hApPy NeW yEaR!

and War Eagle from Auburn, Alabama!


This week while running a few errands downtown we dropped by The Auburn Conference Center and Hotel to see their gingerbread display. It was huge and impressive.
Notice the tiny little m&m orange and blue lights around the edge of the stadium :)

I thought the stats on what it took to make all this was impressive also (can you imagine putting 272 hours in this?).

Happy New Year and hopefully a National Championship for all of us Auburn Tigers!

Wrapping up my Christmas Season Highlights

Since I have joined the ranks of Facebook, I am having the hardest time continuing to blog. I do not want to repeat myself or bore the likes of you that still follow me here. If you are not on facebook, I apologize because I do put the best pics on there.
So today I sorted thru and found some of my holiday pictures that I did not put on facebook or the blog as of now and want to share those that gave me a few smiles looking back.
















Santa, you were really really good to me this year.
and I want to thank you each for giving me various gifts of your time, your sacrifices, your labors, and your love during this Christmas season. I enjoyed every bite, every gift, every visit, and every card. I especially enjoyed all my grandchildren and I love sharing them with you through my pictures but all of you already knew that, huh!

B & B at our house in December

No, we did not open a B&B at our house in December but we did have Brendan and Beckett one weekend which made for some fun memories with those 2 cute guys.
Beckett had just celebrated his 4th birthday and after we gave him his gift, it hardly came off his body in 3 days :) Toy Story 3 has made a killing with these kids. We rented the movie for the boys one night and they watched it as if it was the 1st time to see it (both had seen it twice).
Beckett loved his Buzz Lightyear wings ;) from Infinity and Beyond!
he wore it to work puzzles, go to the bathroom, eat supper, run circles in the house and
he also wore it to the neighborhood playground the next day. Those things were a hit.
I convinced him they needed a little rest by bribing him with a lollipop :)
the next day after baths and supper, these two went to town coloring. Ages 4 and 7 are perfect for coloring together. I was amused that an hour's worth of coloring was as fun to them as an afternoon in the park. We have 4 pictures they each did on the fridg. Maybe it was just being at the grandparents' house with a very captive audience.
Brendan was so excited to be the first grandchild to help me sort the many many many plastic caps I have been collecting for our 2011 summer craft project. This does not even show how many more I have in ziploc bags in the garage. But B and I shared interesting comments as we sorted thru some of these wondering from whence all the caps originated. It was a kitchen counter full of color :) and almost as fun as Legos!


What a fun early December weekend we had with the Atlanta grandsons!

Christmas Eve

It is way cool to be able to blog away from our computer room. Santa, I love you!
Only thing I can not do is load pics away from my computer so until then I will just share a few new ones I already have on my iPad photos.
We have enjoyed all our Christmas gatherings so much this year with each family. We have 3 more Christmases to go this week and this is probably my first time ever not to feel overwhelmed by the load that is usually upon me during Christmas week! Thank you daughter in laws and daughter and sister and sister in law for all the work and prep that goes into hosting during the holidays. I am one appreciative girl this week. Merry Christmas week everybody!

it was amusing that Knox was timid to touch his new stuffed fox toy at first but...
he had no problem going right up to the billy goats to feed them!
he also loved touching the big camel!
it was so fun to watch him see all these Christmas decorations at the place we went to. I posted lots of pictures from our adventure to the North Pole and back on Facebook so I won't bother to repeat all those. But it is noteworthy to mention that it was my son's 30th birthday and hardly any of my photos display that it was. I guess he is used to it after all these years of having a birthday so close to Christmas and only thing I can tell him repeatedly is that he really was the most special Christmas gift I have ever or will ever receive!

Each Christmas that rolls by me will always hold those memories of him being brought to me in a stocking in the hospital.

This baby boy of his is just so adorable and also such a gift of life and naturally I think he hung the moon too.
It was a really fun time to be in Fairhope during the Christmas week. Next time we go back will be to see a new baby sister for this boy, which looks like it will be sooner than later in January now!
Lastly on Christmas Eve after we went to church with Daddy and Tim and Penny, we gathered at Barbara's where she fed us the best appetizers ever (especially the fried egg rolls she makes from scratch). My nephew, Scott, and Cat (Noah was sleeping) were there too and we all had a big time looking at Iphones and Ipads and enjoying each other's company.

