World's Best Christmas Parade, 2011 edition

Before beginning, I would like to take a moment to mention who WASN'T there.  Mimi- waylaid by one bugger of a inconvenient cold, and she was sorely missed. Aunt Betsy, Uncle Paul, Cade, and Luke- who would have had a cross-global trek to make it to the parade. Understandable to not travel that far for a parade, but they were missed terribly nonetheless. At least we have the memories of the last two years of doing it together!

Who WAS there for this perfect, quintessential small-town celebration? Our family of five, one crazy fun Bop Bop, and the lovely town of Cartersville.  Here is the annual barbeque we attend as guests of Mimi and Bop Bop's. Such a fun, festive atmosphere, and a fun place to run into family friends.

 My ladies and I all bundled up.  I was a little over-prepared after we froze last year, and ended up having a bag full of unused layers and cold-weather accessories. Better to be safe than sorry!

 Looking up the street before the parade passed us by...

 Jake snuggling Blythey...

 Bop Bop and his biggest grandgirl...

 Father, Son, two grandgirls with birds eye view.  If it were a low-flying bird.

Where my aggressive, boisterous, brave Joy who hates big-loud-things-that-move spent most of the parade.

One of the favorite floats was the Polar Express.

 All three when Joy unattached herself from my hip, watching the plethora of amazing displays and dressed up high school bands pass us by.

 Budweiser Clydesdales- these animals are so beautiful and unbelievably HUGE!!!  Ken talked to one of the guys who unloaded them, and he said they have a horse back on their main farm who is too large to transport.  So crazy.

 Little Boo with her Bop Bop.  Notice that even here, the girl has something in each hand.  At least she pared it down to only one object per hand.  Usually Blythe rolls with an armload.

 Abby Jane enjoying the spoils of a parade as the band passed her by.

We LOVE kicking off Christmas festivities with this Cartersville tradition!  Let the celebrating of Jesus begin!

Blessings

There was a major family event the week of Thanksgiving that no one saw coming- my Grandaddy, who, in his 80's now, is a regular with Habitat for Humanity (as in climbs up on the roofs, etc.), hikes with the Boy Scouts, regularly does home renovation, builds beautiful furniture from scratch... had a heart attack in the middle of the night on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.

It's been amazing to see how the Lord provided excellent care for him, beginning with Granny Joan driving like a Nascar driver to get him to the hospital and continuing with his fantastic doctors.

The Lord even woke up one of my college roommates in the middle of the night that night and made her heart beat strangely, which led her to pray for anyone happening to be in the middle of having a heart attack.  When she woke up again in the morning, she prayed for anyone with a blockage in their heart to have it released... my Grandaddy had a 95% blockage that required a stent be placed immediately.

Grandaddy is doing marvelously and having just gotten off the phone with him, I can attest that his wit and humor has not lost one beat in the course of all this.

We can never doubt that the Lord doesn't miss a beat, either, as He is actively involved in every moment of our lives. And every now and then, He may wake us up to let us be a part of that.

And it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas OUTSIDE!

Thanks to Jake and his helpers.  Joy took an extraordinary morning nap and missed the party, but the other girls were on the ball.

 There's nothin like PJs, boots, and Christmas lights to just ring my bell.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas INSIDE

Abby Jane picked her favorite tree, and it happened to be just right.

 Amazed at having a tree inside.

 This is where the hooligans got relegated while Dad put lights on... this was after a bit of chaos.

 Finally they got to start putting on ornaments... or at least a few of them!

In my family growing up, we alternated whose year it was to put the angel on top.  We've carried on that tradition in our family: Abby Jane got to do it for two years, Joy did it last year, so now it was Blythe's turn.

I always love the girls' wonder of that first morning when they wake up to see the fully decorated tree.

This was Abby Jane's first year to have a completely free hand with setting out our "nice" manger scene.

The Fisher Price version gets a LOT of love from everyone, though, and it is one of the best Christmas "decorations" I have ever purchased post-kids.  GREAT for acting out the nativity story. 

