Bowers Blog: December 2015

Obviously, I didn't do a great job of keeping up with posting week by week for December, so I'm just going to post some pictures of the last couple of weeks and Christmas. These include all of our many Christmas family celebrations. We are so blessed to have such a big, wonderful family as well as great preschools and churches to celebrate Christ's birth!

December 14th was Emma's preschool Christmas pageant. She was the Angel. We were so proud of her. None of the kids have lines, but they all have to sing. Emma had to stand front and center the entire play. I thought she did really well for a 4 year old.

Emma waiting for her turn to walk the aisle

Our precious angel

She really did so good!

She asked me afterward if I could hear her singing. Actually, at one point we did hear her start everyone off on a song. I think mainly because she was positioned right under a mic.

This is both 4 year old classes. They play the townspeople, shepherds, wisemen, Mary, Joseph, and of course, the Angel.

Next up was Emma's class party. It was a mini carnival this year with a great snack. The kids sang for us as well, and it was adorable!

The bean bag toss into Santa's mouth. Poor Emma had her leggings rolled up. It's been 75-85degrees here every day for the last 2 weeks or so. They don't make cute summer Christmas outfits.

What do you do at a Christmas party with 4 and 5 year olds? Hit the piñata, of course!

After Emma's class party, came Ellie's class party (which unfortunately, I took NO pictures.) It was just a pizza party. They ate and then we left, so it wasn't too exciting, but I was busy helping her teacher do everything and forgot to pull out my phone to take pictures.

The Friday before Christmas week was Mack's school party.

One of the little decorations his teacher made. She had the cutest stuff to send home with them!

His sweet little 2 year old class.

Stuffing it down.

Mack ate his cupcake before I could get a good picture of it. One of the mothers made these. It thought they were so cute.

On December 19th, at around 10pm a huge tree fell in our yard. We were at a Christmas party and didn't hear it happen. We had a 14 year old babysitter here watching the kids. I asked her the next day if she had heard it, and she said she did, but she thought people were just shooting off fireworks:)

We actually didn't find it until the following morning, because I had shut all the blinds in the back of our house before we left for the Christmas party. When we went to open them the next morning, our early Christmas gift awaited us. It narrowly missed our house and windows. Emma said she heard it, and thought it was Santa's reindeer on the roof. We are still awaiting the verdict on our shingle/gutter damage, but thankfully no one was in the backyard when it happened!

This is the back of our house.

After Worth trimmed most of the limbs off.

It destroyed our patio table and 1 of the chairs.

Once again, after Worth had already trimmed a lot of the limbs off. You can see the gutter damage

It just broke off. Pine trees are like that - scary!

On December 23rd, we all headed to Mia and E.W.'s house for the Bowers Christmas gathering.

Sweet Cousins! From left: Emma, Bo, Mack, Ellie, and Banks

Ms. Pendy had the table set beautifully for our lunch.

Worth made me take a picture of the manger scene. Apparently the camel in the picture was made by him. Ellie told him it looked like a cat with a long neck. Ha!

Every year someone reads the story of Jesus's birth from Luke. This year Ellie read it. It was the King James Version and she did so good!

Mack and Bo wrestling

After dinner, it was time to open gifts.

Bo is showing Mack how to wear his new helmet.

After lunch and gifts, this is what Mack did. This is all my son enjoys - mud, rain, dirt, etc. But, at least he had a great time!

We stayed overnight at the Bowers house. It was a fun evening, until Mack decided to stay up from 2:00am- 7:00am. I guess he was jealous that he didn't get to stay in the "barracks" room with all of his cousins. So, once everyone else was up and moving we headed to my parent's house for Christmas lunch with them on Christmas Eve.

Emma was really excited to be opening gifts again.

I had to jump in as the elf to help the confusion.

Stinker

"A TRAIN!!!"

Mama's mantel looked so pretty, I had to take a picture of it.

2 stinkers.

We had plans to attend a Christmas Eve service at St. Anne's (my parents church,) but Worth and I were so exhausted that we just headed back to Valdosta to finish Christmas Eve activities in our PJs.

Emma carefully placing the mild and cookies. The aluminum foil you see is in a box. As a child, my mom always made me leave a shoebox out for Santa to fill with candy. It's so exciting to see the tradition continue with my children.

It was a full moon on Christmas Eve.

The girls left out the reindeer food, so Santa wouldn't miss our house...

And, Santa came!!!!

Santa went a little crazy for Mack this year. It was Mack's first year of really having interests in certain boy toys.

They couldn't get into the living room fast enough!

Mack was a lttile overwhelmed at first.

Emma saw her Barbie house and said, "This is a GINORMOUS Barbie house!"

Ellie got a Barbie camper that she asked for about 2 years ago. Santa's elves could not get it made in time to get to her house that year, and Ellie has reminded us about it constantly since 2013. The elves pulled it together this year and the camper arrived.

A Kindle!!!

Riding on his tractor.

Going through their stockings.

Boy loves a digger.

I took the girls shopping and let them pick out their own gifts for their dad. Ellie picked out a lint brush/shoe horn kit, and Emma gave him a magnetic LED light. All useful gifts, I thought.

My gift to Worth. Can't tell in this picture, but I think there were tears.

It's a picture of the pond and meadow that was his grandfathers. My cousin's husband painted this by putting together several photographs and consulting with Worth's sister, Kate. I never went there, because it was sold before Worth and I were together, but I think he hit the nail on the head. The picture was beautiful and Worth immediately know what it was when he saw it. I didn't get it in time to have it framed, so that is on the agenda soon.

Not sure what Ellie is doing in this picture, but a group picture in their matching PJs!

December 26th we headed to my cousin Haley's house in Dacula, GA. Her and her husband were the hosts of the Chancey family Christmas this year. The theme was Christmas Vacation. Everyone was supposed to dress in their favorite character from that movie. Worth and I didn't participate only b/c we were driving up 4 hours in the car to get there and turning around and driving 4 hours home. We just dressed comfortably. But, it was a blast. Haley did an awesome job with decorations and there were some classic costumes.

Haley had movie quotes all over her house.

These were hanging in the guest bathroom.

Clark (AKA Mark Whitley) with his squirrel

Mark's son, my cousin Micah. He is 19, and I was very impressed that he was not too cool to play cousin Eddie.

Aunt Bethany with cousin Eddie.

The kids stayed here most of the time.

Another quote on the food table.

I just couldn't take Mark seriously with the squirrel pinned on his back.

Sweet Will.

Haley as Eddie's wife, Catherine, holding up the jello that someone made. (Using lucky charms instead of actual cat food)

Uncle Lewis and Amos

The karaoke machine was also a hit with the kids.

The men chatting

Mack and Ellie fighting over the spotlight.

They even had the RV parked in the driveway for the festivities. Hilarious!

Uncle Courtney. I think he was just going for the country Christmas look. Or maybe some form of Clark?

Emma and Molly Grace were inseparable.

Sweet little Rhett.

The Whitley crew

The entire family (those that were able to come)

Women working away.

One of the food tables.

Getting ready for the white elephant gift swap. The adults each brought a $20 or less gift - gag or otherwise, and the kids each brought a $5 or less gift.

We did a modified version of the white elephant with the kids. Will got whoopee cushions and was so excited!

Ellie got an animated hat.

Matt's contribution to the adult gift table.

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During the middle of the white elephant exchange. Mack took a roll on a bike down their front yard - which is a big hill. He was ok despite the face in this picture.