Birthday Buddies!

We are waking up every morning this week to beautiful snow. Beautiful that is, till it heats up a few degrees and the snow turns to rain and fallen snow turns to yucky, MESSY slush.

This morning, Leigha came over to play. They played a great game of Monopoly, I am not sure who won. The last time I checked on them Collin had all the money but Leigha had all the property!

He then made her lunch ( his famous grilled cheese sandwiches ) and then bundled up to go out and get into a big wet snowball (snow mush) fight.

Amazing how much fun they can have with ONE INCH of snow!

Tomorrow, Collin will officially be 10 and Leigha will be 11.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY YOU TWO!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY COLLIN!

So hard to believe this is his TENTH birthday! He was SO EXCITED! He invited all his good friends over for an evening of fun and games and a few of the boys got to spend the night. He ASKED if he could make his own birthday cake, so Friday afternoon, after his schoolwork was done, he made his very own cake!

After everyone arrived, it was a big pizza dinner. ( Is anything else even ALLOWED to be served at a party)?

Leigha and Brady also have February 26th birthdays! Popular day! :-)

Here is the birthday boy with his own homemade cake!
One of the boys said it was a bit dry, but everyone else LOVED it!



Here is Tiffer with Leigha and Joshua.





It certainly looks like Collin liked his cake!

After dinner, it was off to the garage for a huge Game cube tournament. The yells and screams left NO doubt as to the fun they were having!

His friends know him well! I did have to stop a few of the boys from trying to fit this padded helmet onto the cat though.

As cold as it was (24 degrees), they did have to go outside for a few minutes and try out this cool light up frisbee in the dark!

Here is the group! They referred to Leigha once as "the girl", but she had a lot of fun and held her own against all the boys! She is one of Collin's best friends and he didn't want to NOT invite her even though it was all boys. We are VERY glad she came!

At 8pm, we got the little ones to bed, and we all curled up the garage and watched NATIONAL TREASURE with popcorn and ice cream sandwiches!

(Where is Kaitlynn you are asking? She was invited to a girlfriends house for the evening and chose to go there instead of stay for the party).

Wyatt and James were able to spend the night. They wanted to sleep in the CHILLY garage with the space heater in the middle. I went to bed around midnight, Collin says they stayed up till after 1 am.

I got up at 8 to get them breakfast and James was the only one still sleeping. Christopher had joined them and they were playing another round of Mario Cart.

Breakfast was pancakes and orange juice and DONUTS!

Collin said it was his BEST birthday ever!

Here is little miss " Ihave a 102 fever, and a boo boo in my ear, so please leave Collin's party and take me to the emergency room after dark in the freezing cold so the doctor can tell you my ears are FINE" cuddling with her Daddy on the couch!

BASKETBALL!

Once again , Collin is playing basketball at the Youth Center. It is a co-ed 3rd and 4th grade league. He is the tallest of everyone and it is really starting to have an advantage. Sometimes he can just reach right up and steal the ball away with little effort!

The pictures are blurry. Sorry. We are to far away on the bleachers for the flash to be able to work, and there isn't enough light to take pictures without the flash, but you can see light blue #2!!!

This first picture is Collin making the first basket of the game!!!!

He took a good tumble in the picture below. Had to ice the knee for a few minutes, but he was able to finish out the last quarter with his team winning 16 to 10.

A tired, but happy basketball player!

BIRTHDAY WEEKEND

Well, since Kaitlynn's party was on Friday night, and her REAL birthday wasn't until Monday, it ended up turning into a Birthday Weekend!
Sunday night, it was CRAZY HAIR NIGHT at AWANA. So we used her party decorations and birthday candles to make her hair crazy!

Then on Monday she finally got to use her sand art kit wearing her new PINK Auburn Tigers hat!

Dixie was supposed to be the family cat when we got her for Christmas last year, but she quickly turned in Kaitlynn's kitty, following her EVERYWHERE all day long. She waits for Kit Kat to get in bed so she can get up for a cuddle!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAITLYNN!!!!!!!!

