Tuesday, December 29th, 2009. Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and the
day after Christmas were all spent with family. Christmas Eve was spent at
my grandmother's house. It was a big crowd with lots and lots of kids
running around, just as it should be. We ate lunch and exchanged presents
on Christmas Day at my sister
Deana's house. After lunch the family
watched her 2009 family
video montage, played games and opened tons of presents. Saturday started
with the drive to Colonial Heights and ended with dinner and presents at Amy's
brother Alan's house. We also had an epic Nerf battle, a handful of
Madden 10 games and broke in the new scooters out on the street in the dark.
(More photos
here).
Monday, December 28th, 2009. It's always hard to get the Christmas
photos posted because the schedule is just so busy. Today's photos are all
from Christmas morning. Jackson woke at 3AM and discovered that Santa had
already visited the house. He woke Ben, then ran upstairs to wake Amy and
I. Ben ran upstairs a few minutes later, shaking with excitement, rattling
off all the gifts that he saw in the living room. The first thing that
both boys wanted to do was to give the gifts that we got each other. From
there they moved to Santa's presents. They opened presents and
opened presents and played, then went back to bed around 5:30. The only
present remaining when we woke later that morning was the surprise trip to
Disney World that Amy and I gave the boys. It was a fun and memorable
Christmas morning that we should remember for a very long time. (The
entire gallery of Christmas photos can be found
here).
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009. Still plenty of snow, but by Monday
morning, I think we had all of the play out of our system. The boys
haven't ventured out of the house for the past two days. On Sunday, we went to
Claudville so that the boys could sled with their cousins.
Jackson, Izzy and her friend Shanai took turns on the skis. Caleb rode his
snowboard and Ben threw snowballs. My dad even took a few turns going down
the hill on a tube. In the end though, my nephew had a nasty injury when
his sled hit another one that popped up and cut through his upper lip, requiring
a trip to the emergency room. This week has been full of busy holiday
preparations that take up almost every free minute. But with only three
days till Christmas, it is no time to slack off!
Saturday, December 19th, 2009. Eight Inches Of Snow!!! Over
the last two days we have spent countless hours outside sledding, sking,
building snowmen and forts, having snowball fights, making snow angels and
exploring. We've sat by the fire, ate cookies straight from the oven,
grilled, watched Christmas movies and played games. What an amazing
weekend. Many, many more photos here.
Thursday, December 17th, 2009.
The Santa Song (3MBs) - aka "Are you putting that on Facebook?"
From time to time, Amy will sneak up behind the boys and I while we are being goofy to document the scene. She did this on Saturday while Ben played drums on the table/chandelier, I improvised lyrics to a song about Santa and Jackson ignored us by chatting on Facebook with his friends. In spite of the goofiness, I'm posting it for two reasons. One is Ben's tag line when he sees that Amy has the camera on and the other is because, if the forecasts are correct, we might actually get the snow we were singing about.
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009. Jackson was VERY excited to
participate in a 2nd parade this year. And Ben enjoyed diving in front of floats
to pick up candy for the 2nd time this year. Amy and Ben joined many of my
family at the top of Main Street in Stuart Virginia to watch last Sunday's
Christmas Parade. Jackson sandwiched his ride in the parade with a 5K run
in the morning and a game of basketball with his cousins that night.
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009. The big news in our house is that
Jackson has a girlfriend. Yep, he's changed his Facebook status from
single to "in a relationship".
Monday, December 14th, 2009. We are just too busy to keep up with
things here on Life In Mayberry. Here is a quick run down of recent
happenings...
Amy won an award for the Most Outstanding New Member in her Junior Women's Club.
The next morning, in 17F/-8C temps, Amy and Jackson ran in the Rosey Cheeks 5K. Jackson beat
his last 5K time by almost a minute, finishing in 29 minutes and change.
Ben went for his annual checkup, where he learned how much bigger and taller he
is. Afterwards, he saw Santa in Winston-Salem. Santa picked him up,
sat him on his knee and said "Well Ben, I almost didn't recognize you, you've
grown SO much this year!"
Jackson, along with his cousins Caleb and Isabelle , joined his uncle Martin in
the Stuart Christmas parade.
I skipped the parade and went kayaking in Kibler Valley, taking a big jump into
the river while I was there. (Story
here)
We made candy houses twice, once at First Presbyterian Church and once at the
Andy Griffith Playhouse, had a fondu dinner with our friends the Eads, helped
decorate my mom's Christmas tree, and celebrated great mid-term reports.
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009. The Christmas parade was long and
cold, but we had fun. Ben and his buddy Colin were pretty focused on
collecting candy. I sat under a blanket, wearing multiple layers, gloves
and a toboggan, focusing
on staying warm.
Monday,
December 7th, 2009. Things are clicking along this month, with each
weekend packed full of holiday festivities. Jackson's team played their
first basketball game on Saturday, loosing 29-20. That was followed by
Ben's 5 year old friend's
birthday party
at the Lindsley household. Ben enjoyed playing with many of his little
buddies. On Sunday Jackson rode with his football team in the Christmas parade, while Amy,
Ben and I watched along Main Street with our friends the Isaacs and Eads. Loooong parade,
well over two hours. Jackson's float was at the very end. We were very
happy to escape the cold by joining our friends the Bansfields for a delicious dinner at
their house.
Saturday, December 5th, 2009. Amy and Ruby snoozed by
the tree last night while Jackson and I
sat up listening to the Bears football game on the radio. .
Friday, December 4th, 2009. Friday night is
karate night.
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009.
We started decorating our tree on Saturday and finished Sunday morning.
Amy does a great job of writing each ornament's story on its box, which helps us
relive a lot of great memories as we hang all of our special ornaments on the
tree. Being such a tradition oriented family, most of our holiday
activities are ones that we have done many times before. That is why
making an advent wreath last night for the first time was so fun. When we
realized that we were supposed to bring our own greenery, I rushed back to the
house to get the branches I had cut off our
Christmas tree to get it to fit into the stand. Except that they had
already been carried away with the trash. So I climbed to the back of our
tree and decided to cut off a few of the low branches that no one can see.
It was too dark to see what I was doing and I was afraid that I might accidentally cut a strand of lights.
So I sat back
there in the dark thinking "hmmm, if there was just a way to get more light back
here...." Yes, I sat there in the dark, trying to figure out how to get more
light so that I wouldn't cut the strands wrapping around the tree. The
strands of LIGHTS. Hundreds and hundreds of LIGHTS. It finally
occurred to me, minutes later, to turn the Christmas lights on.
Our sweet friend baby Brett spent the day with us today. Only he isn't a baby anymore. He amazed us with all the things that he could say and do. And with all the things that he remembers. I don't think he had forgotten a thing.
