Sherri got all of the men these scalp massagers.  They were a huge hit with everyone – I think Jeff’s feels pretty good, actually.  Here is Adam being silly with one.

During the talent sharing portion of the afternoon, Clara brought in her soccer ball to show off some of her skills. She did a good job!

Yesterday we celebrated our extended family Christmas. As always, it was just a great, great day. We were missing four of our group – Jenny, who had to work; Lesley and Liz, who are both on the west coast; and Jade. One tradition of our day is taking various group pictures with Granny. Different families, different generations, that sort of thing. Here are Lindee & Jackson, Mallory, and Clara, having their turn.

And Gran with her grandchildren:  front row are Josh, Nathan, Gran, and Amber.  Back row are Cooper, Olivia, Greg, Elise, Addie, Lindee, Andrew, and Little Hope

We also celebrated with a shower for Cooper and Rachel, who will be getting married in April.  Here they are starting to open their gifts.  Don’t they look so happy?

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving, when four of the six grand ones were here, we tried our hand at making a checkerboard cake.  We had no reason to believe it would turn out at all – before we put icing on it, we christened it The Dr. Seuss Cake.  It was crazy looking.  But after caulking it together with icing – and it took a batch of homemade icing and TWO cans of store bought frosting, it was quite the hit when we took it to the Smith Family Christmas party on Saturday

Counting my blessings…

Four of the six grandbabes were here Wednesday – their first day of Thanksgiving break – and we tried our hand at making a checkerboard cake for dessert for Thursday.  Here is Charlie working on his layer, with Mason waiting his turn.

When I picked the girls up from school Tuesday, CMS student council members had just gotten their t-shirts

Last Sunday we celebrated Jeff’s birthday with lunch here after church.  All the kids and grands came, and Charlie brought his bike to show us his new number plate, which even includes his name now that he’s riding for a team.  Proud grandparents!

Last Thursday I went out to Bethany to eat Thanksgiving lunch with Clara.  The turkey especially was delicious – yum!  The kids were so cute.  They all had on their class shirts – the third grade is orange this year.  I love the emblem that is on the front.  Imagine all the people that have gone through school at Bethany – including Clara’s dad, and I guess her Pawpaw :-).  I’ll need to verify that with Lindee.

Love this picture of the two of them together.

It’s been over a week since I downloaded any pictures, so am trying to do a little catching up here on my day off.  Last week for Jeff’s birthday I got all the fixings and we had banana splits to celebrate, so when the kids got here after school the next day, we had those – to continue the celebration

Then that evening was practice during BIG for the upcoming Christmas pageant. Here are the kids and Miss Meg as we got to the portion of the program that is to take place in the sanctuary. That’s June, sort of in the middle of the picture, next to Eva Kimrey with her hand in the air, and you can just see most of Mason on the other side of Meg, against the wall.