Mom's Garage Barber Shop

Dad was out of town and we were looking for something to do, so I thought, HAIR CUTS!!  Andrew is absolutely opposed to haircuts and has put up a pretty good fight for most of the ones in his life, but I think he was tired of being told his hair was getting long like a girl.  I will take them sometime before Easter for a proper cut, but for now, I think it looks okay - and we saved some $$!


Before - couldn't get a serious pic from him!



After- super handsome!

Andrew was about like a sheep dog!

And some people couldn't even tell I'd cut his hair!!

Valentine

We normally don't celebrate Valentine's Day because Bill is not a big "fan", but this year he surprised us all!  We had made him sugary sweet cookies and he came home with a Wii!!  I was in shock - the most that has ever been done before was maybe a candy bar and a card.  Now JT is addicted and he and Bill are having Mario Cart races every night after dinner.

 Ready for church

 Attempted heart shaped pancakes.

Cookies for Bill

The obsession has begun! 

No Thumb!

We no longer have a thumb sucker in our house!!   I had planned to wait until the summer to break the habit, but the dentist had suggested sooner rather than later so we got through the holidays and then started the process.  He would only do it in the bed as he was going for naps or night, but he also seemed to keep at it most of the sleepy time.  We made a chart and promised a reward if he could go 7 days without his thumb.  He did it!!  He sometimes has a hard time falling asleep if he's not super tired and this requires me to sit by him and make him be still, but that's not very often.  This boy loved his thumb, but he really did surprise me at how well he did.  By the way, he chose a Spiderman car toy that twists as his prize!

First day of EMMA classes

After one semester of kindergarten homeschooling, I felt like Joshua was ready to join the local EMMA group for a class.  He goes only on Fridays from 9-11 to "Kindergarten Activities".  This is basically like a crafts class with a learning twist.  It certainly takes some of the pressure off of me for that and he gets to interact with other home schooled children as well.  Maybe we'll add another class for 1st grade!

First day

Christmas

Christmas was a joyous time as always and was filled with way too much food and lots of time with the family we love.  The boys were especially excited this year and they were hard to contain!  The years top prizes for JT were a police officers uniform, a WWF wrestling ring (not sure where that fascination originated!), and police city Legos.  Andrew still had a hard time communicating the things he really wanted, but there was one thing for certain - the Playmobile dragon castle!

Family shot dressed up the Sunday before Christmas

Christmas morning in their pjs - photos went a little better this year!

Merry Christmas!!

Mountain Retreat

This year's family mountain retreat took us to Bat Cave, NC.  The house really was great (like all those in the past), but like many of the mountain places we visit, getting there involved "turning off the paved road"! We had beautiful, but cool weather for two days and enjoyed hiking around the property and eating too much.  On Sunday morning we were surprised with about 4 inches of wet snow and still snowing!  It wasn't supposed to happen until 6pm!!  We thought we were stuck because there was no way 2 of our vehicles could get out of the very steep driveway.  Luckily, the owners had a friend/neighbor that came up and cleared us a path out!  As Bill would say, it just makes the story better.

Paper Jamz guitar was a popular and entertaining gift!

Moon Dough for Andrew - this stuff is amazing!

The gang!

Our Sunday morning surprise!

First snow of winter

The first Saturday of December we visited Mimi and Papa T for the annual Christmas photo.  Can you imagine trying to get all these kids in a shot AND THEN adding in 6 more that couldn't make it???  The finished product was great as usual.

On our way home it started to snow and by the time we arrived we had a light dusting - our first snow of winter!