New Years Eve

We hosted a impromptu New Years Eve bash this year. We invited all the neighbors and my bestie; Michelle. We had 12 adults and 8 kids and 1 dog over. We had a great time. We started the evening playing Xbox Kinect Dance Central. This was a great ice breaker. It got us all laughing and opened up conversations. The night was warm and the kids were being GREAT!!! We spent most of the evening sitting around a fire while the kids played video games inside. The night ended shortly after midnight. All the kids made it to 12. Even Logan, who did go to bed at 11:00 PM heard the kids getting wild about 5 till and came down just in time to bring in 2011!!!

Christmas Day with Michelle's family

Michelle and her family invited us to spend Christmas with them. We really enjoyed this special day with "family", Michelle's Mom; Jeri, and step father; Brian, prepared a big prime rib dinner and the fixins. The kids enjoyed the company of Tyler and Michelle's family. After all the presents were open and our bellies were full we saw that the snow had started to fall. So we got a fire started and put coats on the kids to play in the snow. It was a wonderful way to end the day.

Christmas Part 2

The kids are now playing so well. An hour with Lego's and now upstairs in their rooms playing together!! Merry Christmas to all!!

Merry Christmas Part One.

The kids have a had a blast this morning. Santa brought them each 3 presents. Both kids think the Pillow Pets are the best gift ever!! They had a ton of presents to open from all the family.

Great Grandma Sandy got Emma Pj's and a Disney Company game fore 1st graders. And Logan received a music CD with his name mixed in the songs and new Pj's.

Great Grandma Barbara got Emma a lap desk and a Jewelry Box. Logan got a lap desk and a Thomas the train set.

Great Grandpa Baker and Great Grandma Baker got Logan a Lego set and 2 pairs of Disney Pajama's. Emma got new footed Pajama's and the new "CUPS" game. And we also got the new Despicable Me as a family gift.

Thank you to all our grandparents!!

Christmas Eve

We had a great Christmas Eve. We enjoyed a nice day at home with a long walk and fun with the neighbors before we got ourselves all dressed up for the candlelight service at church. After church we went to our friends and enjoy watching the kids decorate more cookies and make reindeer food. We then headed home to get ready for Santa. While Matt read A Christmas Story the kids played with the nativity scene. And then we watched our Santa videos from The Portable North Pole. After reading The Night Before Christmas the kids made sure the cookies and milk were placed perfectly and sprinkled their reindeer food for the Reindeer.

My favorite kind of nights.

My favorite holiday season nights are the nights we are able to all cuddle up and watch movies. We have enjoyed quite a few. Tonight, Matt headed out to a hockey game so I let the kids stay up to watch Miracle of 34th street. When I noticed Logan had fallen asleep I decided to let my beautiful little girl to stay up a little later.

My favorite childhood tradition: Christmas cookies

The smile below says it all. And as I sit here with tears in my eyes I am so thankful for family. Even with all the cookies and treats in the house I could not not do cookie cut-outs and sprinkles. So, yesterday Emma and I made our cookie dough and today Matt, Logan, Emma, and I cut out Christmas cookies and decorated them. Emma had a great time!! Logan, had fun eating all the sprinkles that did not land on the cookies:)

Absent here

I am not sure where the time as gone or why I have been so horrible at updating this. I am going to post as many posts as I can to fit on this page and will post more in a couple of days.

I feel so blessed to have such a great family and so many caring friends. We have really enjoyed our time in Georgia. I completed my first term back at school a few weeks ago with 2 B+'s. I will start again January 10th for one more term at Columbus Technical and than transfer to Columbus State University to continue working on my pre-req's for the nursing program.

Logan and I have stayed very busy this last few weeks. He has enjoyed his 2 day a week pre-school but we have decided to with drawl him from this and put him back into hourly care. There are a few reasons for this. One of the biggest is I need a bit more time. I volunteer every Tuesday and Thursday in Emma's class for 2 hours helping the children with reading. I love doing this and do not want to give it up BUT I need a little more quite time to study. So, if I put Logan back into hourly I can keep him there through the lunch hour and get a extra hour 2 days a week to myself.

Emma has enjoyed her busy days. She had a fun successful choir Christmas concert in December. She has enjoyed girl scouts but we are going to per sue Juliette's the rest of the year. This will be a small group of girls on their own working through badges and awards. Emma loves gymnastics but wants to try ballet, we will see how this goes!!

Matt is really enjoying his time as a Instructor for the Army Captains Course. It defiantly keeps him busy but also gets him home by 6 in the evenings. After a few unsuccessful outings Matt nailed himself a Buck a few weeks ago. I am excited to start cooking with Venison.

