Christmas Photos

Audrey is still very afraid of Santa so you won't see any pictures with Santa this year. I did get some pictures this morning before church in her Christmas dress. We had to take pictures with the dog, her doll to get to the good ones. We never got a great one with Audrey and Scott but I'll share anyway. I just wanted to share. A couple are being used for our Christmas pictures this year.

I am almost done shopping but not quite finished yet. Mom and I hit a few stores after church this afternoon (totally unplanned shopping) but we got a lot of great deals for Mom to get really close to being done. Only 9 shopping days left!

Christmas Parade in Soddy Daisy

We went to the Soddy Daisy Christmas Parade today. Audrey enjoyed it. It was very cold but not too bad with all the clothes we had on. Audrey still does not like the loud cars or sirens but otherwise we enjoyed everything. We got a ton of candy. Here's a few pictures for you to enjoy.

Girls Playing and Winter Party

Mom and Dad have been partying all weekend. They had a Christmas party for Mom's school Friday night and Sunday School party Saturday night. Since they couldn't join us of our normal dinner on Friday Jay, Jamie, Scott and I took the girls to the mall for a quick dinner and to let them play on the playground. They had a great time, even Carly! I got some pictures of the girls at the playground.

Then on Saturday night I took Audrey to the winter party for kids at work. Scott was at my brother's house to watch the SEC championship game and he had to go to work. Every year the company I work for holds a Winter Festival/Party that is for the kids. They take Santa pictures for free (but I couldn't even get Audrey in the same room with him much less a pictures) and have other activities. I think it is great that they do that for us! They do it at Easter too. This year our facilities are being renovated so they rented out the a nearby Children's Museum for us. They had a place to do cards for the soldiers, cookie decorating, story-time with Ms. Claus and other activities and pizza- all for free!. The kids could also enjoy the normal activities of the museum. Audrey decorated a cookie, played in the dinosaur sand, play in the music rooms, drew on a place mat that is sent with Meals on Wheels and listened to a story from Ms Claus. Some pictures are below. She was playing the toddler room too and she was the tallest child in there. It is a room for 4 and under and I think some parents thought we shouldn't be there but she's only 3!!!

Hope all your holiday parties are going well too! I hope to get Audrey to the Soddy Daisy Christmas Party tomorrow.

New Neighbors

The house next door to us has been for sale for several months now. In this economy we never expected it to sale. Today Scott saw a home inspection truck parked out front. Later when he returned from errands and was outside getting the mail, the new neighbors came over to introduce themselves. They close in about 2 weeks (Scott thinks) and the best part.... They have a 3-year old daughter named Zoe! We are VERY excited to have a playmate for Audrey right next door. Zoe was with them and she and Audrey took off playing immediately while the adults were introducing themselves. I think they will be very happy together : )

Need a good laugh- Join us for Friday Dinner

If you ever need a good laugh you should seriously consider joining us for dinner. Every Friday, after we have all survived the week, me, scott, audrey, my parents, jay, jamie and their 2 girls all meet for dinner somewhere. The girls are so funny when we get together. They act like they haven't seen each other in weeks or months. Last night at dinner Mimi was holding Carly while the rest of us finished dinner. Audrey climbed up in the booth beside Mimi and was looking at Carly. She then looks at Mimi and says "Why does Jamie have 2 babies?". I died laughing. I don't even know how Mimi answered that question because I was laughing so hard.

Right after Carly was born as we were getting dressed one morning, Audrey said "Mommy- I like Carly". I said me too. She said "I want a Carly". And I thought pressure to have another one was only coming from adults!

She's Funny Even when she's sick

I LOVE fall. Our fall this year has been way too short. I promise we went from summer to winter within 2 weeks. Anyway at least the leaves still change colors and fall off. The above pictures are the view one day last week at sunset (which is way too early now- I'm usually not even home yet) from our back deck and one from the front porch. It was absolutely beautiful.

Audrey is quite the comic even sick. Yes Audrey has been sick with some cold thing. She coughed during the night Sunday night and I knew it was going to be bad. She woke up all whiny and feeling bad Monday. Poor thing. She was like a zombie all day. She had 102 fever at some point during the day. We've been fever free for more than a day now so we are on the downhill run of whatever she has! She's even going back to school tomorrow.

Anyway- Monday when she woke up she asked for tylenol. I told her she needed something more than tylenol and mommy would get her something. I went to the kitchen fixed her some juice and brought the basket of medicine to decide what she needed. I handed her the juice, she took a big drink, stopped for a moment then said "This is not working". I said the Juice? She said Yes! After I stopped laughing I told her that was juice for her to drink I was still getting her medicine out. They are so funny at this age!

On another topic I got my officially piece of paper that I can frame and hang in my office that says I am a CISA. I attended a training session yesterday that gives me 8 hours of CPE. My first 8 hours toward maintaining my CISA certification. In order to keep my certification I have to maintain 120 hours of CPE over a 3-year period or about 40 hours a year. This doesn't sound like a lot but since we aren't given much opportunity at work to go away for training it can be a challenge but there are free seminars online so I think I'll be okay! It is nice to have the piece of paper to look at though!

Halloween

Here are the Halloween pictures as promised. We had a great Halloween. We went to the church for the fall festival 1st. The girls played games and got prizes. Then we went back to Mom and Dad's house where we took the girls to about 10 houses in the neighborhood for candy. Back to Mom and Dad's for some yummy cake!

My older brother was here too and he had clown hair, nose and giant clown shoes he wore. It was funny. Thought I would tell you so you'd know who that was in the pictures!

Audrey was a cheerleader and she was adorable!

Clara was Dorothy and Maison was Snow White.