More Christmas Pics

Happy New Year!

I can't believe it's 2011 already. well, my watch still says 31 DEC but the ball dropped, the whistleblowers blew, the fireworks sparkled here several hours ago so it must be 2011. It's been a great year and we ended with a wonderful day. We started off the morning with a Manna Multisports Family Run. KG and T ran their first races- 1/4 mile each while K & C did their first races- 1/2 mile. C thought it was so much fun that he did the mile with James and finished it 10:20!! he turns five in 2 weeks and that's faster than some of my old soldiers ran. Then James watched all our kids plus a friend (definite good husband points) so I could run the 5K by myself. Five families from our Tuesday morning run group were there plus another 3 from Manna Multisports- nice end to the year.

We had planned a quiet evening at home until a good friend turned our evening more fun by inviting 25 people over to our house for a New Years' Eve party. Between the two events, we were happy to have Pops Leon & Grandma work hard with us in the garage repairing the hole I put in the ceiling. And Uncle B to hang out with the kids.

The New Year's Eve party was a great success. I offered to provide meat and drinks but realized we didn't have any and called everyone coming asking them to bring those too. Great to have friends who are close enough to plan a party at our house and then I can ask them to bring everything for it.

Christmas

We've been blessed with a terrific year: James home except some short TDYs, all well except some colds and stitches, near family for lots of visits, blessed with lots of good friends, the good news of James' promotion and our move this spring, ...

we went to Boone, NC for my cousin's wedding and had a new twist of Boone Christmases from the past. Then we spent a couple days with James' family and back home for a quietish Christmas at home. here's some pics from our recent trips-

T making his house in our gingerbread village
K's house
C reading to great-grandma
visiting Great-Grandma
Uncle B and the kids sporting new clothes
T sledding- we had a great sledding spot. many hills ranging from bunny slopes to black diamond!
Uncle Steven helping C with cool new magnet building toys
Kids showing their new Christmas PJs
James showing his sledding skills
the kids ready for some snow!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas Decorations

We got home tonight from our church's Christmas Eve service (& from a week away with family and friends- more on that later.) It was awesome to come home to beautiful flowers & a kitchen stocked with food for the weekend- what a great friend. I'm looking forward to some time over the next few days to upload pics from our trip but here are a few of our decorations this year. I'm pretty excited about our Advent Calendar and about these stockings that my friend made.

the flowers from the friend- aren't they gorgeous?

Merry Christmas!

Advent calendar