Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to everyone. Hope everyone had a great and safe day. For Christmas Eve, we had family over and the Bake family. Plenty of kids to fill the roles for the Christmas Story. The kids loved dressing up and playing with friends...and of course a delicious dinner!

Getting ready for the production...Ammon our little lamb!

Dylan was a little lamb too, walking with the shepherds--and Daddy the donkey--such a tame donkey!

Rian the angel

Ethan and Raegan as Mary and Joseph

All of us singing "Picture a Christmas"

Altogether...except Ammon...he was exhausted (skipped his nap)
Tyler, Jarom, Rian, Haley
Ethan, Raegan, Dylan, and Tarin
...Unto us a child is born...unto us a Son is given...

Before going to bed, the kids were able to open up their new PJ's and new ornaments for the 2010 collection on our tree.

A great day to just hang out and play with the kids. Merry Christmas...we love all of you!

A White Christmas!

I don't think we ever got snow here in Georgia on Christmas Day! So I guess this was my first White Christmas (omitting past visits to Utah for Christmas--obvious white Christmas)! Earlier in the day it did snow, but it didn't last and didn't stick...but tonight it did! So even though the kids had all showered and ready for bed, I let them go out and play for a bit. Didn't last long, they were freezing and came in on their own...they still had a blast!

Yep! That's my son in... SHORTS!

This very moment Raegan had an idea to make snow angels...that idea quickly changed!

A sweet angel taking it all in!

Ahh, gotta taste it! Perfect ending to a great Christmas!

Crazy Or Conservative?

With life a little on edge...not knowing the future can do that...we decided to take a luxury and make the most of it. This 2007 Chevy Silverado LT was a paid off and needed to be more then just a beautiful piece of machinary. I know this was Trent's baby, but I'm proud of him for letting go.

We took this truck and traded it in for something more fuel economic, and less expensive with maintenance. And in turn have enough left over to pay the rest off on our minivan. To have two paid off vehicles is how it should be.

Now, although our thoughts were on a sportier car, this was the best bang for our buck! 25,000 miles for a Malibu '07 and two more years of factory warranty...can't beat that in our price range!!!

Nature's Ice Creations

This morning I heard the garbage man come and go...when I left to take Ammon to his play school, I noticed a lot of white garbage off to the side of the road. Of course, I think of the garbage man being careless. Later in the day I noticed more in the treeline in our backyard. I was curious what could have made such a mess so I go to look at it.

Turns out it wasn't garbage at all! Very peculiar ice had formed at the base of dried out plants. I'm still not sure how this happened, because it is only in a few select areas. So moved by this random creation, I decided to put my extreme coldness aside and photograph these beautiful spectacles of nature. Now if only the sun had come out for a few minutes during these pictures to help contour the details on these ice pieces...

The ice was so light and and broke off so easily, I still wasn't convinced it was ice. It seemed like a very thin styrofoam. Finally, I crumbled it and it could smash into a miniature snowball.

Jingle Bell Run

Yesterday we, Rian, Jarom, Trent and I, all ran in the Peachtree Elementary School Jingle Bell Trail 5K race. It was a lot of fun and helped Rian and Jarom complete one of their goals for the year...to participate in a race. Although we didn't get any kind of an award, it was still rewarding to be apart of an exciting group and strive to teach our kids to be healthy.

Thanks to Stan and Laura for let us drop off our younger kiddos for an hour or so. BTW, my hair really isn't cut that uneven...a tuck behind the ear will do that...

It was really fun to have bells on our shoes for the race.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas...

Sunday after Thanksgiving we put up the tree and decorations for FHE. The kids absolutely love doing this. They especially love seeing all of their decorations from past years. It's funny to think how empty our tree was at the beginning of our family days and now nearly 13 yrs later the tree is brimming with homemade/school/primary made and of course Christmas Eve ornaments. Good thing I have 10 willing hands to put them all on!

Ammon is showing off his ornament from last year, a train caboose...it is always making it's way off the tree.

Allen Family

I had the pleasure to take some more family pictures for a friend of mine. You may recognize little Kaia from play school pictures... It was an overcast day, perfect except for the high humidity and all the little curler curls had fallen out. Either way, I am getting more experience and feel I am getting the hang of it. I really do love having opportunities to better myself at this art...no where near great, but better for a beginner.
This was taken in downtown Newnan, by the old train depot. I love the older parts of town.

Tathan

Liam

Steve and Kelli

Mettea

Kaia