Christmas Card

I know it is late, but I finally had a chance to figure out how to export it. It does have annoying lines in it that I can't get rid of. When it crops pictures, it leaves the very right edge of the picture. I have not figured out how to fix that yet. I am still pleased with how it turned out!

Christmas Christmas Christmas!

Last night was the Christmas Pagent. It never really feels like Christmas to me until the pagent. Luckily or new church (did I mention it already? Church of the Resurrection, we love it) has the pagent on Christmas Eve. I always grew up with the pagent on Christmas Eve, I have been to churches that have it the Sunday before, and it never feels right to me. Last night was the pagent. Julianna was one of the Wise People, there was three of them (of course) and they were the narrators. One of the other Wise People was Sara Beth, who is my mom's cousin's daughter. We came to this church because we had heard what a fantastic church it was from my Nana, and we knew that Lorie (Mom's cousin) was a parishoner. It just happened to turn out that Ali, Julianna and Sara Beth just love each other. Alison was a townsperson, she played the bells during "Hark! The herald". Here are some pictures. These are actually from the rehearsal Monday night. You may notice that Ali looks a little pale, she was sick.

From left to right, this is Julianna, Sara Beth and Kaelyn.

Here is Ali and Sara Beth on Christmas Eve. Julie mentioned the other day that in a picture from looking for Christmas trees she thought Ali looked just like my cousin Kristina. I said "Maybe that is who I have been thinking of. I know she looks like someone but I can't figure out who." Looking at this picture, I can totally see it.

And our church on Christmas Eve, doesn't it look fantasticly pretty? The candles in all of the windows were amazing.

I was able to snap these after Santa came but before the girls got up. I heard a noise which woke me up, probably Santa taking off. I know you are insanely jealous of our homemade stockings from Nana. Mine is far left, and of course the oldest. I don't know if poor Nana realized she was starting a tradition, but she made Ali one when she was born, Lily and Mia theirs when then were born, and when we moved out here I asked if she could make Jeff and Julianna one. Julianna loved hers so much she slept with it when she first got it!! Jeff was floored by his. He clearly didn't realize how talented Nana is at not only knitting but also at finding cool stuff (ie Patriots stuff)!

Although I would have liked to take a picture with the tree lit up, I coldn't plug it in with all of those presents underneath!

Now I am going to *TRY* to add a video from the pagent rehearsal. I am not promising anything.

Christmas Show

The girls had their annual elementary school Christmas Show (the first for them) this pasty week.The entire school participates, each grade at a certain level. The younger ones sing along with some of the songs, the older ones sing more songs, and the 4th and 5th graders act and dance also. The pictures are pretty self-explanatory. However, in this first picture, Ali had just walked in, sat down in front of the entire auditorium and decided to fix her hair. For those of you who were around when she was little, she fixed her hair ala "Strawberry Shortcake Shampoo". If you don't know what "Strawberry Shortcake Shampoo" is, ask my step-father Doug.

Ali and her good friend Elijah.

What a fantastic picture of a beaming Julianna. She had just walked in and spotted us.

This is Bayley, one the the girls' bestest friends. Bayley's mom Tabatha is the president of the PTA, but more, she watches the girls after school. Bayley is their special 5th grade friend, and they love her. As a 5th grader, Baylet acted in the show.


This is C.J., Bayley's little brother. He is a kindergartner, so where he was sitting wasn't quite as bright. He is autistic (fortunately very high functioning), and the girls absolutely love helping him out. They are fantastic with him, and he loves them.

Christmas Tree!

On Saturday we headed out to get our Christmas tree. I have not ever had a real one (allergies) so this was all pretty new to me! Here is Jeff leading us in.

The girls looking around.

What's out there?

The girls looking for the perfect one

Wishful thinking...

It's contagious!

Watching them chainsaw the end off.

Ready to go!!!

And for the decorating.....

A whole month!

I can't believe it has been a whole month since I have updated this! I guess time really does fly!! I have so much to post about, so I guess I will start with the most recent and go backwards-ish. First of all, today is Julianna's birthday! She is 9. Since it was voting day there was no school, and Jeff took the day off, so she was home with daddy home as well for her birthday. Here she is eating her cake. She always insists on posing, you can never get a picture of this child actually smiling, just posing.


On Sunday we headed out Boonesboro State park. It is the place where Daniel Boone's family settled. It was really fun. We only had a few hours there, I would love to go spend a day. We never even explored the trails, which was what we originally went to do! Here are the girls exploring in the Kentucky River.




Julianna was happy to have her dad around. I hung back to take some pictures and Ali stayed with me. Jeff, Julianna and Dixie were well ahead of us!


We walked up to one of the locks on the river and hiked up next to it. It was really cool!


Do you recognize these wild women? If not, then you probably haven't read the book "Holes" by Louis Sachar.


It is none other than Kissin' Kate Barlow and the Warden!


Ali had two very very loose teeth. Then last week as we were waiting in her school for out parent teacher conference, she suddenly said "MOM!! Where's my tooth??? I know I didn't swallow it!!" We looked around in a panic, then low and behold, we looked in the top of the drink she had just taken a sip of. There it was sitting on the top of it!



Here she is minus one tooth! It is the bottom on, her top two are ground down from grinding her teeth!


Then just a few days later out came number two. I can't get over how cute she looks with her toothless grin!



A few weeks ago we went to a park nearby to look for leaves. We went straight from school. I think the girls just look so cute in their uniforms!

What a fantastic picture of Jeff! He loves fishing at the park. Here he is sitting on a tree trunk hoping to catch one. The people you can see in the back, the guy caught a HUGE catfish while we were getting ready to leave.

And lastly, here is Dixie, or as Jeff calls her "The Baby". She crawled into the pillowcase and went to sleep.

Dixie and Buddy

I haven't written about the new members of our family, and they have been with for almost a week now. I think it is because I feel guilty. We couldn't take Jet and Simba (or Princess and Delta) because of the move. We tried to do what was best for them, which we did except for Jet. And I feel awful about Jet.

So... Jeff has ALWAYS wanted a Dachshund. Always. We were going to get one when we got here, but decided to wait. We wanted to wait until we had a bigger place, made more money...blah blah blah. Then last weekend I was on Craigslist and under the free section I saw a "Free to a good home" I clicked on it, and it was an add for a Dachshund. It was actually a dachshund and a cat who were raised together. They are both a year old. Dixie is a female, not a full blood dachshund, she is a "Weiner Jack", one of the new mixed breeds. She is 1/2 Dachshund, 1/2 Jack Russell Terrier. Buddy is her counterpart, he is a sweet kitty. Except towards Jeff for some reason. He attacked Jeff one morning. He walked to the kitchen and the cat jumped out and scratched / bit him on the leg. Pretty bad. Ouch. I think it is because the dog had been chasing him and bugging him all morning and he was in fight mode. When Jeff walked by, he didn't realize it was Jeff, thought it was the dog and just jumped. But he is sweet as pie with the girls and me.
Just for a size comparison, here is Dixie next to my tool box.

Our sweet boy Buddy.



Buddy must have had paper in his bed when he was a kitten because he LOVES to sleep on paper.

Jeff hard at work with "the little baby" on his lap

Does this look like a vicious cat? He seems to be saying "Please make her put me down. I am a good kitty. Please."

Dixie and Jeff

Dixie at the park. She has her leash wrapped around the tree about 1000 times.

"Here dinner, I mean here ducky. I nice
doggy!"