Also returning and so neat to do with the kiddos is our Jesse tree (see bottom of this post for the back-of-door version I made last year). Perfect if your space is a bit limited!

Thanksgiving Tree round-up

As we were getting ready for Christmas decorations and taking down all things fall, I took out all the cards that went in our leaves in the course of November. I noticed there were definite patterns that developed.  Almost every day, Joy said she was thankful for Daddy.  Every now and then I got a shout-out.

EVERY DAY, Blythe said she was thankful for mice. "Mice" in Blythe language is "me." So you could say that Blythe really grasped the concept of being happy with just the way God made her.  And is very self-confident.

Abby Jane changed up her answers more, but most frequently, she had a Jesus-related answer: "I'm thankful that Jesus died on the cross for us." "I'm thankful that Jesus came to live with us." There was the occasional "warm house", "pancakes", "that Daddy came home safely from his trip".  But pretty much Joy was on the Daddy boat, Blythe was on the Blythe boat, and Abby Jane placed her bets with Jesus.

It will be fun to see their answers change from year to year!

Giving Thanks

We camped out at Grammy's last week for Thanksgiving, joined by Jodi, Chris and the kids, sorely missing the Elliotts and Gillies, both now overseas.  

Grammy does the craziest things when she gives that turkey a bath. 

On Thanksgiving morning, I ran the Thanksgiving half and had a delightful crew waiting for me at the finish line.

At this point, I was in tunnel vision for the finish line and didn't hear their sweet voices.  But at least Jake got a picture from the neck down.

I have the best husband ever to rally the girls, bundle them, and get them downtown at the perfect time!

Stretching buddies.

Before I leave the topic of the race, I must share one of the most memorable moments.  Around mile six, I smelled something AWFUL and thought I was near a dog park or something since I saw a few dogs with bystanders right there. Nope. A man in his late 50's had just run right in front of me... and shall we say he chose not to stop at a port-a-potty when it would have been a REALLY good idea. And the results were coming through his shorts, going down his legs, and caked on.  I'M NOT KIDDING!  HORRENDOUS. And people, let me remind you that it was mile six of a Thanksgiving race, and it's not like he was winning the Boston marathon and on mile 12.

Moving on. Sweet Joy wanted to stretch just like mama, too.

Mimi and Bop Bop joined us for the late afternoon and Bop Bop wasted no time in holding court in the tree house.

We had some work-up-an appetite-for-Thanksgiving time.  The following series of pictures is a delightful example of like-father-like-son.  I'm glad I married this son of this father.

Jake helped Abby Jane practice on Katie's bike.  This picture may or may not be a foreshadowing of Christmas day... :)

Joy and Bop Bop in Bop Bop's traditional "head-bump"- he greeting and goodbye with the little ones.

Speaking of traditions, every Thanksgiving my entire life has had this guy on the wall, and every year the hands change, depending on who is there to have their hand traced.  If you plan on sitting down for dinner, your hand better be on that wall.

This year's crew.  You can even see Blythey peeking around the corner on the left.

We celebrated three birthdays with this RIDICULOUSLY AMAZING cake, if I do say so myself.

Katie custom ordered this dress from Aunt Em for her eighth birthday. I was extremely honored by her enthusiasm- because of course, at eight, you have a very established sense of fashion.

Uncle Chris is a super-star uncle.

Manly Ian being bold enough to try on a flowery headband.

Aunt Jodi is proudly saying she is my girls' favorite aunt in the whole country... which is true because their other two aunts are on two other continents.

Look at the love Blythe and Joy were soaking up at the park!

The twins weren't the only ones having fun!

We celebrated Christmas early.

Maggie tried on new PJs.

The uncles manning the kids.

I loved these goodbye moments that I got of Chris and the girls.

The gaping hole of missing family was so sad, but we did get in some great skype chats!  Thank goodness for skype. All in all, it was a fantastic Thanksgiving, full of reminders of all we have to be thankful for.