Christmas Season 2012

December was full of fun and activity for our family.  There were Christmas parties, school programs, family Christmas celebrations and then the big day itself.  Abigail could truly understand the reason we were celebrating Christmas this year and it was so fun to see her excitement about it all.  Luke just liked all the sweets and wrapping paper. 

We kicked the Christmas season off with our Sunday school class party.  It is a tacky Christmas sweater party, but some of the husbands took it a little too far this year as evidenced below!  I am a little scared to think about how they will top this next year!

 Abigail and Luke loved having our tree decorated and Abigail especially would ask about particular ornaments throughout the season.  Luke was very well behaved around the tree and actually never pulled a single ornament off.

Abigail's preschool choir at sang three songs in an evening service at church.  She sang maybe 1/8 of the words but looked super cute standing up there with her friends.  After the service, she proceeded to give my parents a full concert singing every single word of the songs she had barely sung during the service.

 The K3 students at PPCA got to lead the Christmas chapel service and Abigail did much better singing with her school buds. They were most excited about the class Christmas parties they got to go to straight from chapel.

 The next pictures (apologetically out of order) are from various Christmas celebrations with family.  Our kiddos had a ball opening presents and were spoiled rotten by Santa and all of their family!

Polka Dots & Lollipops - Abigail turns 4!

Abigail got to have a "friend" birthday party this year for her fourth birthday.  She had been anticipating this party for literally 11 1/2 months.  It was seriously last December when she told me she wanted to have a polka dot party for her "4 birthday."  I assumed she would change her preference several times before her birthday rolled around, but she never veered from polka dots.  Easy enough theme to roll with!  In addition to the polka dots, we incorporated Abigail's greatest love...candy!  We held the party on a beautiful (quite windy) afternoon at Winner's Circle Park.  I think it may have been the easiest party ever!  Just serve some cake and let the kids go crazy on the playground.  Abigail loved having all of her friends from school and church to play with and soaked up every second of her party! Here are some pictures of her fun day:

Icing on the Cake in Brandon did a great job with the cake! It was chocolate on the inside of course!

Thank you Pinterest - there were two of these on one table.

Thanks again Pinterest - two of these were on the other table.

She loved wearing her "4" shirt to the party.

Luke enjoyed the playground just as much as the big kids!

Back Tracking - Halloween

The old blog has been pretty neglected in 2012.  Sorry folks. Here are pictures I never posted from Halloween.  We had the cutest little Minnie and Mickey around!

Trick or Treating Coach & Nana's house

Riding the train at Boo at the Zoo

Mickey Luke found a Mickey Pumpkin at the zoo

First Soccer Season in the Books!

Abigail and The Royals completed their first soccer season earlier this month.  I would call the season a success because all the kids seemed to have fun (just not always at the same time), no one got hurt, and they each seemed to improve greatly throughout the season.  And if you saw the first game, you know it could only go up from there!  

Team huddle before the first game

Sizing up the competition

Just realizing someone else is allowed to take the ball from her

By the second half of the season, things seemed to click for most of the kids (all of Coach Chad's stellar coaching I am sure) and they got the hang of going after the ball.  Hopefully sharing the ball with their teammates will come more naturally in season two, ha!  Abigail needs to be first in line for that lesson.

Not sure what is going on here!

As the season wound down, Abigail kicked it (pun intended) into high gear and became a scoring machine (7 goals in the last game).  Her speed and super long legs gave her a leg up (pun intended again) on the other kids as she was able to reach the ball quicker giving her more scoring opportunities.

We are already looking forward to the spring season and are excited about being with our buddies from The Royals again!

Labor Day Fun 2012

Labor Day was especially fun this year because these five guys below traveled to Lake Guntersville to spend the long weekend together ... 

... and they took their families too! 

This crew got together for a LONG overdue visit and spent the weekend catching up, getting to know each other, laughing at each other, eating yummy food, and wrangling eight kids four and under.  It was SO much fun and we are very grateful for the Lancasters who opened their home to the whole crazy group. 

Also, thanks to Nick & Marcie for taking and sharing most of these pictures with us all.

Fun Making New Friends

Fun on the Boat

 Fun Learning to Fish

Fun in the Water

 Fun Little Faces

 Fun Trying to Get All 8 to Smile!