Christmas Fun

The twins checking out our outside decorations:

Alex loves his Eagles' hat.

It is hard to get a picture of these two together; even though Meg's eyes are closed I love this one. Too sweet!!

We met Amy,Paul and the kids at South Park Mall to ride the train and look at the decorations:

The train ride was a hit, especially for Alex, he did not want to stop. Of course he doesn't understand that the ride is not free.

Mama and Papa were lucky to ride on the train with them! Grownups are free!!

After we got them from the train, they rode this cute, petite merry go round.

Weeeeeee!

After the rides we headed for dinner at our favorite china buffet. The kids were not in a eating mood tonight. You just never know about them. They were just too full of energy and wanted to do anything but sit and eat! Oh well, maybe next time.

Ian's First Concert

Ian started middle school this year and joined the band. He is learning to play the drums. There was a concert at his school last week. There are 165 members the band. They were fantastic and very loud!! We really enjoyed it.

The school auditorium was packed.

We had a very good view of Ian. He is in the back row, about midway in the picture.

Emmy, cute as ever.

Grandpa with his musician grandson after the concert.

Grandpa, Ian, and Kari.

Ian, so hard to believe how grown up he is.

Ready to get out of that tie! Good job Ian, we loved it.

It's begining to look a lot like Christmas!

Things around our house have been looking a lot like Christmas since right after Thanksgiving. We had never decorated this early before; but Dave got busy and started putting the lights outside and I got busy inside (with the help of Dave of course).
These are some of my favorite spots in our home:

I love this sign, sorry for the bad shot; "Meet me under the Mistletoe".

This was Dave's position during the college football season. On Thursday nights this is where you could find him and on Saturday's from around 12 noon until 1:00 AM Sunday morning. If I haven't mentioned it, we are headed for the Orange Bowl - Virgina Tech Vs Kansas on January 3, 2008. We will leave New Year's Eve, drive south and stop to visit with some family on the way down and on the way back.
These are some of my favorite things during the Christmas season:

Amy's pictures with Santa Claus that were taken with the Miller and Rhoads Santa in downtown Richmond. I have every year except for one - somehow there was a mess up with the photography one year and a lot of the pictures were lost. I went to the store and looked through hundreds of pictures -I couldn't find Amy's but I did find the Tracie's. Some of the pictures are of Dave's grand kids. The black and white picture at the top is me and Jack sitting on the lap of the Santa at Miller and Rhoads back in the 1950' s.

Dave's stocking.

Amy's stocking that I crossed stitched when she was a little girl.

My stocking that I cross stitched. I plan on making stockings for the twins - and hopefully will have them ready for next Christmas.

Our stockings hung on the mantle.

Our tree - I like white lights and Dave likes color lights. We alternate every year.

This is a little tree in our kitchen that we made for the kids. It's their tree and they can take the ornaments on and off, in hopes that they won't mess with the big tree. I have pictures of all our grandchildren on this tree. I have decided to give a special ornament to the twins every year. For Meighan there was no doubt - angels for her. Alex, well he loves Spider Man, but I am not sure how long his passion for Spider Man will last. He does loves trains, so his collection will be trains!

My kitchen is decorated with my Ginger Bread collection. Although I couldn't find a lot of my favorite pieces.

I love this sign, although I am never quites sure where to put it. But I think it looks nice in my sewing room.

Santa hats I made for the twins. The picture in the background is one Dave gave for me last Christmas - I adore it.

I found this cute little Santa cup at Walmart. I couldn't resist.

December 2, 2007

Matlin and her classmates (from Monacan High School Drama Club) were at a Barnes and Noble today reading and providing lots of fun activities for children. The kids really enjoyed it. Thanks to Matlin and all the others.

Meighan loves to draw and play with stickers.

Everyone enjoyed reading!

Grandpa with Matlin.

That's Samara on Matlin's lap.

Aidan

They have this very nice "Thomas" train set at B & N. The kids spent a lot of time playing with this.

Alex in his Christmas Tree Hat I made for him.

We told the kids they could pick out a book - Alex picked out this Spider Man book, but ended up with a Thomas the Train Book, Meg picked out a set of "mini" books, each one about a different Disney Princess.