Christmas Day

Ok so on Christmas Day we got up and had time together as a family and then went to Scott's folks for a little while to spend some time with them, his sister Carol stopped over too, and then off to Teresa's mom's house.

As you can see we are all way to spoiled (including the dogs)!








Here are a couple of pictures from our stop at Scott's folks:



Lee & Elsie




Carol


Gabby excited about her Josh Grobin CD



Here are pictures from our time at Teresa's mom's:

Gabby & Jenny


Jenny & Teresa's step-sister Kim


Cameron & Jordan

Kim & Ray


Nevaeh, Kavan & Jenny



Steve, Nevaeh, Holly, Jordan & Cameron


Mom & Jerry




Jerry, Kim & Ray

Christmas Eve

For Christmas Eve this year we went to Teresa's step-sister Terri's house for a pot luck grazing fest. You'll understand when you see all the food. But first..pictures of the people...

Here's Summer drawing with chalk (Summer is Terri's daughter)


Linda with Kavan


Gabby with Pappa


Nevaeh drawing



Nevaeh erasing


Holly & Steve (Teresa's brother)


Dad, Nevaeh, Jenny, Steve & Kavan



There was a ton of yummy stuff...deviled eggs, little smokies wrapped in bacon and covered in brown sugar and kept warm in the crock pot in warm maple syrup, crab stuffed mushrooms, summer sausage with cheese and crackers, chex mix, nuts, petit fours, cookies, cranberry bliss bars, chips, guacamole, pears and cheese and I'm sure at there was more that I've forgotten! You can't quite see all of it but it's all there.

Lefsa Party

Today we did our annual lefsa making party! It was a lot of fun and of course the lefsa is yummy as always. The bummer part is that Gabby has a cold and so I made her stay home. :( She wasn't very thrilled about that. I'm hoping that if she rests she will be up to going on Christmas Eve and Christmas to spend time with family. Scott did stay home and take care of her though so she wasn't totally abandoned.
Anyway I took a few pictures that I will share..

My brother Steve grilling the lefsa


Mom and Holly. Holly is taking the mash potato dough and making balls Mom is rolling them into thin tortilla shapes to then be taken by my Step-sister Kim to the grills.


This is Jerry and Steve manning the grills.



This is Kim and Jerry.


We bagged up 20 dozen lefsa (yep 240 pieces). That doesn't even include all of the pieces that we ate. Whew. I can hardly wait to eat some more of it and enjoy it with our Christmas dinners.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Well the Christmas shopping is done...at least I think it is ;)

Tomorrow is our traditional lefsa making event. This is where my family gets together and makes lefsa (kind of like a potato pancake). We eat them warm and put butter and sugar on them. Yummy! The best part is getting together and spending some time having fun.

I'll take some pictures. I'm sorry that I can't share the lefsa with everyone!

More Fantasy Lights Pictures

I couldn't fit these all on the first post so I created a second one. Enjoy!

Christmas Lights

Tonight we went with Scott's sister Carol and her two granddaughters Megan and Miranda to see the Fantasy Lights at Spanaway Park. Going and looking at Christmas lights is one of my favorite traditions. We usually go and get a coffee/hot cocoa and then drive through neighbor hoods but this year we heard about this option and decided that this is how we would look at lights this year. (Of course it's still a probability that we will do a drive or two through a neighborhood as well). I'm including a link to the parks website http://www.co.pierce.wa.us/pc/abtus/ourorg/parks/flights.htm as well some pictures.

We had a GREAT time except for the hour that it took us to get there due to heavy traffic on I-5 and 512 because of accidents.

Up and running

Thanks for all of the prayers! Scott hasn't gotten sick and I'm back amongst the living again. And of course I've hit the ground running (well as much as I run any way).

This weekend is Gabby's Christmas program so she has had extra practices for that along with her normal activities. But she only has one writing assignment left to do and then she is finished with school work until January. Woo Hoo!! This year she is staying on top of her responsibilities which of course makes things run more smoothly around here and allows her to participate in more activities. As I'm sure you can tell by the places that I've listed that we run her.

Her next goal is to get her drivers license.

My goal...get my Christmas cards out, some baking done, shopping finished etc., etc., etc.

The Most Wonderful Husband

Well Gabby is better but I am sick. I haven't been this sick for a long time. That is why I'm so thankful for my wonderful husband. He has been taking very good care of me (and everything else too). He has done all of the running Gabby to and from her commitments (2 Christmas Program practices, 2 Piano lessons and Awana just since Sunday) as well as taking me to the doctor, getting my medicine and trying to fix the drainage under our house. Please pray that he won't get sick!

He even went so far as to move the recliner into our bedroom so that I can sit up and sleep to help with the wheezing/breathing. So that's pretty much what I've been doing the last three days is sitting in the recliner all wrapped up in a quilt that Scott's mom made for me (Thanks Mom!) being taken care of.

I'm a very blessed and well taken care of women.

Thanks to all of you who are praying for us!

Fighting Off Colds

I haven't posted for a week because we have been fighting colds around here. Gabby wasn't feeling well the first part of the week and then I came down with something on Thursday.

Scott seems to be the one staying healthy and we are trying to keep it that way. Pray with us that he won't catch it.

I guess the bright side is that I haven't spent as much money at Starbucks this week :)

Oh yeah and in between all of that we have been keeping up with Gabby's school work, Awana volunteering, piano lessons and practices, and extra practices for the Christmas program at church. We don't have time to be sick.

Nevaeh is Two!!

My great niece turned two today! Wow that went very fast!

I've put pictures up of her party. Unfortunately Scott & Gabby weren't able to go with because Gabby had a practice for the Christmas Program at church so Scott stayed home to pick her up when it was over.

Of course I couldn't resist including a couple of pictures of her brother Kavan as well :)

And one of my brother playing with one of the toys. :)

The order of the pictures is not in the order that I listed above sorry! I'm having difficulty with how to get them to work correctly. I guess I'll have to keep trying.

Giving Thanks on Thanksgiving

This is a great day each year to set aside time and be thankful for all of our blessings. We went to Scott's niece's for dinner. The food was wonderful as always! I've include a few pictures.

We are thankful for family and friends and miss those of you we were unable to spend time with today.