2015 Comes to an End

We rounded out December by baking cookies for Christmas.  

Not pictured are the ever-lovely spritz cookies!

Brian and Alyssa celebrated their 41st and 15th birthdays.

They went to lunch together at our favorite Greek and Lebanese restaurant, Albasha!  

A couple of days later I took Brian to Texas de Brazil.

Where we were interrupted by a phone call letting us know that Peter was locked in the bathroom.  A similar thing had happened to a different door several months ago.  James removed the handle but it still wouldn't open.  So he got to kick in the door and rescue Peter.  

All was well. 

And I replaced the handle - although Matthew thought it was cooler without . . . 

It is pretty cool!

Grace got herself a blanket just for her.  

And then we celebrated Christmas.

With Games

And walks around the block together.

And Christmas Eve Dinner.  

In the morning we had presents!

And so much fun that we spilled out into the hallway after bedtime.

It's been a great year - can't wait for 2016! 

The Latest

We had our annual Thanksgiving Day Sequence Tournament again this year and Alyssa was the winner!  

Congratulations Alyssa!

Gracie got to try our cheese ball for the first time.  I think she liked it.

James went shopping for some new duds for church/school/work.

Faith and I helped him pick out some things. 

He ultimately chose the above combinations.  And added a pair of grey dress pants as well. 

After Thanksgiving Brian took the boys to Lowe's to get the Christmas tree.  We set it up and decorated it that night. 

By the next night Grace had taken off a majority of the decorations to play with on the floor.  

Brian and I had a lunch meeting at Zoe's Kitchen over by his work.  We met and had lunch.  It's always awesome to have a lunch meeting!

 

The shopping has begun - and Gracie is a big girl who likes to pick out fuzzy sweaters and hug the Target dog.

The six (!!) big kids had a Christmas party to go to at church so we took the two littles out for dinner at Chick Fil A. 

Where Matthew is always surprised that he can't have a burger. 

Gracie likes the french fries. 

And Brian got me a peppermint shake - YUM!

The stockings were hung in the kitchen with care and we headed off to another Christmas party

Where this was the scene before the play even started. 

So the two of us ended up out in the lobby so as to not disturb all the other people there with our cuteness. 

After awhile I tag-teamed with Jon and headed back inside for the singing portion of the program. 

Where Peter was sleeping on Brian

And James was falling asleep - not really.

Then I took these goofballs out shopping for more Christmas presents. 

And you get to see TWO pictures of Faith this post!  Yay!!  

Stay tuned for more mayhem as we get closer to Christmas!!  

November

I'm not even going to tell you that we've been busy - because you already know that!  If you've been paying attention on FB or the public blog you've seen we've been up to a lot of things including cooking and shopping with the kids, Matthew's tonsillectomy and now Thanksgiving is upon us already.

Here's what we've been up to:

In an effort to recover the "lost" contact lenses that Brian ordered way back in June, we headed out to the eye doctor and then stopped off at Taco Bell for dinner.

She doesn't like to wait for her tacos. 

But she did do a little dancing while she ate. 

The day before Thanksgiving is prep day.  We bake pies, put the stuffing and potatoes together and prep the turkey.  

Grace's first pumpkin pie making session.  Start 'em young I always say (not really!)

Matthew is pretty much an expert by now :)

After our prep was done, Gracie hung out on the couch with Daddy.

I went to bed but forgot to put the turkey in the roaster.  Thankfully I remembered and got it in. 

After Thanksgiving lunch we started our annual Sequence tournament.  

And did some more hanging out together!

Happy Thanksgiving! 

From this little turkey!!