Just finishing up downloading pictures, and here are a couple more from our fun day yesterday. Adam was a big hit doing some breakdancing for us during the talent show. Unfortunately, it’s hard to get a really good still picture of breakdancing 🙂

We sure were missing Lesley all day – it’s the first time she’s missed our family Christmas.  Here is the rest of Boo’s family in their picture with Gran.

Elise did all the shopping and wrapping for all the kids this year, as well as hosting the entire shebang, and the spy kit she got Little Hope was a huge hit – not just with her, but with all the kids.  Here she is checking it out, with help from Clara and Mia :-).  Good, good times.

What a great, great day we had today at our Christmas with my family.  We held it at Woodland United Methodist, Boo and Andrew’s church, in Rock Hill, as we have for the past several years.  One real highlight from this year was that Zollie brought some of the pottery he has been making to share with us.  We were all so excited and, frankly, a little stunned.  We knew he and Renee had been taking classes, but could not believe how beautiful the work was that he had done.  SO exciting!

We enjoyed our annual talent show.  Here is Sherri’s youngest granddaughter Zoee singing for an adoring crowd 🙂

One tradition we don’t stray from much is taking different family group pictures with momma.  Here are Meg, Mike, and Hope with Gran.  It was just a special, special day.

Lesley told us that the TV show The Profit came and filmed at their company.  I had never even heard of the show before then, but looked it up, and have been watching it- and recording it –  every week, watching for Betty’s Pie Whole, the place where LP works outside San Diego.  After much confusion, we found out it was on last week.  Luckily I was recording them all, so last night Boo came over & we watched that episode, and sure enough, there was LP in one quick clip – we paused the show to get a picture!  That’s her on the far right in this picture, in the black t-shirt and apron.  We were pretty fired up, needless to say!

What a great time we had yesterday. I think we ended up with 21 here for a delicious lunch. Amy & I agreed that we may say this every year, but really, all of the food was so, so good this year. Here is one of the tables: Cinnamon, Derek, Dennis, Allison, & Lee.

Traditional group photo on the front steps:  front row is June, me, Clara, Mallory, and Little Hope.  Second row:  Mason, Jeff, Amy, Lindee.  Third row:  Lee, Meg, Allison, Derek.  Fourth row:  Mike, Cinnamon, Dennis, Jackson.  Standing:  Evelyn, a co-worker of Addie’s, Addie, and Evelyn’s husband Thomas holding baby Aiden.  Just a special, special day.

Wednesday schools were out to kick off Thanksgiving Break, and all six of the grandbabes were here to spend the day. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, and they spent most of it outside, but some of them wanted some crochet lessons. A couple of them really liked it, especially Mallory and Adam. Periodically I would look outside, and all the kids would be out playing ball or running around in the woods, and Adam and/or Mal would be sitting in the chairs on the porch, crocheting away. :-). Here is Adam hard at work.

When Andrew came to pick up the boys he helped Jeff bring the Foosball table up from the basement to put in the toy room.  To say it was a hit is putting it very, very mildly.  We’d had if since our kids were at home, and of course it hadn’t gotten any use in a long, long time.  I don’t think we ever saw any of the kids much after that – they LOVED it.  It was a good, good day.

We had a good afternoon Tuesday after I picked Mallory and Clara up from school. This week Lindee and Jackson are in West Palm Beach on vacation, celebrating her 40th birthday and their 15th anniversary this past summer, so the girls were here for overnight. It had been career day at their school, so I got to see them dressed up. Here is Mallory sporting her look as a college history professor :-

Since it was the girls’ last day of school before Thanksgiving vacation started, we celebrated by making a special snack supper.  Here is Mallory spreading the ham slices to make ham rollups.  We had those, raw veggies and dip, cheese and crackers, and honey roasted sunflower seeds.  Clara said She could get used to those kind of meals :-).  It was a good day.

Meg had told me earlier in the month that she had another birthday present for me, but she needed to wait until Hope was with her to give it to me. I didn’t understand, but I thought, OK. So Sunday afternoon after the Panthers game the two of them came over & gave it to me. Obviously I am still getting over the flu in this picture, but I was SO excited/pleased/touched when I opened it.

Back in the spring Hope came over several times to take pictures in our woods for her photography class.  She always tried to work it out to be here on days when Mallory and Clara were, too.  This is a picture that Mallory actually took with Hope’s camera, of Hope carrying Clara up our driveway.  She had a print made with the quote from I Corinthians 13 on it.  Needless to say, I absolutely love it.  What a great way to kick off Thanksgiving week.

Yesterday was thanksgiving lunch at the elementary schools in town, and we headed out to Bethany to eat TWO lunches. The first was at 10:35 AM (!) with Clara. Lindee, Emma, Jeff, & I were all there to eat with her – she had quite the fan club 🙂

Then about an hour later we had a second lunch with Mallory – her last one, because next year she’ll move to middle school, and I don’t think the parents and grandparents come to eat with the kids there :-(.  Here she is with her BFF’s, Ashley and Karis.  I am so hoping that that’s something that WON’T change in middle school – how close these buddies are, and have been really almost the entire time they’ve been in school.  Such cuties.

Clara obviously worked hard making her Papa, our favorite pirate lover, a special flag for his birthday present 🙂