Alabama

We are here..arrived around 6 am on Thursday morning....after a loooonnnnggg Wednesday...needless to say we were exhausted after driving through the night. The kids did great on the drive and slept most of the way..except Little Man waking up and blurting out sentences like "in case of emergency I have my spear to throw at them" and "I am letting my brain rest".

My 8th grade LHS group went to serve at the Operation Christmas Child processing center.

This was on a Christmas gift from one of my sweet 9th graders who I have taught for 3 years....I admit I teared up. Her mom always text me if she thinks Avy may need some special encouragement throughout the day!

We also kept getting text updates from my family as my nephew was born at 8:30 on Wednesday night after my sister in law, Micah, went in to be induced on Tuesday night. So far we have seen him through pictures and facetime and we are all in love...he is just perfect and the parents seem to be smitten, as they should be!

From left to right we have Tacky Sweater Day ...So Goober made a J on his shirt for Jesus and used tape to attach some ornaments. Ribbit wanted her hair straightened for PJ day...she looks way too old! and Little Man is always game for a picture!

I finally got all of my Ceramics students pieces in the upstairs Gallery...its only 10 of each students best work...I have some really talented kiddos!

Our Marathon shirts came in! They are perfect....can't wait until Jan 8th!

The day we left, Wednesday I got in a nice quick 8 mile run with Carrie...we are a little nervous about continuing our marathon training while we are apart for 10 days so we are trying to stick to similar workouts. Goober and I also went to a birthday party at ifly, the indoor skydiving place and then on a scavenger hunt around Southlake town square with other 6th graders.....no wonder my feet ached all the way to Alabama.

Little Man won the Daniel award for the month of December...we are so proud of his hard work!

Little did we know what Ribbit was also being awarded the Daniel of the month for her grade as well....We were stoked!

Yesterday we went to the movies....the girls and Little Man went to see Moana and the boys went to see Rogue 1. Moana was fine, but Disney has lost a little bit of my trust as they let in a "son of a " phrase in the movie which is totally inappropriate for a kids movie. The boys seemed to like Rogue 1 but we are all sworn to secrecy since we all want to see both movies.

Ribbit was the "technical slide person" for the first grade play since she didn't want a speaking part.Her teacher let her choose her costume and she very carefully chose a DONKEY...haha, she hee hawed as she turned slides and did a great job!

The cutest class play.

Trying to ring their reindeer noses...even Miss O got in on the fun!

Building their snowman snack!

We also went to Santas Village last night which was great since last year we got rained out. The kids played in the snow, wrote letters to Santa, made a reindeer ornament, decorated cookies, went through an ice maze, took pictures with a Gingerbread Man, a teddy bear and in a sleigh. We also got hot chocolate which we had to have by the end of the night as temperatures kept dropping.

Jack. Goobers friend since Pre1st got to come to the christmas party after being out of school for almost a month due to an unexplained virus.

Playing Minute to Win it games at the 6th grade Christmas party!

We saw an old college friend of mine too. He and I were in the same college ministry and he dated my roommate for a time. It was neat to see his sweet family of 3 and introduce him to my family. Tonight we are heading to Adam's 15th high school reunion and staying in a hotel in downtown Huntsville...should be fun!!!

Making Jingle Bell sticks at the PK4 Christmas Party!

Merry Christmas, He is coming!!