Goodbye party

Teri had a get together at her house on Sunday evening as a goodbye party for our family. She bought a neat frame with 8-10 picture spots on it and had all our friends sign in each one. Then she had a picture of the barn down the street that says White House on it placed in the middle.

I don't have it yet and I chose not to read it because I would have cried even more than I already was. Chris was very sweet and already has a place picked out in the new house to hang it for us.
Ladybugs friend C created a picture of him and her together. It is a wonderful memory for her to have.
And Batman's friend A did the same thing. They both went and set up their frames in their rooms as soon as we got home.
Not all the kids made it to the party because of a mandatory Christmas performance practice but here are the ones that did and some of their best friends.
One more picture of J before we left.

It was a very emotional night for me. I was completely worn out by the time I got home. It is going to be hard to find friends that touch your life like these guys have over the last several years. My kids have grown up with their kids and we have all done the baby and preschool years together and watched our kids go to kindergarten and first grade. We have played sports with them, went to church with them, taught them, been baptized with them. We have watched them all learn so much and watched all their personalities form and their relationships grow. This is a very special group of families and kids. I am going to miss them a lot.

A sad goodbye...

Over Thanksgiving weekend we had to say goodbye to one of our dogs.
Chris and I got shadow before we got married. He has been with us for more than 12 years.
We got him at six weeks old and he was just a tiny little German Shepherd that grew to be 120 lbs.
The kids took it as well as expected. We made sure they understood he was not coming home from the vet this time. Ladybug declared that he was running and playing in heaven with all the other dogs!
It truly was the best thing. He has always had joint problems from the time he was little and started growing so fast. Over the years, it has not been a problem but this summer his back legs started bothering him again. They had gotten so bad that his spine was out of alignment and his tail no longer wagged and he could only walk for a few minutes before his legs would give out on him.

Our sweet Shadow playing in heaven with all his new friends.

Its Jimmy Bruce!!! He's Back!

Last year this little elf showed up at our house. The kids named him Jimmy Bruce. When we arrived back from our show on Thanksgiving evening, we found him hanging out on the light fixture in the kitchen and that little rascal unscrewed two of our light bulbs!
Jimmy Bruce can not be touched by the kids. He can not talk to them, but the kids are allowed to talk to them all they want. Jimmy has a direct line to Santa so they can tell him what they want for Christmas and Jimmy Bruce lets Santa know if they are being bad.
Also awaiting was a package from Janma and Grandpa with more elf on the shelf activities to do together.
The next morning we woke to find he had rearranged the N-O-E-L on the mantel and switched the letters around.

The next morning he had the nerve to open all the cabinets in the kitchen and he was sitting on top of the L-I-V-E on the cabinets.

The kids wake up every morning to find out where he is going to go next and what kind of mischief he is going to create.

The subject has already come up about Jimmy Bruce and moving. That was easy. He is a travel bug elf and the kids will never know where he is going to turn up!

Christmas at Bass Pro

Before heading to the Rockettes, we stopped by Bass Pro Shop to check out the new location that reopened after the flood.

It was the perfect time to go. It was not busy at all. There was no line to see Santa and the kids could play all the games without much or any waiting.
My little snow princess.
Yea, the cars had batteries in them this time!
They loved this.
Daddy helped Batman aim.
And a picture with Santa. Batman would not under any circumstances get up on his lap or even stand beside him. Which is strange because he has never had a problem with Santa. Granted the Santa at Bass Pro is a little strange looking. Santa even told him he would give him a candy cane. Nathan simply replied "I don't like those". Which he doesn't.
But the shooting he can do, no problem.


Fish tank looked the same. Actually, there was not much of a difference in the store that I could see. The set up and everything looked pretty much the same.

A few more shots from the Rockettes

Blogger and Firefox crash every time I try to edit photos in a post so I just made another post for ya.

Ladybug and the quartet at the Grand ol Opry. She enjoyed it because she knew the songs they were playing.

A little photoshoot

After our Thanksgiving lunch, we headed to Opryland to see the Rockettes.
See this post about our previous years seeing the Rockettets.
Click here.

This year was the first year that daddy has joined us for our annual outing. Before we left, we set up the tripod to get some very rare family pictures.





The show was once again wonderful. Ladybug was a little disappointed because they changed some of it from last year. They had a scene in Santa's workshop that they replaced with something else this year. Batman did good. He wiggled a little but watched the whole show.

