It's hard to believe but it has been 4 years since we had Christmas with DJ. Every year something seems harder or easier to handle than the year before. For example in the past one of the hardest things to deal with was his stocking...do I put it up or not...etc.... This year it was Christmas cards. Do I send them without his name listed with the family...or do I do it...or the option I went with...just don't send any at all...

Anyway the video isn't that good...it is a video of a video...but I wanted to share with everyone. This was his last Christmas...it was 6 days before our accident. I hope you enjoy this video as much as I do...it is short but sweet. I love his expression when he sees that Santa found him at his MeeMaw's house. It is also funny to see how young Kayla was in the video. I have calculated and figured out that Kayla will be officially older than DJ on January 27th.

Here are the kids opening up Santa presents....they were so excited and it was so much fun this year because Madison was really into it...so we had two that were just over excited and just couldn't wait until Santa came!

Kayla excited and opening presents on Christmas morning
Madison showing off some gifts
Daniel opening up his gifts...the last gift he opened was the key to his own car...he is getting his license this week!
Madison showing off another gift
Kayla opening up another present

Of course we had to prepare for Santa's arrival...so we went outside and threw some reindeer food out for Rudolph and the bunch Butterbean had to try out the food for the deer...

Kayla throwing out food in our "Santa Land here" runway
Jerry and the girls getting cookies out for Santa...Jerry had them stop at 3 cookies each...he told them that Santa may not want that many ...=)

The girls decided that this year they wanted to make a Gingerbread house...wow...who knew it could be such a mess! But we gave it a shot. My mom came over to help out with the process... I read the directions and realized that we were suppose to attach everything and then wait a few hours for it to stick...the girls and I decided we were going to skip that part and just jump right into the fun part.



Here they are showing off the final results

Messy, Messy, Messy
But they enjoyed themselves...they asked if they could make another one!! I told them one a year is enough for Mommy!
Our final Gingerbread house!
As Mr. Food would say....OOOhhhh so good!

In North Carolina we see warm weather even on Christmas...if you notice some of the kids are out in shorts!! It was prob. mid to lower 60's that day...but the next day we were in the 70's! Needless to say we have not seen any good snowfall amounts since Madison's birth 12/20/2004. We had a 10 minute flurry last year...which didn't even stick...and the year before that we had a slight dusting which was gone within the hour that it fell... maybe this year we will get something...at least so the kids know what snow looks like!


here is Desoray, Rachel and Kayla outside with some Christmas toys











Madison outside playing with a truck! Yes she is our tomboy!















Trey, Madison, CJ and Casey outside playing















CJ riding his bike outside at Jerry's family Christmas party

We spent Saturday before Christmas at Jerrys sisters (Stacey) house. It was nice to get the family together. The kids had a blast as always when they see their cousins! Here are some pics of that day:

here is Daniel with Madison waiting to open presents...Jerry's mom (June) is also in the picture waiting...=)










here is Kayla opening a present
here is a picture of Jerry, CJ and Madison with presents (CJ was officially adopted this year by Stacey and Mark!)

A picture of Kayla and CJ opening presents...that is the gift we got CJ...a monster you can rip apart, take his insides out and write on him...yuck!














here is Trey, Madison and Jerry opening presents....Madison LOVES the tea set...she plays with this all the time!!

the same day that Madison had her Pageant Kayla had her parents day at gymnastics. Here are some pics of her showing off some moves!

Kayla and another girl in her class waiting onthe line to get started
Kayla on the big balance beam...they did different kinds of moves...backwards, sideways, sitting down and getting up and then of course dismounting
waiting to be put into her group
the picture is sideways but she is flipping over ...tilt your head to the left...=)
learning how to do a handstand It is great to see how much she has learned in the couple of years she has taken gymnastics...and I am so excited because starting the beginning of January Madison gets to join Kayla in a regular class...instead of a mommy and me! Now instead of traveling there, being there and traveling home spending a total of 3 hours on a saturday morning at Roses...now I only have to be there for 1hour!

This is Madison in her Sunday clothes outfit
This is Madison in her school spirit wear. Can you see the orb to the left of her? I think it was DJ! This is the outfit that she really started to show her true colors...waving...having fun...it was him giving her that extra confidence! =) Hey I can hope right?
This is her getting ready to come out in her Snow wear..
this was her formal wear
Madison and Mrs. Rebecca...she is the woman that runs the pageant.

Hello Everyone,

December has been a busy month for us...with Birthdays, Pageant and Christmas we have been nonstop...so of course I have fallen behind on my blog. Here are some pics to try and catch everyone up to date...

This is Madison's Wee Miss Grimesland beauty pageant...which she WON!! She is the official Wee Miss Grimesland!





This was her first outfit...the parade of contestants...they had to walk out and say their name and contestant number.
This is her getting her trophies, crown and sash.
This was her Christmas outfit that she wore
This was her hunting/western wear
another pick of her with her trophies!

this one is a better I GOT ELFED!

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1169905286

Hello everyone....

Tammi's Elfed video cracked me up!!! So I did one of me, Jerry and the kids...watch it for a good laugh:

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1169659073

Here we are sitting down and watching Madison open up her gifts...she loves them all!!
Madison blowing out her candles...the candles were neat....the flames were the colors of the wicks! I did the cake in Spongebob colors....she LOVES spongebob!
took 3 tries to get all the candles out....
Jerry and Madison at the beginning of her present opening.....