Our Christmas

We had our Christmas on Christmas Eve. That morning I went to work since we were gonna be gone that week. After I got home from work, we just kind of hung out and had cheese & crackers as an appetizer. Some people played games :)

Opening presents

Evan got an Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine from David. Carla & I got t-shirts. Mine was blue and Carla's was orange.

My favorite present of all (although it's not even mine). I'm not sure why I said "Just so you know" so many times...

Us kids all pitched in and gave Mom the blanket. The picture is the same one that we used on our Christmas card.

My gifts

Memorial Day Parade

On Memorial Day (I know...it was a month ago), we went to watch the Ellington parade. It was pretty good, but then something happened and the Fire Department people all turned around and we never saw them. Here's a few pictures.

Ellington High School marching band

I have no clue who this girl is, but I love how the picture turned out!

Tori marching with the Ellington Ambulance

Happy New Year!

Wishing everyone a safe and happy new year! Can't believe that it's 2012 already! Time sure does fly :)

Here's some pics from Christmas Day at U. Doug and A. Jane's.

We played a game where we split into teams and each team had a brown bag with pieces of food wrapped in aluminum foil. Each person took a turn going up to the counter, grabbing a piece, unwrapped it, and then had to eat it. 

I had a slice of red onion. It was disgusting!!! (if you can't tell)

Jesse also got a red onion.

Laura was so excited about what she got to eat! ;)

This time, I got something good!

After that, we played the game where you have a couple of presents in the circle and then someone reads a story that includes lots of lefts and rights. Whoever has the present in their hand when the story is done, gets the present.

A. Dawn and Rebekah

Nice Andy!

The reader

Cute U. Doug!

Typical Andy ;)

Lanae had my camera and was taking pictures. Sam saw her and put his hand on Evan's cheek and said "Evan, smile at the camera." :)

Our Family Christmas

We had our family Christmas Saturday morning. We had our Christmas breakfast, creamed eggs on toast for a "brunch". Then after we opened our gifts. 

No worries, this is not a real gun :) Mom saw this at Peebles. It is a lighter for the grill or candles (etc.) that looks like a gun.

Mom and all her gifts. How long do you think it will take for that bag of Jelly Belly's to be gone?? ;)

David with his new tie and me with my new shirt.

David got all us kids a shirt. They are a nice bright orange. Can't miss us now :)

Gerber Christmas

Well, our Gerber Christmas was a success! A night filled with food, family, and fun! :) 

Here's our food table (without the food)

Snowflakes that I saw on Amanda's blog. These are awesome and sooo easy to make!

The one in the middle is bigger. I used an 8 1/2 in. square piece of paper for each section (there are 6 sections per snowflake). The smaller ones are a 6 1/2 in. square.

The thing on the left Evan made at school. On the right are the sparkly pinecones.

Instead of everyone exchanging names, we do a Yankee Swap. Everyone except the younger kids are included. This is Andy and his hat thingy.

Grandpa getting a picture of Andy

A. Dawn had forgotten to bring a gift, so she wrapped up our family picture from the front windowsill.

Evan gave Sam a John Deere flashlight tractor. 

After, we played charades using Pictionary cards.

Christmas is here already??

Christmas sure has snuck up pretty fast!

Tonight is the Gerber Christmas at our house. So we are cleaning and cooking the day away!! :) 

A week ago or so, we went to Carla's Christmas chorus concert (betcha can't say that 5 times fast ;)) It was 4-6 grade. Fourth grade sang first and then the fifth and sixth grades sang together.

Here's some pics and a video. 

Bella K

Sorry, this picture is a little blurry, my camera doesn't have that great of a zoom. I need to get another lens.

This is Colin G

This is just the 5th and 6th grade chorus.

This is everyone, they sang a song together.

For the video you have to go here because blogger wasn't uploading it.

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving, my family went to U. Jeff & A. Carole's.

And surprisingly I didn't take ANY pictures!! Mom took two. One is awful and the other one is great :)

Here is the awful one

Mom was trying to take the picture but the camera wasn't working. So I tried to figure out why it wasn't working and then all of a sudden worked! And that is what we got :)

This one is a lot better!!! 

What do ya know...Josie looks good in both of them :)

Mom thought I should get an updated picture of Josie and I for my background on my computer. Cause I have a bunch of pictures together as my background. 

Here is the old one. It's from our first trip to Florida in 2009.

This is my background

I like it this way because I can have more than one picture as my background and don't have to keep changing it. The only thing I change is when I get a new picture of myself and someone that is already on it. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving!

Don't eat too much :)
I can't wait for the turkey, mashed potatoes, and stuffing! yum yum

Here's a good video for the Thanksgiving cooks to watch:

:)

Fourth of July Parade

Monday after the Grimms left, we went to a Fourth of July Parade in Massachusetts. This parade is about 2 hours long and is a good parade.

Three things that I like about the parade...

This man rides the unicycle the whole parade. 

These shriners are awesome!

These are cool!

This year there was a whole crew of us up there.

And a random picture of my sister and I...

We took this picture and then put it as my brother's background on his computer. It didn't look that good because it kept the length but squished the height, so we looked short and fat...not cute!

David is moving to Illinois to go to veterinarian school at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign...he leaves tomorrow. (hence the Illinois t-shirts:)