Snowman Family Project

Today we worked on Sophie's Snowman Family Project for school. She had to come up with a scene representing all of her family members as snowmen in her favorite season. She also had to incorporate one penny somewhere in the scene (it's stuck in the beach ball) and list each family member's name on the scene. The projects will be on display in her classroom during the school's open house this Thursday.

Summer is Sophie's favorite season, and she loves to spend time at Grammy and Grandpa's pool (I think she also enjoys the fact that she doesn't have to go to school).

I'm in the lounge chair reading a magazine. Jason is standing in the flippers. Chloe is on the slide. Charlotte is floating in the pool. And Sophie is playing in the snow with her shovel and pail.

The Nye Christmas

We spent New Year's Day celebrating Christmas with Jason's family. We started the day off with breakfast, took our annual family photos, then headed to the basement for the Christmas festivities! Jason's dad reads the Christmas story from Luke every year, the grandkids get to open their stockings and gifts, and then we clear them out so there is room for the adults to open gifts. There are a lot of people and each gift is opened individually so everyone gets a chance to see. This is a pretty long process, so we opened for a while, took a break for lunch, opened the rest, and headed home around 7:30 PM after the last gift was opened. It was a wonderful way to end the Christmas season!

(I will preface the pictures buy saying that the family photos are all missing Jennifer's oldest child, Brad, and his wife, Danielle. They did not come until later in the afternoon.)

The grandchildren

Sue and Dick with their grandkids

The whole family

Jason, Susie, Rich, Jennifer
Dick, Christy, and Sue

Dad and Mom

Charlotte and Jenney

Jay and me

The Children's Museum... Again!

We took the girls back to the Children's Museum on Thursday. It was a complete zoo!!! I have never seen it so busy. We will not be going back during the week between Christmas and New Year's Day... or on Spring Break (we now know those are their two busiest times of year). We stayed for three hours, and I could take it no longer! We promised the girls we would take them again in a few weeks when there are less people.

Me and Jason

Chloe and Sophie, our little scientists

Charlotte drawing upstairs in Dinosphere

Waiting in line for the Yuleslide

Sick Days

Monday night Charlotte came down with the stomach flu and continued to feel puny on Tuesday. I don't want to point any fingers at who shared with us, but her initials are Aunt Anna. (I had a teacher who used to say things like that, and I always thought it was funny!) Anyway, she seems to be feeling better now. We're praying that the rest of us avoid it, so we can be healthy for our Nye Christmas celebration on Saturday.

Lost Tooth

Chloe lost a tooth on Christmas: Her first molar! I took a picture of it the day after (somehow I forgot during the hustle and bustle of Christmas Day), and discovered the new tooth was already coming through. See it on the right?


The Tooth Fairy forgot to leave any money under her pillow. I told Chloe that the Tooth Fairy had the night off since it was Christmas (she knows it's me). I got things right the next night.

Christmas Day

The girls were kind enough to let us sleep in until about 8:00AM. That almost never happens, and I'm assuming it was because we were up so late on Christmas Eve. Once we made it downstairs, the girls discovered that Santa had indeed visited our house and stuffed their stocking full of treats. I don't know how it works at your house, but at our house, Santa leaves gifts in the stockings and mom and dad put presents under the tree. Chloe, Sophie and Charlotte lined up on the floor and listened while Papaw read the Christmas story from Luke 2. Jason prayed and thanked God for the gift of His son Jesus on that first Christmas day. The girls were then allowed to open their stockings and after that the gifts from us. Originally, we gave each child three gifts (because Jesus received three gifts from the wise men), but I cheated and did three packages this year. There may have been multiple things packed into one of the boxes, but who can tell for sure? Next came breakfast with the addition of Anna, Audrey, Ruby and Tom... and more gift opening (this time the adults opened some too). Then more guests arrived: Grandpa Hampton and Marilyn, Grandma Harrod, and Aunt Chris and Uncle Stan, and we all sat down to a tasty Christmas dinner. It was impossible not to notice the absence of my Grandpa Harrod. We miss him so much! But as my mom has pointed out many times, this year Grandpa was able to spend Christmas with the real Jesus not just the plastic one in the nativity under the tree. I am so thankful for my family and for the gift of the Savior!

Santa ate all the cookies and drank all the milk.

The stockings were hung with care... and obviously St. Nicholas had been there.

Some of the Christmas presents

Waiting to hear the Christmas story

Papaw reading Luke 2:1-20

Opening the stockings

Digging into the gifts from mommy and daddy

More people and more gifts to open!

Our two littlest family members

Sophie loves these play glasses from Mamaw and Papaw.