December Pictures

My sister, Nadia, at the park with us.

Levi and Noah at the park.
Cousin Katie with Mandi and Olivia

Cousins on Christmas Eve at our house.

Christmas at My Church

Olivia was hiding from the camera, so I turned around and Bonnie took a picture.
One of our black light song presentations.
Mandi with her rope light on, so she can be a dancing stickman. 
Getting Olivia's food from the buffet line.  A rare photo of me with one of my kids.  Usually I am behind the camera.  Thanks Bonnie!
Playing with the Florida snow, torn up paper, after the show.   They had so much fun, we might just have to tear up some paper at our next party.  Olivia even got down on the floor and made a snow angel.

Almost Christmas

A greeting from Olivia.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret, by Brian Selznick

We finished reading The Invention of Hugo Cabret and I do recommend it as a family read aloud.

It is about an orphan boy who lives in the walls of a Paris train station. He is trying to solve the mystery of a mechanical man that belonged to his dad.

The book was a new reading experience, combining elements of picture book, graphic novel and film.  The 284 pages of drawings help tell the story.  I felt like I was watching a silent film as I looked at the pictures, which I read that the author was trying to create that effect.

At the end of the book, there is a website to find out more about a mechanical man like the one in the book.  If you read the book, you do not want to miss this. It included a video of the mechanical man in action.

I googled the name of the book to find two great websites with lots of info and fun.

www.theinventionofhugocabret.com

www.scholastic.com/hugocabret/index.htm

The scholastic website has about 20 short videos by the author expounding on how he wrote the book, came up with ideas.  We watched them and recommend them if you read the book.  

Finally together!!

Olivia waited so long for this day to come.  She finally was playing with her best friend and cousin Emily.  She asked almost everyday for months,  "How long til Thanksgiving."  

Because that was when her cousin was coming to visit from Georgia.

November Pictures

My adorable nephew, Micah, who lives with us right now with his mom.
My sisters, Nickie and Becky, and Becky's 2 boys, Micah and Malachi.
My kids made the cake for Micah and Malachi.  We gave them a container of white frosting and they came up with a baseball design on their own.
The kids decided to be secret agents, dressed in black, so they could hide and spy on people.  I liked this game because they were so quiet.

My first Thanksgiving dinner at my house

I feel so grown up. 

 I cooked my first full Thanksgiving dinner, my first turkey, in fact.  We usually go to two or three houses and have a potluck style Thanksgiving.  But this year it turned out that we needed to have a dinner at my house.  My parents were here from Georgia and my two sisters wanted to spend some time with them and none of them would be able to cook anything, so I did it.  

I followed Flylady's plan for Thanksgiving dinner.  I followed it almost to a tee.  The only thing I did not do was make the roasted sweet potatoes. The plan started 2 weeks before Thanksgiving and included your grocery list.  Most of the work was done before the big day, so it really was a peaceful day.  I planned all the serving dishes 4 days before, started cooking three days before, and set the table the night before.  I loved having a timeline to follow.  She even told me when to put the butter on the table. 

When we sat down to eat, the food on the plate looked so pretty and traditional.  I couldn't believe that I was able to put that together we such little stress.  It was all very tasty, too.

And Dick bought a coffee maker at a thrift shop, so my parents could have coffee.  We don't drink coffee, (except Levi and Mandi try to.)  So now we have a coffee maker on our kitchen counter for the first time in our married life ( 18 yrs)  

I feel so grown up.