POOR ONE-HORNED REINDEER

"Pay no attention to the man shielding his face in the reindeer-mobile." My poor little reindeer. We go way back. Last year was when we went through a drive-thru & Brett had to tell the cashier, "Excuse me while I remove my antler." This year, the fam is at Sonic. The roller-skating waitress nears the car with a puzzled look. I hear Brett mumble, "Don't ask...don't ask." She asked. "What's that red thing on the front of your car?" Brett (only fairly confidently) "It's a reindeer nose." Anyway, you may have read about the "accident' on facebook but I'll fill you in on the whole story. Went shopping for the first time on Black Friday. Mom and I left bright and early. It was nearing 11 am and I was extremely tired. Coming out of the mall, turning on 82 and my gum was getting really stale. You're probably not questioning where the gum came from but I'll tell you. Standing in a really, really long line in Children's Place waiting to check out when one of the very bubbly cashiers started playing a game with us customers. The "what's in your purse" game. You know the one. Well, being so prepared for the biggest/most crowded shopping day of the year, I changed to a more shoulder friendly purse & only packed must needed items. Anyway, when the cashier said that anyone with a piece of gum would receive an additional 10% off, I was out of luck. Then, a friendly,sneaky lady in line behind me discreetly passed me a piece of Dentene. Additional 10%...yes. Cheating...yes. Back to leaving the mall. Turned on 82 and that Dentene had run all slap out of flavor. I pushed the little button to roll the window down, spit out said Dentene, & there went my left antler, bouncing down 82. My poor car still seems to sputter a bit when we near Midtown as if it were crying. To make matters worse, that sad broken antler has been laying on the curb all season. Of course my car cries. Wouldn't you if you drove past one of your limbs daily? The lesson learned in all this: 1)never cheat. 2)never litter, even if it's just a piece of gum. 3)remember that everything you do could effect someone you love. This tragic event could have been avoided if I had just listened to Jiminy Cricket. BTW, ,my father-in-law thought his name was "Jimmy the Cricket." Maggie quickly corrected him :)

GINGERBREAD HOUSE

The yearly building of the gingerbread house. This actually occurred 2-3 weeks before Christmas.

Kneeding the icing.

A little icing on the toes. His foot is not really that purple or dirty in person. He iced his foot himself, is was not Maggie.

Maggie had a lot of help cleaning daddy's foot.

Mac and Mary decided to wander around for a bit.

Miss Maggie's. She loved her "M" until she saw that Mac had his name and Mary had her initials.

Macman's

Mary Brooke's

Our lovely little village.

HAPPY 40TH JAMIE "THOMAS" NOT "HOCUTT"

Hocutt wanted to make it clear that she is still in the low 30's. We all ventured out to try one of Jamie T's favorite restaurants, Surin. It's Thai food. Very interesting. Lots of peanut butter flavors. We had a blast and got a little loud. Pretty sure some folks moved sections. :/

Maybe it was Kara's bad manners that made those people move. I think she enjoyed her soup just a little too much.

Me, Jamie, and Jennifer

Jamie, Lisa, and DeJuana

RANDOMNESS

My wrapping paper has always matched my perfectly color-coordinated tree. Well, last year, I had all the presents wrapped. ALL the presents wrapped. It was beautiful. A few days before Christmas, I started feeling guilty that the kids didn't have "fun" paper. The pretty paper is loads of fun for me but I guess not if you're a little squirt. So, I unwrapped ALL of the presents and rewrapped them in kid friendly paper. This year, I was glad to just be wrapping the one time. Besides, I like how you can show their different personalities with the own type of paper. Mag likes that she can tell whose is whose. She's got some OCD in her as well though. She had to stack them all the the like kinds.

Mag=princess paper. That's a gimme.

I searched high and low for Charlie Brown paper for Mac. Note to self: always start at Hallmark.

And sweet Mary gets sweet little Christmas creatures.

