December

Our Decembers are always so busy, but this year we've had an unusually busier December. I have something almost every. single. day. We, like last year have been working on our advent calendar. This year we have wrapped our presents, mailed our Christmas cards, decorated cookies, taped quarters to gum ball machines, taped money on a vending machine, wrote a note to a friend.... This year Micah chose his relative from his class. I think it's his second cousin, anyway, he likes her. I have been SO slacking with pics this year, but his card was really sweet. On the day that he was supposed to take A candy cane to school, he insisted on taking the WHOLE box. He made notes for every single one, and delivered them all. He has such a kind heart. On the day that he was supposed to take an apple to his teacher, I figured he'd take one to his para-pro too. I bought a bag. He took 8! Again, complete with notes that said "(teacher's name), You are the BEST! Love, Micah" So far his teachers are all loving him and his sweetness. He was SUPER excited to bump into his principal at Mexican last week. She knows him by name. To me that's impressive, I am sure I was in the 4th or 5th grade before my principal knew who I was! The PE teacher told me "Micah is the principal's friend. And you WANT to be her friend." :) 

When Micah began school I signed a paper that said I would volunteer at least one hour during the school year. I have already met my goal, but decided that I should help with the Christmas shop, since No one else had signed up.... I felt bad. I went on Friday, but thankfully there were 3 other ladies there with me, so it wasn't too bad after all. The shop was PITIFUL. They said it had really been picked over since Monday, but when your 3 choices for your mom under $4 are plastic bracelets, toe rings, or temp. tattoos..... It isn't good. LOL I saw some really sweet kids come through while I was there. One boy came with $34 I could not imagine he would ever spend it all, but he did! Another fun thing was that the music teacher came in with his class and they sang 3 songs and he played his trumpet. The kids LOVED that!

When I finished in the shop, I headed to Micah's class. I bought supplies for reindeer hats. We made them quickly because they had to story time in the library. Of course I had to get a quick pic. They turned out really sweet.

Thankful

I am SO thankful for the wonderful weather that we've been having. I have only been cold a handful of times. I DREAD winter. I love that most of this week will be in the 60s-70s. On Saturday Stacy had to work. I thought it would be so fun to go to the park and try to take some fall pics in the morning. I asked Laura if she'd like to go. Come to find out Jerms was out of town. She said that she'd go. We headed to Atl. I remember getting some really sweet pictures a couple of years ago and wanted to go back and try again. We got some sweet ones, but before we knew it, it was SO hot. It's funny to think that the first week of December, the same day of the Christmas parade, we cranked up the air on the way home. I mean, I seriously had to put shorts on today. No

complaints here :) 

The rest of the week

We left for our trip on Saturday night, returned on Tuesday afternoon. Wednesday, Stacy worked. Wednesday was a long rough day. Thankfully it was broken up a little bit when Ms. Cindy came to visit. The problem was while we were waiting on Ms. Cindy, Micah decided that he needed to trim my gardenia bush :( 

On Thanksgiving day Micah was excited to leave early with Stacy and help do some work in the country before lunch. Patton and I stayed home and did some cooking, some cleaning, and some playing. We rode to the country with Nut and Jerms and got there right as they were getting ready to eat. 
I was VERY surprised to see that Lacey's boyfriend and Stacy were Thanksgiving day twins! It was so crazy! I caught myself talking to Joel like he Stacy several times. Thank goodness I didn't do anything other than talk! How funny are they!?!?

Not very many people came to the lunch this year, but Micah was excited that Paige came so that he could have someone to play with. 

After lunch Paw-Paw wanted to go on a Gator ride. I decided not to go, Thank goodness, they were gone FOREVER. Plus, I was really scared to ride with Paw-Paw driving! They found several beaver dams in the creek and searched and searched for clover.

We spent the majority of the afternoon enjoy our company and the beautiful day before heading home for a restful night in preparation for Black Friday.

Because Mama had just watched our boys for several days I didn't plan to ask her to watch them while we shopped on Black Friday. We just played it by ear. And they ended up going shopping with us.... But way later than normal. Stacy ended up going out early searching for a cheap laptop, he was successful. The rest of us slept and headed out around 6 Friday morning. Patton was fine, Micah did not enjoy going to Kohl's but was looking forward to Waffle House. AS long as Stacy and I have BF shopped together, it's been our breakfast stop. I'm pretty sure, Micah had only been once before Friday. He chose a waffle and LOVED it, but was still not in the happiest of moods, can you tell?

After breakfast, we headed to the mall. Micah was more excited about the mall than Kohl's. After watching the Thanksgiving parade, he thought he should write a note to the Macy's employees thanking them for doing the parade. Micah has such a sweet heart.... He really does. He wanted to deliver his not to Macy's real bad. I let him. 

We waited in line for over 5 minutes. When we finally got to the register the young girl wouldn't even read the note. She kept asking if it was a letter to Santa. Finally I asked MIcah to read the note to her (still not sure she could even read herself) He did. She simply said thank you, and we left. I am SURE that if we had gone to a sweet old lady, it would have made her day, instead that's what we ended up with. Oh well.....
We finished shopping for everyone other than 3 people. I will be completely finished this week, with the exception of homemade gifts.

We came home early in the afternoon, decorated the tree, and relaxed. What a fun filled, busy, busy week.

Last Day

After another wonderful night of sleep we got up, ate, and headed over to The Grove Park Inn for the viewing of the gingerbread houses from the Gingerbread House Competition. I have watched the judging of these before on tv and was SO Excited to learn that I could view them in person.... on the first day of viewing at that. I'm sure that after a couple of weeks in, they start looking pitiful.... It has to be all edible after all. The Grove Park Inn was so beautiful. I LOVED all of the stones.

I thought we'd easily spend an hour to two hours looking at everything, but we actually moved through very quickly. We sure saw some neat looking things.


Here is the Grand Prize Winner. Amazing huh?!

 

We are SO thankful to have sweet Mama watch our boys while we were gone. She was worn out by the time we returned. We had a Great time but realized very quickly it was not a trip that children would enjoy at all. Thank You! Thank you Mama!

Getaway Day #2

We were able to sleep so peacefully in our room in the Vanderbilt Executive Tower :) 8:00 is what time we got up! That is unheard of in our house! A late morning is a 7:00 morning. 8:00 was a DREAM. Ahhhhh refreshing. We took out time getting ready and after eating breakfast we headed to The Biltmore House. It was Beautiful. It was HUGE, I was so excited to tour it. Can you tell?!

After a few pictures outside, we headed inside to tour the house. It was amazing. Although I couldn't take any pictures of the inside it was one of the most beautiful homes I've ever seen. It took about 2 hours to tour the inside, then we headed outside. The grounds were just as amazing. There were 8000 acres total. We enjoyed the garden, the conservatory, and even found ourselves in the woodland trail. We did our fair share of walking. Even though we had not planned to, we ended up going on quite a hike. The land was beautiful. We had a great time. 

 

By the time we finally made it back to the house we were exhausted, but far from finished. We headed to Antler Hill Village where we did a wine tasting which was included in the price.... Stacy did NOT like any that we tried. I mean, he gagged out loud! LOL It was very memorable to say the least. We took a look at the barn, animals, a couple of shops before leaving to go eat. We ended up spending just over 7 hours at the Estate and had a Wonderful day. It didn't take either of us long before we passed out that night.