Well, I am sorry again for my lack of posts. I have always taken pride in keeping our families upto date on our comings and goings. This will definitely be one of my new year's resolutions.

Annual Candy Cane Cookies

This year when I went to make my normal Candy Cane Cookies I had the best helper(s) The kids helped me make the dough, and then the next day Emma helped me make them. The cookies turned out the best they have ever been. and I had a TON of fun with my big little girl.

Matt's first Buck

I am so excited that Matt got his first Buck. Matt has went out quite a few times and saw nothing here in Georgia. When he phoned you could hear the excitement in his voice. Thankfully, the processing place is open late. Matt was able to come home to change and have a bit of stew before he got that thing out of the truck!!!

Seeing Santa 2010

This year we had a extra special treat when we went to see Santa. We planned our evening so we could stop by a place that was offering Free horse drawn carriage rides. It was a quick ride thru the parking lot but that was okay with me:) We also got to see Santa and hear a beautiful Christian band sing Christmas Carols. And then we headed out to do another one of my favorite things; look at Christmas lights. We went to 3 different locations and 2 of them were synced to music on the radio, sooo fun!!! Emma even started to point out different streets she wanted Matt to pull down. (does that sound familiar mom?)

The Elves Empersonator Christmas program

I regret that I did not get a video of Emma singing her Christmas carols. BUT, if you would like to hear her, just leave a comment or email me and I will have her call you. The little girl is still practicing all her carols, she LOVES to sing. Michelle and Tyler came and watched with us. Emma was surprised to see her best boyfriend hand her some flowers and she walked out with her class after the program.

Our trip to the Tree farm

I could hardly wait for our tree farm trip this year. It was sooo fun!!! We went to a place that you had to take a hay ride to the farm. Then we walked the fields looking for the perfect tree. Unfortunately, this Fort Drum girl is not prepared for the HOT Georgia COLD!!! We did not have good jackets or hats and gloves. So we quickly picked out a tree and hoped on the next wagon back to the Truck:)

Daddy Daughter Ball 2010

We were so excited to hear Fort Benning was having a Daddy Daughter Ball this year. I enjoyed taking Emma to find a dress, and finding the perfect purse and hair band to surprise her with. Matt and Emma had a good time that included a buffet dinner, pictures, and lots of dancing. She is already talking about next year.

Our beautiful but not real Christmas Tree

We are very lucky to have 2 Christmas tree's this year. (Well 3) 2 years ago we purchased Emma a 4 foot tree that we put in our TV/play area upstairs. And we also purchased a fake tree for me to use when Matt is not around to do the heavy lifting of a real tree. Since Matt is home this year and we have a huge dining room I requested we set the fake one up with all the extra bulbs we never use. I love having a tree so close to my kitchen. I have really enjoyed the lights.

Emma is a bike rider

Emma is now a bike rider. After a little encouragement she got it. We are so proud of her

Happy Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving we are very Blessed to be back with our Georgia family. It really felt great to be part of a family gathering. We started the night before Thanksgiving seeing Michelle's brother, JR. We all went out to a big Mexican dinner. This family means so much to me and it was so much fun to be included with Michelle and her family. On Thanksgiving we started early with 10 AM Mimosa's and appetizer's before we indulged in a 12noon deep fried turkey and ham lunch. It was another great afternoon that ended with Matt and I enjoying great conversation with JR and his wife. The weekend did not end there, the last of the festivities included a little football celebration that of course, included lots of FOOD:)

While we always miss our West coast families, I feel so lucky to have Michelle in my life. She has always included me with her family. Being away from our family is so hard!!

Emma's bedroom furniture

The furniture shopping began with Emma's room. Emma picked out a full size bed with a trundle and a dresser with a vanity. I love it. When then headed to Target and she picked out the adorable yet bright pink comforter and zebra sheets! She loves her new room and is enjoying all the space of her bed.

The benefit to this is we not have room for company!!

Logan's new bed room furniture

We were able to get Logan new bedroom furniture and were very excited when we found this bunk bed set that had everything we wanted. On one side there is a desk and on the other side is shelves. We have not put a mattress on top yet but will soon enough. Logan really does like his new bed and is very comfortable in it at night.

Thanksgiving Crafts

Today we enjoyed doing a few Thanksgiving crafts. The first craft we did the kids took foam shaped leaves and wrote things they were thankful for and than I glued them to the foam tree. Emma than decorated a corn cob foam shape with buttons and we placed in in the dinner room. Logan made a place mat. If you look closely all the people have pumpkins on their faces. His reasoning for this was all the people wanted to eat pumpkins and then they were hiding:) Emma finished the last craft with stickers of a turkey.