Goings on and Birthdays!

Lots of stuff going on down here this month . . . 

Grace is getting bigger - walking everywhere now.  

And she gets a kick out of markers.

Sisters!

Alyssa took and survived the ACT test.  

We also had a couple of birthdays to celebrate.  

Brian turned 40 and Alyssa turned 14. 

These two like pie and ice cream for their birthday. 

Brian got a nice new toy.  

Alyssa went shopping and picked out about six new outfits.  

Grace has a duckie bathrobe.

She likes it.  

Here's a little preview of what else we've been up to . . . .

Stay tuned for all the details!

Alyssa wanted a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup birthday cake this year.  So, I made a very good chocolate cake and some peanut butter buttercream icing for the top.  Then the girls chopped up some peanut butter cups and we added those at the end.  

It turned out like this!

The birthday girl and her little brother.

Daddy came home for lunch that day and we had cake and presents!

Then they dressed up and went out to dinner that night.  They went to a place called French Market Bistro.  I think they had a good time!  

Thank you everyone for the cards and presents!!  

On Saturday James had to practice for his part in the Christmas program at church.  Then we drove down to Sorrento, LA to have our annual family picture taken.  I've yet to see them but hopefully they turned out good.  It was really fun.  

That night we went carolling with some friends of ours through their neighborhood.  Only three of the houses had people home.  Probably had something to do with it being the last Saturday before Christmas Eve.  Oh well!  We still got to hang out with friends and have yummy treats.  

My talented friend Jessica made these snowman cake pops.  I didn't want to eat mine.  But when I did, it was very good!

James had a few lines in the Christmas program at church on Sunday.  He recited some scripture.  He had been practicing last week and did very well during the performance. 

Stay tuned for a sneak-peek of our family pictures!

Happy Birthday!!

Today we're celebrating two birthdays!  Brian is 37 - although he told someone he was turning 38.  I guess we always want to be 'older'  Ha!  Alyssa is now 11.  

These pictures are from last year.  They are going out to dinner tonight and we'll have cake and presents later.  I'll take some new pictures and put them up soon!

We got our tree even earlier this year.  For the past several (maybe 9) years, we've been getting our tree on the day after Thanksgiving - give or take a day.  Well, since we moved to Baton Rouge, Thanksgiving got a whole lot busier with Camp Meeting activities.  It's a lot of fun, but very busy.  

So, we decided to get the tree a week early.  It will probably be a naked tree by the time Christmas comes around having dried up and lost all of the needles, but right now it's beautiful.  

See that sled in the front?  

It's from Great Grandma Berg's Christmas tree.  Love it every time I see it.

We spent a lot of the afternoon getting ready for tomorrow's meal.  

 Making bacon for cheesy potatoes.

Celery, onions and sausage for stuffing.

The girls make a pumpkin pie.

 Now it's the boys' turn to try and make a pie.  Jon is holding onto that bowl for dear life.

They look a little bit unsure.

 Check out the amazement on Andrew's face as he pours in more of the milk.  

 Faith chunking up the bread for stuffing.

 Someone give that baby a crust of bread so we can get something done.

Cute baby with bread.

More of the cute baby with bread.

 Leftover pumpkin pie filling . . . more on this later.

 Girl pie on the left, boy pie on the right.

Home made stuffing (without the giblets - blah!!) - can't wait!!

So, most everything is ready.  I have potatoes boiling and will mash them up tonight.  We'll also put the turkey in the roaster tonight late.  Should be a great meal!  

Girls.

So, the girls are pretty shy and very particular about having their picture on the blog.  So I took some pictures of some of their things instead.  

These are the fancy dolls Brian got them.  

Their nail polish.

These are the ceramics they painted at camp with the rocks Grampa polished for them.

And a couple of their Barbie dolls.  

And I did manage to get a picture and their approval to post it.  Ha!  

School, a girl and CBS

We were back to full-time school this week.  I sat down and made a list of everything I needed to do each day.  

It's a long list!  

But I did really well getting the boys' school in along with some preschool activities for Peter.  It's super fun to listen to him learn his letters.  When I say to him "this is the letter U"  he says "Yeah, ME!"  

Pretty cute!

Andrew and Jon are both doing reading and math at their own levels and then geography together.  

Here is Andrew.  Doing math and prepared for rain.  He found this raincoat in a box in the storage room.  He has worn it every day since.

Here is Jon.  He's reading pretty well now and he was learning about size and shape in math this week.  

Here is the gigantic bun that Alyssa put in her hair.

Alyssa and Matthew.

I went to pick up James from school on Thursday and 

This was parked in my spot.  You can't really see it, but it says CBS on the side.  They were there setting up for the big game on Saturday.  That's my spot though - where I "park" while I wait for James.  Oh well.  At least now I'll know what to expect when there are home games this year.  

Stay tuned for an update on our weekend!