December happenings

Chippy is back!  He made his appearance as soon as the Christmas tree was decorated.  He baked us some cookies as a welcome back treat.  He's been flying around, playing with our toys and reporting to Santa.

These two can be so cute sometimes and the next minute they are screaming at eachother.  The joys of siblings!  Here was one of their nice moments as Scarlett is so nicely helping her eat Pixie Sticks.  

Scarlett is 8!

Hard to believe my big girl is 8!  We celebrated with family in Callaway.  On her actual birthday, I took Panera to school to eat lunch with her and then joined her class for cookies.  

When she got home from school, we opened presents.  She got her own Kindle paperwhite.  She was super thrilled that now she can read in the dark!

Her birthday dinner of choice this year was hamburgers, steak fries and salad with chocolate cake for dessert.

On Saturday we invited our friends Christian and Sophia over to make gingerbread houses.  The kids had a blast making a mess, err..beautiful masterpiece!

Thanksgiving in Atlanta

The girls and I spent the week of Thanksgiving hopping across the state of Georgia!  

We started at Nomie's house

Then we jumped to see Gigi and Donk's new house in Acworth.  

Elle made a new best friend in Kittykrandal.

We explored the playground, the beach, the lake and downtown (where we had an awesome New Orleans meal!)

Next we drove to Conyers and met up with Grammie where we took a ride down to her lake house.  Despite the chilly evening, the girls were dying to go on a boat ride!

We returned to Conyers the next day to see lots of family and friends.  

I was thankful to squeeze in a quick visit with Sarah and Courtney (we forgot to take pictures of us!)

The girls made their contribution to Thanksgiving dinner with chocolate pretzels.

Elle made ANOTHER new friend!  Unfortunately for Coco the cat, she's a bit too old and slow to escape!

We had a wonderful gathering of family and some great food at Colin and Morgan's new house in Atlanta.

Even Abbie got to join in on the fun!

After dinner, we drove down to Callaway Gardens.  We had beautiful weather, so we took a hike around the lake and through the woods to the chapel.  Then we visited the butterflies.  We then headed into the little old town section for lunch and a little shopping.  

That evening we met up with lots of family to celebrate Scarlett's 8th birthday.  We had dinner at the country store, a birthday tailgate, then saw the lights on the Jolly Trolley and enjoyed the Christmas village.