It's been awhile.....

And since our last post...

We have been to Georgia to visit my family for Thanksgiving

have had our annual family Christmas party with Waylen's grandparents

attended Hayden's school Christmas program

attended ASC graduation for Waylen's sister, Melody

I planned a program, filled 100 gift bags, wrapped 100 candy bars, cut out 60 paper Christmas trees plus 60 each of bows, stars, and ornaments to go on those tress, then laminated them and cut them out again, bought lots of food, cooked lots of food, decorated, and much more for our ward Christmas Party (with lots of help from Debby - Thanks a ton!! -- and Thanks to my sister-in-law, Diana for help with decorating - I was clueless in that area!!)

I have had another birthday. Another year Older and Wiser too!!

Had a great Christmas

Said Good bye to 2010 and Hello to 2011!!!

**I started working on a few posts on Tuesday and finally got around to getting them finished today!! Read on and enjoy!!**

Havin' A Merry Little Christmas

I have a program on my computer called Picasa and I love it. I use it to edit all of my pictures, make collages, and I can make slideshows with it too!! So, that is what I did with our pictures from Christmas. Hope you enjoy it!!

Our Christmas Cuties

Just wanted to do a little post with pictures of the kids looking all cute in their new Christmas outfits for church.

Hayden kept doing a really fake or either too cheesy smile, but finally ended up getting this really cute one:

 

On the other hand, Kayla, like always, was quite the poser:

 

Katie didn't care very much about getting her picture taken. I had her standing by the tree and she just kept running away, so I sat her down and snapped this one really quick:

 But then I managed to get this one a few weeks later.

Holding a snack, Imagine That???

The Snuffy's Annual Christmas Party

Just a few pictures from Grandma and Grandpa Snuffy's Christmas party that we had on the 11th of Decemeber.

Kayla taking it easy with Papa Larry before the party:

We started the party off with eating lunch. Then, we watched a video that I put together of video clips from some of the Snuffy's Christmas parties from years ago.  After the video, some of the kids shared their talents of singing and playing the piano.

 Hayden, Kayla, Lexie, and Hailee singing "All I want for Christmas":

 Gavin sharing his great skills on the piano - He was so serious the whole time

 After the little talent show and then opening presents, we moved on to more "entertainment" with a Wii Just Dance competition and then just dancing for fun. Here's Waylen dancing with his cousin, Trinette, his Uncle Terry, and our brother-in-law Tyler -

With all the fun going on with dancing, we had forgotten about the pinata!! So, the kids took their turns at the pinata and then gathered up all the candy!! And that pretty much wraps up all the fun at the Snuffy's Christmas party. 

Trip to GA - Nov. 22, 2010 - Dec. 1, 2010

We went to visit my family in Georgia for Thanksgiving and we had a great trip. We enjoyed spending time with our family and we also enjoyed the nice weather they had while we were there. One of the highlights of the trip was our stop by the beach on Thanksgiving Day.  We spent Thanksgiving Day down in Brunswick, GA (which is about 45 minutes from my mom and dad's home) and Brunswick is right near 2 islands, so we made a stop by St. Simons Island before going over to my sister-in-laws parents home for the day.  The kids loved the beach and we had thought about going back again before we left but we didn't.  But the little time we spent there the kids had fun.

Hayden and Corbin had a lot of fun trying to catch some birds and they also had to roll up their pant legs and check out the water. Kayla had fun playing in the sand and could have stayed there for hours just digging away, but she also loved walking through the water and getting wet!! Katie also loved the sand and wanted to be right there with Kayla playing in it (and eating it too!!). And it didn’t take her long to make her way to the water, she kept running right for it, and wanted to dive right in!! We stayed at the beach for close to an hour, and then decided we better leave before the kids all got too dirty and wet. Which Kayla already had, she had gotten her pants wet, so we just took them off of her and we hung them out the car window to dry on our way to the Earl’s. We spent the rest of the day over there – the kids had fun playing with their cousins and the other kids that were there, they stayed outside most of the time even though the sand knats were horrible that day. They also enjoyed getting their hands painted to make a couple of Christmas cards for a craft. –Katie spent most of the afternoon sleeping, I think she ended up sleeping almost 4 hours!! She woke up while we were just starting to eat, Imagine that?


Another highlight for the kids during our vacation was our trip to the....

When we got there, it was starting to drizzle rain, but stopped pretty soon after. We were able to see several alligators,

(Hayden was really excited to see the alligators, Kayla wasn't so sure about them)

the kids stopped to take a few silly pictures,

and they found Santa's sleigh at the Swamp Park.

We went to the little show that they do with showing the baby alligators and some snakes too. During the show, he was letting people touch the baby alligator, and as soon as Hayden touched it, it started to pee. The guy then jokingly told Hayden – “you made him do that” and Hayden got that big grin on his face. He thought it was pretty funny!!

After the show, we went on the train ride that takes you through the swamp. While we were on our ride, it started POURING rain, and needless to say, we got soaked!!! 

Good thing that we were all done seeing the alligators and bears because we were all soaked from head to toe and were starting to get cold!! 

We went that Saturday afternoon to the lake near my mom and dad's to have one of my aunts take some family pictures.  It wasn't the best picture taking experience, but we did mangae to get one family picture of just our family that turned out o.k. 

We lucked out and got a good picture of all of the family together with everyone (even the 2 littlest kids) looking at the camera at the same time with no eyes closed.

And we even got some really cute ones of just Katie!! 

It would have been nice to have gotten more pictures of our family and of just Hayden and Kayla, but the kids were more concerned about everything around them. Hayden kept wondering what all the pokey stuff (the pinestraw) was and wanting to find the perfect piece to keep. Kayla was ready to be done, so she oculd go play at the park. Katie did good, but it was just hard to get her to look at the camera sometimes. Better luck next time I guess!!

We spent the rest of our days on vacation - just relaxing, we did some Christmas shopping, the kids had lots of fun playing with their cousins (and playing outside!!), visiting with my dad's family on Sunday afternoon for our little "reunion" we had with them,  and just being with our family.  It was a fun trip and it was great to be able to go "home" after almost 2 years, but it was also great to come "home" after 10 days. Does that make sense??? --The kids were pretty sad to leave. This was the first trip that Hayden hadn't gotten homesick. The day before we left he said "Why can't Waycross be closer to Manassa?" :(  --I feel the same way!! Thank goodness that Papa Mike and Nana love to come out every summer for a visit!!