Christmas Update and End of the 2011

Whew!!  December was a blast, but it is kind of a blur.  It came in with a bang and left with a bang.  So long 2011!  I just got used to writing 2011 a month ago!  With Christmas being on a Sunday we are kind of limited with our ability to travel.  Thank goodness we have understanding families.  Our Christmas celebrations started the week before Christmas with a celebration at Fred's grandparents house in Jackson.  We did an up and back that Saturday.  The big boys didn't get out of school until Wednesday, but once they were out of school the party began!!  Mimi, Tee, Mun and Janice all came here Saturday to spend the night.  We had a delicious steak dinner, opened some presents and then called it a night. 

Remember Jack asking for Doritos for Christmas??  Well, my Aunt Leeta gave him three bags.  Upon opening the present with the three bags Jack abandoned all present opening and commenced eating Doritos.  I have not laughed that long in a while!!


My mom takes the boys shopping every Christmas so they can buy presents for us and for each other.  Good idea, right?!?  Jack gave Fred Duct tape and he gave me Chap Stick.  He could not have been more excited to see us open our presents!!  It was priceless!!

Clayton got me kitchen shears because he told my mom I am ALWAYS in the kitchen.  Imagine that!!
 

Breakfast preparation Christmas morning

The whole crew...





Sunday morning (Christmas!) the boys got up (at 2 am, 4 am and ) at 6:00 a.m.  We opened presents, ate a wonderful breakfast, and headed to church.  After church we ate lunch and Janice had the wonderful idea to help put up our Christmas decorations while they were all here.  What a great idea!! 


Monday morning we loaded up for the beach to meet up with these people:

 Yes, that is the entire Shackelford crew...including 2 week old Eli and Grandma Beulah and Papa Ray!  We stayed in a beach house in Fort Morgan, Alabama for a week and it was delightful!!  We shopped, ate, visited the fort, ate, played on the beach, ate, went to the Track and ate!  (We won't discuss weight gains over the week!)  Sunday (New Year's Day) when we rolled out to head home we stopped in Fairhope, Alabama to go to church.  When we got there I thought I smelled a funny smell, but we just figured it was something in the area.  Well, about 30 minutes down the road we realized something was terribly wrong with our car.  I won't go into all the details, but God took care of us every step of the way!  We ended up spending the night in Saraland, Alabama and got back to Jackson Monday night (with the car not totally fixed, but good enough to make it home).  We stayed in Jackson since I had to teach Tuesday and someone was scheduled to fix our car.
Lucky for us Elizabeth went on the trip so we got a few priceless pictures!!

 How much fun is this picture below?!?  I love everything about it!  I think it will make me smile for years to come!

For the new year I typically don't make resolutions.  While this is not a resolution I am doing two things:  keeping up with how many loads of laundry I do in a year and counting to see how many solicitations I receive from Charter Communications.  (I currently have Dish Network and AT&T.  I am also not remotely interested in switching, but they must think I am.)
When I told Fred what I was doing he replied by saying, "Well, in 2012 I'm planning to tell people about the Lord."  Snarf.  Snarf.  There's one in every crowd!  Praise be to the Lord for giving us another year to serve him!  We look forward to 2012 and all it holds!