Here we go

Help!
I am so behind on my blogging and this week looks VERY busy yet such a joyful one. I have so much to post from the last 2 weeks that I must come back to yall with more detail when busyness let's up.
Here are several reasons why I have been crazy busy:
Grandsons visiting from Atlanta of which I will do a separate post later of all our fun stuff together

(we went to the Christmas parade downtown)


and....
The usual Christmas purchasing and wrapping - 11 grandkids times 3 presents each + family and friends etc........not to mention baking and basketball games imbetween
and....
spending some time with my dearest friends- Martha took me to a quaint little place in LaGrange (Taste of Lemon) to celebrate Christmas and then we visited some cute shops to browse in-she knows all the ropes around this area

Sadler also dropped by on Saturday which was a fun surprise and we tryed to condense 3 months of catch up in to one afternoon! It did not work :( but it was sweet visiting at its best :) .....no pictures of us but here are our daughters and granddaughters that I got to see in BHam recently together

Annie was showing Ann Hampton how to work her Leapster Explorer (Ann Hampton is getting one for Christmas but does not know it!). It is amazing what a 4 year old can do on that. What a treat it was watching them all together!

and....
Going to visit grandkids in Bham and celebrating Christmas early with them -we spent the morning at the McWane Science Center of which I will do a separate post on! -it was tooo much fun!




and..... finally the reason I am so busy especially this week is my new Ipad that Santa insisted on giving me early! It is fun folks :)

Ponte Vedra in Top 10 style

I am going to attempt to condense what a great time I had last weekend in David Letterman style!

Top 10 favorite memories of Ponte Vedra with the girls from my mother's side of the family
1. getting to know my cousins and aunts better without there being a wedding or funeral to attend!
2. Being at Aunt Patty's relaxing snowbird condo and seeing how an 85 year old can hostess a beautiful female family reunion with style and gift us all with such an amazing weekend together.


3. Watching my sisters enjoy themselves without our usual family dynamics surrounding us (sorry guys but girls just know how to have more fun without yall around sometimes)

of course Amy's contribution of the "middle sister " wine with funky labels such as wicked sister, rebel red, and fun napkins and butterfly charms added a lot of festivity to the first night's get together. I am happy to report that I did not live up to the label though because I truly was a bit under the weather and kept my portion of any drama to a very low minimum :)
(this photo may look like I did but I just siezed the moment to pose for a picture. I honestly never tasted the wine but everyone else raved about it. And I hardly tasted the wonderful food we had all weekend but was just so glad to be there and that I did not let my symptoms dampen the fun of it all.)

4. Experiencing the flavor of the region during the Christmas season
We drove to St. Augustine Saturday morning to see the Christmas Parade, shop in the market and eat a very nice lunch at the beautiful Cascablanca Hotel there


the hermit crabs were kind of cute to watch too

5. Soaking up some Florida sun and walking and talking with individual cousins and sisters on the beach


6. Watching the SEC championship game with my Aunt Connie while watching the waves roll in at the same time and enjoying hors dourves with everyone with Auburn beating the stew out of South Carolina!


7. Being in the car with different gals each time we went out and having fun conversations. One night Aunt Patty took us to see a play in the Jacksonville beach area. The play was "Little Women". How fitting for all of us to be there together to see it. Aunt Patty called us "her little women" all weekend :) We all constantly talked about my mother and my grandmother whom we know would have been so happy that we were all together in a trip like this.
It felt so good to have my aunt remind me of the little touches my mother also used to add to my life and the things our grandmother did to bond us together for life.

8. Seeing and listening to each set of families enjoy the catching up we did all weekend.



9. Eatting Sunday morning brunch at the Ponte Vedra Club(the atmosphere was to die for- beautiful Sunny beach and ocean at our tableside and elegant dining at its best) Aunt Patty spoiled us royally.



10.Playing games and laughing like we did in the good ole days. Whoever would have thought our oldest cousin would keep us in stitches with her new foreign accent!

(traveling with Barbs by car and not getting lost,...well maybe once, and making good time was a plus on the trip too)

(the oldest and the youngest cousins)

and I am happy to report that I made it through the weekend laughter with all dry pants...just barely though!