Wow. Our first baby girl is turning EIGHT years old!!! She had a sweet party with her girlfriends, a HORSE party!

First, it was pizza and drink boxes and CAKE!

Then it was time to open gifts......

Then it was into the garage to watch the movie FLICKA!

Then we tried to take some pictures with all their "glow" jewelry.

A special night for Kaitlynn, a.k.a. "Kit Kat", a.k.a. "KK"

Silver City Group Trip

The adventure for this weekend was a group trip up in the mountains to the Ghost Town called Silver City. Ben, one of the young guys in our FCA group, is getting out of the Air Force this week and going home to start college, called and asked Sam for one more snow trip up in the mountains! Never one to say no for a chance at a snow adventure, Sam and Collin and a few more friends took off at 8am this morning!
Here is the group on a cold, but sunny day!

Collin perches on his rock!

They really do enjoy getting stuck! Putting on snow chains and dragging each other out of snow ditches is really enjoyable! They didn't make it to Silver City, when they got to the top of the mountain, 2 sets of snowmobilers told them if they were caught on this road in vehicles, it was a $1,000.00 fine! So they turned around. Better safe then sorry with that kind of money at risk!

They were being watched!!!! Isn't he beautiful?!?! And this guy was on BASE!

Kaebrie and her Baby

Christmas morning, here is Kaebrie with her new baby doll that her HaHa sent her! She LOVED that doll!!

Loved that doll so much, she gave her a bath (or a baptism) in the toilet! Then tucked her into her bed, covered her with a blanket, turned on the sound machine and left baby to take a nap! Mommy found soaking wet baby in the bed a bit later!
Here is baby, only 3 days old, in her first (of many) washing machine runs! :-)

Sorry Mom!! (Take it as a compliment) !! :-)

CANCELLED!
Sam got notified yesterday that his deployment to Kuwait for 6 months has been cancelled. They changed the spot to a major position, and Sam being a captain, well, he can't fill the spot!
He is still on-call for deployment anytime between January through April. So his chances are high he will be called somewhere.
But for now, for today, the relief he isn't going to be gone for 6 months is WONDERFUL!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Merry Christmas to all!!!!!! We have had a busy and enjoyable holiday weekend. Christmas Eve morning we attended chapel and then went to some great friends house after for lunch, conversation and games. We also attempted the following photos! Here is Collin!

Kaitlynn with Dixie, who now has been with us for one year! Our Christmas kitten from last year sure has grown!

Dixie isn't the only one who has grown up! Hard to believe how big Christopher is getting!

Baby Kaebrie sure isn't a baby any longer!! She FIANLLY had enough hair to put her FIRST bow in! :-)

Here are 2 of the TWENTY pictures I took trying to get ONE great one of them all. Never got a really awesome one, guess these will have to do!

For the first time, the kids drew names for each other for Christmas. Collin drew Kaitlynn's name, and he got her her first Bible. She wanted one SO BADLY! As you can see, she was SO EXCITED!!!!

Kaitlynn drew Collins name and one of the things she got him was a Steve Irwin memorial ornament. He teared up when he opened it. ( So did I).

Christopher drew Kaebrie's name and she LOVED ber book and ball!

Later that night we got on the web cam with Poppa and JuJu in Alabama and opened gifts together. The girls loved their hand made aprons and mits!

The telescope was a BIG hit! Yes, that is a 12 foot tall Homer Simpson Santa in our yard. Yes, you know we don't do Santa Clause. Yes, it was a practical joke from the Chapel Staff. Yes, the neighbors are talking!!!! :-)

The night before Christmas Eve, Sam and I went to the club for the Fighter pilots Christmas party.

Busy busy weekend. The kids had a great time. It was our first white Christmas. Several bouts of homesickness, but the webcam with all the grandparents and my sister and her family helped bridge the distance. Hope all of you had a Merry Christmas as well!