Beautiful day yesterday, when we celebrated our Smith Family Christmas.  It was our turn to host, so we were at our church.  We started with brunch, and as always, it was delicious.  Here is one of the tables of folks eating and visiting:  from left are Boom Mike, Meg, Jeff, and Gary.

Opening presents. I was sitting next to Gran, and Mia and Daniel (and Clara) came up to help her open the present they gave her. They were so excited, especially Mia, who found out that included in the bag was a jar of apple butter she’d helped her mom make 🙂

There was a group photo session with Gran, of course.  Here is our crew:  on the floor are June, Adam, and Mason.  Seated are Charlie, Gran, and me.  And standing are Clara, Jackson, Addie, Lee, Lindee, Andrew, & Mallory.  Jeff had gone to get his motorcycle, and Jenny was home sleeping before she had to go to work last night.  It was a great day.

Thanksgiving at our house again this year, and we had such a good time. We were missing some and added some, so it was just a special day. As always, we got a picture on our front porch. Sitting on the ground are Mason and June. Standing at the top are Addie’s co-worker and friend Evelyn, her husband Thomas, and their precious two-year-old Aidan.  Then from top to bottom on the left are Dennis, Cinnamon, Derek, and Allison.  We cannot remember the last time both Derek and Allison were here, and for sure cannot remember when Cinnamon didn’t have to run off early to get ready to open Kohls for Black Friday shopping.  In the middle from top down are Lee, Addie, Amy, and me – Andy was taking the picture.  On the right from the top down are Jeff, Mike, Meg, and Hope’s friend Sarah, who came home with her for the Thanksgiving weekend, since it was too far for her to go home to Iowa.  Then beside her are Laura – also from Bob Jones and Iowa – and Little Hope.  Such a good day.

I had a good helper!

Yesterday afternoon Clara and I made theme cookies for her family to eat while they watched “Frozen” last night to kick off their Thanksgiving week festivities 🙂

What a good day we had yesterday.  Jeff was working on his motorcycle, so Adam, Mason, and I headed to Mooresville, NC, where Clara was playing in her final soccer tournament of the year.  First game was at 9:15, and we missed a little bit of it, but the Clover Blue Eagles ended up winning 3-2.  The official tournament director got this picture of team afterwards, and so did I.  Clara is third from the end on the right hand side.

We had about three hours between games, and luckily enough, I’d seen on facebook that the Top Cats (the Panthers Cheerleaders) and Sir Purr were going to be at the AT&T store in Huntersville, about twenty miles away during that time. What a fun time that turned out to be. I’m sure this is true of all team mascots, but Sir Purr was SO good with the boys. Just such a good time.

That’s what Adam and Mason designated the area under the living room table when they were spending the night here together last night. 🙂

June and Mason went to the Superheroes party at the library a few weeks ago, and I just now got this picture from the librarian.  How cute is this?

What a good day yesterday was.  I had Thanksgiving lunch at Larne with June and Mason – and Addie and Lee – and got this picture of the two of them with Mrs. Martin, Mason’s teacher – who just happens to be June’s godmother 🙂

I also had lunch with Clara and Lindee at Bethany, and then before we picked up Mallory, Clara and I headed into town so she could help me fill my Samaritan’s Purse shoebox for Christmas. She did a really good job – both with choosing and with fitting everything in the box!

When I picked June and Mason up from school we headed to Bush N Vine, where I picked up Charlotte’s CSA box since she is out of town this week.  Winter strawberries – the best berries in the world.  I got this picture out front.  The sun was pretty bright in their eyes, if you can’t tell 🙂

That evening we had practice again for the upcoming children’s Christmas pageant. It was sheer chaos again, but we did get as far as practicing songs. I think it’s going to be really cute.