What is that on my perfectly matching tree?! It can't be! It's a kid ornament! Oh, but it is! I'm slowly but surely becoming less selfish. It's just taken me 4 years and three kids but I'm getting there.

And another one?!

Yep! There's now three of those bad boys one there! Yay, me! Maggie strung this by herself, btw.

Super cool pot that Maggie made me. Those antlers are her handprints, if you can't tell. NBD does tons of hand/finger/footprint crafts. Following are other awesome presents that they made me for Christmas at school.

Just too sweet.

When Mag was two, she made me an angel magnet. Macman is a snowman. These are the funniest little things. I love them!

No clue why that turned sideways. It's not sideways in the preview.

Mac's hand garland, I guess you could call it.

Mac's handprint wreath. I have one of these from when Mag was two as well.

And I now have these from both my oldest. The middle section, that's an upside down footprint! This pic flipped too. Weird.

We found these little fellas at CVS and I loved them for church teacher presents. Aren't they too cute? We gave all the school teachers ornaments but we have...16 teachers at church to buy for? No offense, but we need something faily cheap. These little tins were perfect. There were a couple of other different kinds but I had given them out during morning classes and didn't get a pic of them.

I just love these!

More pretties that Brett Paul put together and told me not to tell. My lips are sealed.

INTERESTING SONG CHOICE

I was looking at a link on MK's blog and a lady had posted this really pretty ornament. It was musical and matched my tree so of course, I loved it. Well, a few days later while browsing in Target, there it was! I squinted to see what the song was. It's "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star." I found that odd. I thought for sure it was going to be "The First Noel" or something that remotely had anything to do with Christmas. Brett was impressed that I could figure out the song just from looking at the tiny notes. That's what years and years of being forced, I mean, loving every minute of piano lessons will do for ya. Not to mention those way too early Saturday morning theory classes.

WORK WITH ME

Pretend it's Thanksgiving for a second. I found their things that they made at school under some stuff in the laundry room. I had neglected to take pics but got 'em now!

CHOIR CONCERT

I don't have any pics from our ensemble concert which was last Sunday night. Poo. I didn't have any from this performance either though. I stole these from MK.

The kiddos joining us during their part.

GIRLS' ORNAMENT SWAP

The girls at DeJuana's new home.

Me, running my mouth but isn't the snowflake headband cute? It was a tad too small because it was bought in the kids' section. I actually bought it for Mag but swiped it. It should fit though. Robert Pennington tells me often that my head is too small. Jerk face. (with love)

SOMETIMES, THE SIMPLE THINGS ARE THE MOST FUN

This afternoon, a few weeks ago, Brett and I got off work around the same time and we actually had no where to be that night. This was the scene when we arrived to get the chilluns at mom and daddy's.

Is case you couldn't tell, Mary was snoozing during all of that. My parents we not too happy about us waking her to go out in the freezing cold. You know what? We did it anyway 'cause that's how we roll.

After yanking those babies up and piling everyone in the car, we headed out to the big city of Birmingham to go to the galleria. This was a very cold night. Remember that really, really cold spell that we had. We do know how to handle those situations though. We bundled those babies up, had then covered going in and Brett pulled the car to the door coming out. I do feel like part of a pit crew though. It is so hurried, chunking babies in carseats, strapping them down, folding strollers, slinging them in the back hatch. We like to try and beat our previous time. Anyhoo, I have to say, that was one of the funnest things we've done all season. Really, it was. Is funnest a word? Anyway, the kids were angels. That's prob one reason it was some much fun. Mag and Mary slept the entire way up there and Mac just chilled, sucked his little thumb, & listened to Christmas music. Brett and I got to talk to each other the whole way. Apon arriving, we ate. Mag & Brett wanted pizza and I was scoping the place out when a very savy counter lady, at a Chinese place, spotted me and immediately said, "sample?!" I sampled and I liked. A lot. That was some of the best Chinese food I've had. I will return to that place. The rest, you can see in pictures.