All things Christmas

Hang in there with my as I have a lot of pictures to post. We just did so many fun things during our 2 week break, I could not decide what to post, so I will do a little bit of everything. After we left skiing in Gatlinburg, we drove to my parents in SC. We always spend Christmas we them and have many fun traditions.

Here are the kids (Carsyn in this pic) making reindeer food on Christmas Eve.

Carsyn and my mom on Christmas morning with their new jammies on. We open one gift on Christmas Eve and that is always new warm jam jams as we call them in or house.
Brenna enjoying some new people for her dollhouse from Papa and Grammie

Aidan and some new legos.
Carsyn and her gift from Papa and Grammie. Her very own chair! (I want one!)
One of the gift we got my parents from the kids.
Our annual sitting by the tree pics. Carsyn being cheesy in her new chair.
Aidan Bradley

Aidan and Daddy

My girlsBrenna Caroline
My 3 babies

The girls of the house including my parents dog Allie.
Another yearly tradition of ice skating. Carsyn hopes next year she will be big enough. As for now, she will get a ride with Grammie.

Uncle Drew and Brenna
Aidan and Daddy
Then off to bowling. I don't know why we hadn't done this before with the whole fam. We had a BLAST!
No one said you can't get dressed up to go bowling!
The first of the week we drove up to Chattanooga to meet our new niece who was in from California. Brynlee Ann is our newest addition and her cousins, Aunt and Uncle are so in love with her. We wish we lived closer. We went to the Tennessee Aquarium where she quickly decided to take a nap in her Daddy's arms.
Carsyn looking at the fish.
After waking up she is was all smiles!

Happy New Year 2010 to everyone!

Adventures in snow and skiing

We just returned from our fun filled adventures in the snow and to my parents for Christmas. This was the children's only gift for Christmas from Brad and I and they were told that Santa is only filling there stockings. Believe it or not, they were totally fine with that, even on Christmas morning, they were excited just for those gifts. Their papa, grammie and Uncle Drew had gifts for them as well. One reason for all this...do I really want more stuff in my house? Ummm NO! Do they really need more stuff in our house? Ummm NO!

This time spent as a family was priceless!

So the adventure began the Monday before Christmas as we were finishing up a basketball tournament in North Georgia. (which btw, NFHS girls WON..HORRAY!) We left around 8:30 pm and the drive was going to take 2 hours to Gatlinburg, TN. We had to drive straight through the Great Smokey National Park (30 miles) and it wasn't until we got 2 miles into the park that we noticed large gates in front of us. Yes, that's right it was closed due to snow and ice. The snow had started to appear on the sides of the road about 1/2 earlier, but nothing extreme. So we had to take a detour. The only way...east to Ashville. You are probably thinking no big deal....well once we hit Maggie Valley, NC there was at least 3 feet of snow and we are dealing we switchbacks on either side of the town. The great idea would be then to jump on I-40 and head west towards Knoxville, but we already knew between Ashville and Knoxville the interstate is closed due to a rockslide. Thank goodness the kids were now sleeping! So more back roads we had to take. Thanks to a good old fashion map (gps' don't come in handy in these times) we finally arrived at 3:30 am. That is a 105 mile detour (over 50 miles we were on snow covered switchbacks at did not go over 25 miles/hour) and 7 hour drive instead of a 2 hour drive. Our hotel never looked so wonderful!

Here is everyone in the gondola heading from downtown Gatlinburg to the ski resort.

Looking at the roads below.The only other thing that put a kink in our trip was that I got really sick. I mean what mom has time to get sick? I surely don't! I haven't been sick like this in 6 years. No toilet visits thank goodness, but just about everything else. This is the only picture of me before I got sick. While I was the only one who had my own skis and thrilled to death that I finally got to ski since it had been 10 years...of course it had to be me to get sick! A week later, the antibiotics are finally making me feel better.
While the kids were in ski school, Carsyn took a nap..outside. It was beautiful weather in the mid 50's and sunny and plenty of snow to go around.
Enjoying a snowball fight.
This ski school was the best. Aidan and Brenna were in a class with 4 other kids and they did all kinds of activities for them to get use to the boots and than the skis. By the time ski school was done, they were ready head out on the slopes.
Only thing they really worked on was unhooking and hooking up your skis. Aidan and Bren were pros by the end. Here is Aidan getting ready to head up the chair lift for the first time.
Aidan is on the left and Brad on the right.

