Lydia with Straight hair

I know I still have not blogged anything about Christmas but hopefully I will get around to that. We did have a wonderful Christmas though. I just had to put up these pictures of Lydia with straight hair. This morning I straightened her hair. At first she hated it. She cried and said "it doesn't even look like me". She wanted her curls back. After realizing that she could actually brush her hair it became a little more appealing but after about ten minutes of brushing she was once again ready for the curls. She then told me "Mom, next time you want to play with my hair, please don't straighten it. It just too hard to get the curls back. " Of course she was thrilled when all we had to do was wet her hair and all was well. Now her hair is back to those beautiful curls but I took lots of pictures of her with straight hair since I don't know when she will ever let me do that again.

Rafael's office party

Rafael

Rafael's office party

We had all of Rafael's employees over for a Christmas party. This was definitely the best way to have a party. We hired a caterer and it made my life so much easier. They came in and set everything up and then waited on us as we ate and cleaned everything up before they left. The food was outstanding! We had beef tender loin, chicken, green beans, hash brown casserole, some sort of pasta/cole slaw salad (awesome!) , rolls and of course tons of desserts. I wish I could hire the caterer just to come cook for my family atleast once a week. That would be awesome!

Neighboorhood progressive dinner

The first weekend in December we had our first annual neighboorhood progressive dinner. My aunt Marian really helped me prepare for this a lot. She was definately in her element. I absolutely love all the Christmas decorations. I think we made a really good team.

My house hosted desserts. I hate that I didn't get any pictures of the desserts. I had a spice cake and a german chocolate cake. They were both so beautiful and so yummy. My neighbor who was paired up with me for the desserts brought a bunch of goodies from a local bakery. She had different cookies, chocolate covered strawberries, and brownies. Everything looked and tasted so good. We started at 6:00 and didn't get to my house for desserts until about 10:00. CRAZY!!! It was a very slow progressing progressive dinner but it was still fun. I am excited to do it again next year but maybe I will volunteer to be in charge of keeping up with the time then.

Andrew's Birthday

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we celebrated Andrew's birthday. We also had a lot of friends over to watch the Alabama vs. Auburn game. It was really not so much a game but a slaughter. We wore our Auburn attire like any good fans would but for once we were actually deep down hoping Alabama would win. Alabama had so much more to gain from the win than Auburn and actually Auburn stinks this year so they didn't really deserve a win. Anyways, back to Andrew's birthday. He absolutely loved everyone singing Happy Birthday to him. In fact that was his favorite song for the next few days. Everyone seemed to be on the same wave length for his gifts this year...the Gil's finally have a boy...CARS!!!! He got lots of cars and even a car puzzle. He loved it!!! He is such a boy. I say that a lot.

Thanksgiving

I know it's almost Christmas and I am just now posting about Thanksgiving but I couldn't resist blogging a little about Thanksgiving in my attempt to update my blog. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year. We had my family and the Stinson family over to our house for lunch and everyone stayed all afternoon. Right after lunch we walked down to the pond and some people attempted some fishing while others watched Adams dog fetch a ball out in the water. Poor dog he had to fetch that ball for each of the kids but he jumped in every time with no hesitation. We all played for a while down by the pond before heading back home for desserts. Then everyone sort of did their own thing. The men played pool, shuffle board, and ping pong and then took naps all over the game room. The women played dominoes, jumped on the trampoline with the kids, and some of the ladies took some naps too. It was really a lot of fun and a very relaxful Thanksgiving.

It's been a while

Okay so it's been a while since I have had time to update my blog. I have been super busy with lots of parties...tis the season. Also I've been reading a lot lately so that has taken up all my free time. I love this time of year. I love all the parties. No matter how exhausted I feel later from all the prep. I love all the shopping!!! I love buying presents for people (mostly, except those hard to buy for people....my dad, grandparents...). Most importantly I love spending more time with family and friends. I am so excited that Lydia is going to be out of school for a couple of weeks. I love having her home with us.