New Year's Eve Wrap Up of 2010

This is going to be a brief wrap up of the Christmas festivities of 2010! By brief, I mean verbally brief. There are still plenty of photos, but there is just not enough time to write in great detail about each event. In exactly 30 minutes, all four of the grandchildren will arrive to bring in the New Year with GranNan and Poppy.

Above( and below) are some photos from Pressley's Christmas program at the Frazer Center. If that child doesn't become an actress( or use her expressive abilities in some other way) it will be a shame! As you can see, she was feeling every word she was singing!

After the performance, we all got to go back to her classroom and have refreshments.
This year, at our Christmas Supper Club event, we were 100% in attendance! That is quite unusual, since so many in our group are "world travelers"these days!On Tuesday before Christmas, we got together with our children and their families, and my Mom to celebrate and exchange gifts. We always go out to eat together and then return to our house. Our new treat this year was having Abby tell the Christmas Story. She did a wonderful job--and told it in great detail. It was SO sweet!




This year was a "Phineas & Ferb" themed Christmas for Will. Almost everything he received was Phineas & Ferb!!!
Near the end of the evening, Granny read a special Christmas book to the children. They all love her so much, so that was a real highlight of their evening!
On Christmas morning, we were invited to join in the McCarthy Christmas morning brunch at Amy and Corin's house. Corin's Mom & Dad , and his sister were there from Knoxville and New York, respectively. (At this point in the process of doing this blog, everyone arrived--so, now the blog is a day old--since I didn't get it posted yesterday! Oh well--best intentions!)
Back to the blog at hand.........As most of you know, our family goes up to my sister's house at Lake Hartwell on Christmas afternoon and evening. This year, things were cut a little short due to the snow coming in--but it didn't damper our fun! Above, is a photo of my two nieces

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

It is definitely the most wonderful time of the year---yet it is also the busiest time of the year!! I was shocked when I revisited this blog and realized that my last post was BEFORE Thanksgiving! Oh, my! How does time get away so quickly???

In my efforts to document our activities, I don't want to skip anything--so here goes a lengthy "catch-up". We have had so many fun times together as a family! We celebrated Thanksgiving here at our house with: Amy and her family; Beth and her family; my mother; and our nephew, Matthew.


This is the "kids table". I found these turkey placemats at Pottery Barn Kids several years ago, and they have really enjoyed them. The kids are growing up so fast, though, I'm guessing they won't be into a "kids table" much longer, nor the turkey placemats. But, for the time being, we will use them!
Here's my sweet hubby! I realize more each year how blessed I am to have him. He is such a great husband, father and "Poppy"! I couldn't do without him!
In recent years, we have started taking Christmas pictures of the "grands" on Thanksgiving afternoon. Then, we have a variety to choose from for our Christmas cards. This used to be something of a chore, but the kids have gotten so much better about it! They actually seem to enjoy it--and love being with their cousins.
This was our choice this year for our Christmas card. They are all such blessings to us!
We took several outside. It was such a beautiful, warm day--unlike our recent days, in the teens!
On Monday after Thanksgiving, we headed to the Mountains with our friends, Russ & Susie, and Eddie & Janet! We stayed in a cabin in Pigeon Forge, and had so much fun!
This is Eddie and Ralph, trying to get warm by the fire after a day of adventure.
Here are the ladies being silly as we browse through the gift shop before a show in Pigeon Forge.
The morning we left, we awoke to beautiful snow, and we saw lots of icicles on the way home, between Pigeon Forge and Cherokee.
The next week, we got to attend "The Three Piggy Opera" that Beth does with her second-graders. Abby is in second grade this year, so we didn't want to miss it! Beth has decided that this will be the last year for this musical. She has been doing it with second graders for 16 years, and she is getting really tired of it! It's SO cute, though!
On December 8th, Briarlake had a Gingerbread House Competition. There were lots of families there, and everyone had a great time! Evan and Pressley were so proud of their house!

Last, but not least, we had Evan and Pressley with us last weekend. Amy and Corin went to their Sunday School Christmas Party, so the kids spent the night with us.

We played games, made Christmas crafts, and just had a snuggly evening together.


I uploaded this picture of the outside of our house to show the snow we had Sunday and Monday. But, you have to look real closely to see it.

Well, I'll try to be better about blogging during the rest of the Christmas season. Merry Christmas to each of you--from our house to yours!