Only on Thanksgiving this year it was too warm for hot chocolate so we opted for a soft pretzel this year.

Angry birds and twinkies!

Yep, I said Angry birds or chickens or what ever the kids decide to call it. Daddy found a free game on his cell phone called Angry birds. (Uncle Mark actually plays it too.) Anyways, there are these pigs who steal the birds eggs and the birds get angry and use a slingshot to propel themselves at the pigs. There are a ton of different levels and each gets harder. The kids loved it. I downloaded it on my phone as well and on car trips this weekend, both kids were in the backseat, each with a phone playing angry birds.

I found an activity sheet for the kids to do while we were getting all the final food ready for Thanksgiving dinner.


And Ladybug and I were Twinkies for Thanksgiving morning.

Getting ready for Thanksgiving

Chris made it home on Wednesday about noon and we were all so happy to see him.

We had a lot to do this weekend though. With only three weeks till the move!


First on the agenda was to fix the broken drawer in the kitchen. He had one big helper for that. By the way this helper didn't leave his side most of the weekend.
Ladybug and shadow.
Now it was time for the pie! It was just us for Thanksgiving this year so we didn't do much. Neither one of use need the sweets, so no pumpkin pie or cookies. But we did make our chocolate chip pecan pie. It is actually Bob's recipe and last year we decided to add in the chocolate chips which, in my opinion, made it the perfect pie.
The kids were great helpers.
They both love to crack the eggs and usually do a really good job with it.



Ladybug and I broke up the bread for the stuffing.

And here is our finished pie.

More special friends and times

Mamaw and Papaw Windham sent a bag of toys for the kids and here is Batman working on his painting.
We had a MOPS playdate at Cornerstone.
Swimming lessons and sliding.
A get together with a friend down the street. She went to his house to play and then his mom brought her home. She loves this little boys and talks about him all the time.
And some more friends we got together with. The boy on the left is in MOPS with Batman and the one in the middle is Ladybug's friend from school. He is home schooled this year so she doesn't get to see him at school but they always have a fun time when they get together!

Sumber party!

Our friend hosted a slumber party for the kids friends and all the mommies at her house last Friday. Everyone had a fantastic time.

All in all 11 kids and 6 mommies! And boy do 11 kids know how to tear up a house and fast! Course we did put it back together before we left and they had a great time doing it.
Rene picked up pizza for everyone for dinner.
The kids found this art thing that everyone loved.
The girls needed some girl time, they went into the bedroom and closed the door. But they had just as much fun trying to keep the boys out as the boys had trying to get in the room. lol.
I put together a slide show of all the kids and many of the things that we have done over the last four years!
Watching the slideshow. I had fun making the slideshow but it took me most of a week to get it together and at the very last minute I added some music. The coolest part was when the song "Mighty to Save" came on and all the kids started singing Savior, He can move the mountains, My God is mighty to save...
Mom's watching.
Scrapbook time. Rene bought a scrapbook and everyone brought papers and stickers to decorate pages and I brought the pictures.
The kids, girls especially had a great time putting pages together.
Momma's helped cut and paste and dialog.


The scrapbook was a wonderful idea. It is sitting on our mantel now. And what amazed me was after we got home the next day, Batman was the one that came to me asking where it was and wanting to look at it. So we had a chance to sit down together and look at it again.


Found this little girl on the top bunk with a few boys.
And this little boy next to his friend eating pizza. By the way it was late when these two finally ate. Like maybe 9pm. Batman was way to busy playing to bother with eating.







Batman made a page too!
PJ's on and looking very sleepy. I was sure he was going to pass out around 10pm but they all surprised me.
See they are glossy eyed and settling down. But they all got their second wind and made it past 11:30pm before we made them all lay down!
Group shot of all our friends.

And of course a goofy shot because it was close to 10pm by this time!
And the momma's photo curtsy of Ladybug our future photographer.
Ok, finally bedtime.
Which means the momma's get to play! Yep Nertz is addicting and we devoured Rene's chips and salsa and played cards till someone hit 250 points which was finally about 2:30am.
The first kids were up before 7am and ready to go. Rene had pancakes and chocolate chips and donuts were brought and fresh sausage.

Nate enjoying his chocolate chip pancakes.

We had a wonderful time and had a wonderful host. Fantastic memories for the kids.

Look at this post as well. My friend got some great pictures that I missed.
Holding on for the ride.