dollars for cotton candy. What?!)











And of course we had to go see the Meadow Lights in Meadow, NC. It was great fun to ride a little train through a field of lights, ride the carousel and buy way too much candy from the general store. Meadow declared on the ride home that she would like to live here.















Parker earned his orange Belt. Woooooooo!!! Way to go Parker! We're proud of you bud. Liam got fed up with this 2+ hour event, but he did learn to say ah-ya!








Visiting the South Point Santa. :)








Christmas Morning fell on a Sunday this year and with 9am church the kids were allowed to look in their stockings before church but we had to wait to open presents until after church. I was really surprised that there was no fuss about this. They were just happy and excited.




Family picture before church. This was the best we could do and not be late.





Let the fun begin!







Parker has wanted a lego set that was advertised on lego.com for the past 2 christmases(the Star wars MTT troop carrier)that retailed for a mere $600. Needless to say he did not get it last year or this year (the store version that is). Since no one could afford to buy this set, at least Lego.com had the decency to post the plans to build this set. Which Greg did during the 2 weeks leading up to christmas when the kids were asleep out of the loose legos that we already owned and that he meticulously sorted. Parker loved it. Way to go Dad!!! :)





For Meadow he painted a giant unicorn and we hung it on her ceiling on Christmas Eve while she was sleeping. She was pretty excited when she woke up. :)