..But the greatest gift of all...

Is Jesus!

Merry Christmas (I know, I'm late..)

Like Grandmother, Like Grandaughter

This has been the scene at our house for nearly every waking moment over the last five days. Sylvia and her "mini-me". Sylvia headed home yesterday and left us with a very confused baby (why aren't I being held? HELLO???), I think she may've actually forgotten how to walk. At one point I overheard Sylvia telling Jermaine, "I could carry her around all day and wait on her and give her everything she wants forever". Funny thing about grandmoms, huh?

Welcome Wendy

Wendy has taken the blogger pledge and has decided to take over the Casey 5 blog, and update it reguarly, so check her out (link to the right).

Things That Float Around In My Head

Yesterday I almost hit a turkey on my way to work. I literally had to slow down and wait for it to cross the street in front of me, which provided some disturbing insight as to what a "real" turkey looks like. Ewwww! They are ug-ly! ...and slow. Maybe they aren't all slow, but this one was, it seemed to be limping, I am unsure if that's just how turkeys walk or if perhaps this particular one had some sort of medical impairment. In any event, the whole experience made me second guess my Christmas dinner menu.

Last week Avery asked me why I (being white) gave birth to brown kids - how could that happen? I explained that since I'm "Light" and Daddy is "Dark Brown", that we would have "Light Brown" kids. He looked at me seriously, let out a little "huh" and said, "So that's funny; that it matters what the dad is".

Amelle came to work with me on Monday, we had a great time together, she busied herself for four hours by stamping blank pieces of paper "CONFIDENTIAL" and sealing them up in envelopes.

Earlier this week Amelle asked me if Santa's reindeer were going to visit with our reindeer (the deer that live behind our house).

Jermaine gave the kids snowmobile rides in the grass yesterday. The grass that was an obsession this past summer has now been sacraficed to the new obsession.

This morning I woke up, knew I had to get out of the house at 7:30 to get to an off-site meeting at 9am. I got in the shower, got dressed and was ready to go at seven (so I thought). When I looked more closely at my watch, it was actually six o'clock!! AHHHGG!!

Only 4 more days until Christmas - I can't wait!!!!!

Out-takes

Since many of you think that the out-takes would've made better Christmas cards than the cutest of 50ish shots, here I am to prove you wrong:

This was me testing the camera:

Amaya's first smile of the night (I had to act like a cross between a chimpanzee and a tribe of excited Indians in order to acheive this smile). The others weren't so impressed.

Dad comes on the scene to get Amaya to smile; it worked, look how they're smiling at HIM (and not me - or the camera...except for Amelle, who looks like she's plugging her ears to tune out whatever her dad is doing to make the others smile.)

Finally, and perhaps worst of all - Amelle oversmiles to the point where it looks like she might be at the beginning stages of a transformation into some sort of angry creature. In looking at this picture, I feel fortunate that she didn't burst a blood vessel with that smile. Avery looks stunning. Amaya looks drunk.

Our Mom Has Lost It!

I'm sure that if the kids could blog, that is what they'd tell you! Here is proof...
 
Christmas cards suck. I know that's the wrong attitude, but every year there is a tremendous amount of pressure to get Christmas cards out to friends and family. This year, with us living far from many of our friends and family, the pressure seems to be double! I took about 50 pictures of the kids (who I had to bribe to "dress up") and not one of them came out "Christmas card worthy". We had a little fun with the wreaths after I had gone insane. 

Pray for Snow!

The boys executed their sales last week, I was so happy that the shopping phase was over, my husband was literally OBSESSED with buying the right snowmobile. At one point I looked squarely at him and said, "Jer, you've never even ridden a snowmobile before", his response: "Yes, but I know everything about them".

Meet the new additions to the family:




Today there was a message on the answering machine from my dear brother indicating that there was over a foot of snow is some little NH town and people were snowmobiling. I now see that the obsession didn't die with the purchase, it has just re-focused on finding snow and trails. Oh boy!

Fun with Dust

This morning the family played for hours in the 1" dusting of snow - oh the fun we had. Our neighbors must've thought we were nuts frolicking like we had 2 feet of the white powdery stuff! The kids sledded down the hill until they were on bare grass, we built a snowman, had a snowball fight, and rode Avery's ATV. The real Mainers must've been like, "they haven't seen anything yet!"

Amelle barrels down the hill - ya think she was having fun?!

Avery's turn!

Avery takes dad for a spin through the high grass!!

Jer and Avery engage in a snowball fight.

Houston, We Have Snow!

It's snowing in Maine! Whooowhooo! Shaun called this morning at 7:30am to inform us that it was snowing in Boston and that the snowmobile prices just went up. Long story short, the boys spent the weekend obsessing over snowmobiles. One local dealer has a special that if you buy a snowmobile this week and it snows 6" on Christmas then they'll give you that snowmobile for free. Needless to say the boys are intrigued.

On a similar, but unrelated note, here are pictures from last week when we went to cut down our Christmas trees. If the Christmas tree farm looks like its missing something, it is ... SNOW!!!

Our kids prove though, that you don't need snow to sled and have fun!