Tuesday, January 22, 2013

MIA Post - December 2012 Part 3

We didn't stay very late at Maw Maw's house for Christmas.  We had to get home and in bed so that Santa would stop and bring us goodies.
I caught Santa as he was setting out all of the toys.


I love this part!!!


Santa wanted us to know that he supports our "Boys" too.

Wake up sleepy heads!

Wow!  What a happy mess.

After we open our gifts on Christmas morning, we load up in the car and head over to my mom's.  All of us eat breakfast together and we open gifts.
My hubby ran across this in October.  It was the perfect gag gift.  We were all crying from laughing so hard.  The best gag gift EVER!!!

Opening gifts from Maw Maw.



New Year's Eve got here quickly.  We did the same thing we do every year.  Made lots of food, had lots to drink, and popped lots of fireworks.  Well, we tried to do the last two, but I don't drink much, and it rained all night.  We popped fireworks during the brief periods that it wasn't raining.



Baby it's cold outside...not really.


She made it to 10:30.

I took no more pictures that evening.  Amy and I played with Ava and Lily while my girls slept.  We did make it to midnight, but barely. The house was cleaned up and we were in bed at 12:45.  We're getting too old to party this hard.

Happy New Year!  Can't wait to see what 2013 has in store for my family. 
It's going to be a spectacular year.

MIA Post - December 2012 Part 2

We ended our very eventful weekend with Katie's very first Nutcracker experience.  We dressed up in our finest clothes and went to the ballet.


I have been waiting for 6 years to bring Katie to see the Nutcracker.  She wasn't too thrilled about it.  I even got her a gift to open in the car on our way to see it.  It was The Nutcracker book.

I bought her a Nutcracker.  We're going to get a new one every year.  I got Kinsley a small Nutcracker snowglobe even thought she didn't get to go with us.

We ended up leaving early.  She was STARVING. 
We stopped by Spoon It on our way home for some yogurt.


That same week we attended the Lighted Christmas Parade.  We rode on our dance studio's float.  We threw candy and people watched.

Daddy and Kinsley came by to wish us much fun.  Isn't he handsome?


That following weekend my little sister graduated from college.  She's the newest teacher in the family.
We had a party for her that evening.  My other sister, Tasha, was in from Oklahoma.

Since she wasn't going to be in for Christmas, she let the girls open their Christmas gifts.


We left the party early to stop by Journey's birthday party.  Her original party date had to be cancelled because they all had the flu.

She looks like a Disney princess with those big eyes and perfect lips.

The week before we got out for Christmas break, Katie started getting sick.  She was running a fever and complaining of her ear hurting.  One day after school, I had a faculty meeting to attend.  Katie was in my room.  The meeting last approximately 45 minutes.  When I returned to my room, I called Katie's name and she didn't answer.  I scanned the room quickly, but didn't see her.  I checked the bathrooms, the gym, and the Pre-K and Kindergarten halls.  No one had seen her.  I walk back to my room with a group of other teachers to see if we had possibly crossed paths and she had headed back.  When I got in there, I looked over at my reading center and there she was...passed out on the bean bag chairs.  Poor baby!  She felt horrible.  She ended up having a really bad ear infection.

The weekend before Christmas we had our Brode Family Christmas at my dad's house.  Tasha and Josh Skyped with us from Oklahoma and we all opened presents together. 

Our family picture.


We've had a baby boom in our family the past couple of years.  We're missing 5...they got there late, and there was no way we were going to attemp this again.  Trying to get the two little ones in the front to stay put was like pulling teeth.  It was actually hilarious.

We needed some Ritalin!


My sweet baby.


My mom's family.


Journey's tongue is always out, so we thought we'd join her.


Me and my love.  Goodness, he's hot!


We lost a special person a couple of days before Christmas.  My Paw Paw Matte passed away.  Maw Maw Matte came to our family Christmas party. My heart was hurting for her.  They had been married for 60 something years.  His funeral had to be held after Christmas.  RIP Pop.  We'll miss you.


Kinsley and MiMaw.


Cousins and BFFs.


Cousins and BFFs.


My little diva.

See Part 3 for more.

MIA Post - December 2012

Woohoo!  December finally made it.  I L-O-V-E December.  I love everything about it.  It finally starts getting a little colder here in December, unfortunately for us, it didn't get cold that much.  One day it would be in the 70s and the next in the 40s. 
My living room looks so cozy!  I love Christmas decor.

Getting the presents wrapped and under the tree.

I've always wanted an Advent calendar.  I finally got one.  Not the colors I would have wanted, but it's the theme I wanted and all of the pieces are magnetic.  The girls would constantly take all of the pieces out.  Gonna have to find a better place for it next year.

No mischief going on here.  Just praising the reason for the season.

Lying in bed watching Christmas movies.

We had a bad thunderstorm roll through bringing some colder weather.  The thunder scared Kinsley half to death.  When I turned the corner, she was hanging on to the wall.  Of course I had to break out the camera.

Michael Jackson turned the milk blue.

Katie doing her homework.

Cousins' Night was the 2nd weekend in December. We had so much planned for them to do. In fact, we had too much planned for them to do. Next year, we plan on doing less. Less is good.
Ava's first Cousins' Night.

Abby's birthday was that week.  We got her a gift.

The kids were playing Just Dance 4 while my mom and I took pictures of eachother.

Of course I had to get it on the action.

The first time in 7 years that my mom and stepdad and my grandparents came.  The men fried fish and anything else that could fit in the fryer.

We went to the Live Nativity at one of the local churches.  Perfect weather for it.



After the show, you can go in and pet all of the animals.  This camel's face cracks me up.

We had a special visitor stop by when we got home from the Nativity.  I think someone should have told Santa that his fluffy things are supposed to be at the top by his knees and not to wear black socks over his boots...it looks corny.  Katie said, "Momma, it's Daddy."  I said, "How do you know that?"  She replied, "Because he's wearing his yellow bracelet."  I then had to kick Santa.  I told Katie that a lot of people wear that bracelet.  Daddy's not the only one.

It was then time to put on our night clothes.  These two remind me of me and Brenna.

I'm going to have to get a bigger couch.  We had to take our Cousins' Night picture before we played any games.

We played Minute-to-Win-It Games.
They had to shake their booties to get the balls out of the Kleenex boxes.  They had one minute.  After the minute was up, the one with the fewest balls was declared the winner.  Breanna was the winner.

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer Game
We put a dab of vaseline on their noses.  They had to swing the pompom to make it land on their nose.  Breanna won again.

This game was a little more difficult for the little ones.  They had to shake the boxes to determine how many bells were inside.  They were then supposed to put them in order from the least amount of bells to the greatest.  Lindsey won!

This was everyone's favorite game.  They had to use only their face to get the cookie from their forehead to their mouth.  It was hilarious.

Of course the momma's had to get involved.  I couldn't stop laughing.

This was funny too.  They had to draw what I told them.  A fireplace, stockings on the fireplace, a tree, a star on top of the tree, etc.  Lindsey won!

Boys will be boys.  He drew 1/2 a mustache on his face with a Sharpie.  Being the naughty aunt that I am, I drew the other half....hehehehe.  Sharpie marks come off by using baby wipes.

We had got to play too.

Cousins' Night lasts well into the night or until everyone starts passing out.  Next year we won't be playing the games.  We always have a dance party on Cousins' Night and we didn't get to do it this year.  I felt like I was running around like a crazy woman trying to get everything ready and/or cleaning up messes.  Next year, I will relax and enjoy watching all of my babies play together.

See Part 2 for the rest of December.