Fourth of July

We had a great 4th of July this year.

James came home from Illinois.  

I had hoped there would be more pictures of his time at camp, but he was pretty busy.

Jon made an American flag out of Mega Blocks

On Saturday we were invited to a friend's house for a party. 

We stopped off at the new Le Blanc's grocery store 

(don't even think you know how they pronounce that down here)

to get some watermelon's to bring.

They had kid-size carts there - look at his face, ha!

Here are some pictures from the party. 

There was food, volleyball, food, softball, food, washers (a new game I learned), food, and fireworks.  And also music.

Brian and James played ball - they ended up being on opposite teams though.  

Brian on 3rd base and James as the 3rd base man.

washers

They live out in the country so fireworks are legal (and encouraged based on the 5 or 6 fireworks stands we passed on the way there).

James, tried to look patriotic with the fireworks behind him.

Sort of worked.

Glow bracelets

Fireworks!

These were not your little back yard type fireworks.  These were huge, rivaling the display we drive to the levy to see sometimes.  

I took an awesome video of them, but my phone died during the video and it was lost somehow.  

We had a great time! 

Merry Christmas!

Every year we have a Thanksgiving Sequence tournament.  Well, this year Thanksgiving was just too busy for our family.  We had Camp Meeting, Thanksgiving, setting up the tree and James' best friend Chris slept over.  

So we never found the time to have our tournament - until this morning.  

Here Brian and I are playing the championship game.

Guess who won . . .

Yay!!  I got a fancy chocolate treat and a custom-made certificate.  

The rest of today we will be hanging around, making lasagna for tomorrow and having Swedish meatballs for dinner.  

Stay tuned for the full Christmas Eve report.  

Spitz

Catch the title?  Spitz . . . hahahahaha!  Inside joke.  

Anyway. . . 

The girls and I made spritz cookies today.  Must have them for Christmas.  Great Grandma Berg's cookie press is still going strong. The kids always want to help press out the cookies - and I usually let them try - but this thing is very temperamental and ancient.  I want it to last for many more years so I have to be careful with it.  

 The Christmas trees are my favorite.  

The kids went a little overboard on the sprinkles this year.  

We each had a few and then we set them aside for Christmas.  It was hard to put them away.  But we'll be glad we saved some for this weekend.  

They were delicious as usual!

We're almost done with our shopping.  I know!  Brian will be going out - maybe tonight - to pick up a few more things for the kids.  They're very excited and counting down the days!

We're about to head out to the post office with our Christmas cards.   We ordered them through Target photo online and, because of a two-day delay, they will be late arriving this year.  If I had known this I would have picked a 'Happy New Year' card.  Oh well.  Hope you like this year's picture.

Thanksgiving dinner was great - although fast.  The food was good and Matthew was doing this . . . 

So I actually got to sit at the table and eat with everyone else!  

I came across this picture of Andrew that I don't think I posted yet.  

He's a bandit - in case you couldn't tell!

James is in his last week of regular classes and has finals next week.  Then he gets a long break.  He deserves it!

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!