He had such great control and I can't even count how many times we went up and down these slopes. He might be able to beat me next time. ;)
We did a bit more practicing with Brenna before Brad took her down the big slopes. We thought she might be a little bit scared or hesitant, but she was not. I felt like death by the time Brad took her on the chair lift and she went down the same mountain Aidan did by the end of the day. Horray for Brenna! (For those of you wondering (MOM), yes she did have gloves, just not in these pictures)
A great snowplow or as they called it, their "pizza slice."
Downtown Gatlinburg on our way back from Hardrock Cafe.
Enjoying some pool time at our hotel.
On our way to my parents in South Carolina, the road through the national forest was finally open. Here is one of the pull off spots. Absolutely beautiful!
To give you an idea of the mounds of snow on the road. There was snow all the way until Spartenburg, SC.

So many wonderful memories! This might have become a yearly tradition without all the detours and sickiness.

We hope you all had a wonderful holiday time spending it with those you love celebrating the birth or our Savior!

Santa and all things football

This is as close as Carsyn would come to Santa. She is hiding behind Grammie's legs in hopes that the candy canes they were giving away would just appear in her hands.

We had breakfast with Santa at Aidan's school and then got to sit on his lap. Brenna was all smiles this year.

Aidan's birthday cake that my mom and dad made. This kid is not joking about his love of football!

We took the kids on the train down to the Georgia dome to watch the highschool football finals. Gainesville vs. Peach Co.

Both girls fell asleep!

Once we got off the train and into the car, they all fell asleep.

So I am going to break from football and show you some of Brenna's dance class. I guess a good football player takes dance too?

Last but not least, Aidan's class wrote 2 Christmas skits and invited all the families to come in with breakfast on Thursday morning and enjoy the plays. They did a great job. What am I feeding my son? He is a huge kindergartner! O well. Guess that makes for a good football player!

Have a wonderful Christmas! We are off on a family ski vacation and than to my parents for Christmas. See you when we get home!

Interview with a 6 year old

Mommy-What is your favorite color?
Aidan-Red, purple and orange
Mommy-Why those colors?
Aidan-Purple is the color of daddy's school and I just liked red and orange for a long time.
Mommy-What is your favorite food?
Aidan-Mommy's mac and cheese with hotdogs in it.
Mommy-What is a food that you dislike?
Aidan-Brown pears and red peppers
Mommy-(who would want to eat brown pears?)
Mommy-What do you want to be when you grow up?
Aidan-In college? I want to play football in college.
Mommy-What college do you want to go to?
Aidan-Georgia

Mommy-What about when you are mommy and daddy's age?
Aidan-A coach, coaching football.
Mommy-Where?
Aidan-In Detroit
Mommy-(What? Where in the world did he get that?)
Mommy-First you have to finish school. Do you like school?
Aidan-yes
mommy-What do you like about school?
Aidan-Math, but I do love recess.
Mommy- So you want to be a football coach. Does that mean you want to be a teacher as well?
Aidan-No
Mommy-What is your favorite thing to do when you are at home and not playing football?
Aidan-Play my new games like Operation and play with my football field characters.
Mommy-If you could take a trip anywhere, where would it be?

Aidan- Utah to go skiing Mommy-(he has got skiing on the brain because we leave in 3 days to go skiing for their Christmas gift.)

Mommy-What is your favorite thing to do with your sisters?
Aidan-Play baby Joy.
Mommy-(don't ask...long story)
Mommy-Tell me about Upstreet. Who is your small group leader? What is your favorite thing to do in Upsteet? What do you learn about?
Aidan- Cailen is my small group leader. The word search is my favorite part and we learn about Jesus and that he wants to be our friend.

We LOVE this boy! He makes us smile everyday! Hope he made you smile as you read this!