A visit with Santa

We went to visit Santa tonight. The girls remember this from past years and have been asking continually when we're going to Santa's "friend's" house. (Kenzie knows Santa lives at the North Pole, so this is just his friend's house). This guy does a great job! He tells them what time he'll be at their house Christmas Eve night, asks what they want (then tells them how many of that item he has left), then tells them he has a few extra surprise gifts & asks if it's OK for him to bring those as well, and lastly lets them know how many chocolate chip cookies we need to leave out & to leave skim milk as well. Pretty impressive, and of course the girls are hooked :)






Camden was impressed with the beard (not the least bit scared) and wanted to get a fistful of it!

Trimming the tree

We finally got our tree up last night, and the girls helped decorate again this year. I'm getting better each year at not worrying about where the ornaments go...as long as the girls are happy with it, I don't need to worry about it looking just right :)

Here are the girls with some of the ornaments. They got so excited over EVERY one they put on the tree!



Camden was happy just to play next to the tub that had leftover ribbon in it:



For some reason all of a sudden Mackenzie got mad about something, and boy did she get mad!



When we were all done, we put our train under the tree, and Camden wanted so bad to get his hands on it!! I literally had to hold him back. Today we actually put batteries in it & ran it around the tree & it was so fun to watch him get so excited over it & just sit & watch it. Eventually he knocked it off the track, but he actually likes to crawl after it & just watch it most of the time.

Christmas concert

Mackenzie had her 1st Christmas concert for school last night. It was just my kind of concert - short & sweet! :)

Unfortunately, Tom didn't really get any good pictures of Mackenzie on stage during the concert, but here's one of Mackenzie & her friend Nick afterwards:



Then, as I was looking through the pictures after I downloaded them, I came across this picture from last night as well, which I just had to share because it is "so Jenna" and I burst out laughing when I saw it.

Thanksgiving

I'm a little late with this, but thought I'd post a couple pictures from Thanksgiving. We went to NY to be with my family this year.

One day my brother-in-law took a bunch of us (Tom, myself, and 4 kids) on a gator ride. My dad owns a 6X4 gator (kinda like a 4-wheeler only bigger) & it can get through pretty much anything. Well, it had rained the night before so it was REALLY muddy, and we had a blast slinging mud like crazy!

Here's the road we started on:



Here's what Tom looked like after the ride (note how wet his pants are!):



And this is what the gator looked like when we were done:



We also got the cousins to attempt to sit still for a picture, which is always a chore:

Big News....I think

Well, as of this morning, I think it's pretty much official that we're moving to Alabama! The guy from Harley Davidson called this morning & verbally "accepted" Tom's counter-offer to their offer that we got last week. Make sense? Anyways, they're gonna get an updated offer letter out to him, and do their background check, etc. Tom will also have to pass a drug test before he's officially hired, so hopefully he can pass that :)

We will have to break the news to Mackenzie this afternoon when she gets home from school. Ever since Tom went for his interview, she has been telling us she does NOT want to move. (Maybe it's due to the fact that Tom told her quite some time ago that if we moved, it would mean she would never see her friends again?! - what was he thinking??) As for me, I'm finding that I seem to be OK with the whole thing until I actually start to talk about it out loud. We'll be OK, and the Lord will take care of us, but please do keep us in your prayers as we start working on this whole transition. We obviously don't know the official start date yet or anything, but it definitely won't be until at least January.

Thanks for checking on us, and I'll continue to keep you posted with any other news.

Food

You may be wondering what we're doing for food around here since Tom is on strike. Well, last week when he went to pick up his big strike check, he was able to get a voucher for food at the food bank here in town. Plus, there were food donations brought in to the union hall that everyone was allowed to help themselves to. So, when it was all said & done, we had food coming out our ears. Ok, maybe not our ears, but so much that I don't think our pantry has ever been as full as it is right now! (This picture was taken after I had already unpacked 2 other boxes, and about 3 other brown bags full of groceries!!)



And speaking of food, Camden is really into food right now. He LOVES to feed himself, so we try to keep him busy with stuff he can feed himself. And he's not afraid to make a mess either!




Not much other news to report. Still no news on when the strike may end...negotiations are supposed to start again next Monday, and they're supposed to hear any day now from the National Labor Relations Board with a ruling on the paperwork filed for the Unfair Labor practices. We're keeping our fingers crossed that in the next week or so there will be some kind of news. Until then, Tom continues to walk the picket line once a week...

Talladega?

For those that don't know, Tom interviewed with Harley Davidson on Tuesday. The job is down in Talladega, Alabama. He took a few pictures while he was down there:

This is supposed to be a picture of the "rolling hills":


Here's the famous speedway that I'd LOVE to go see a race at!!!


And lastly, this a lake Tom would like to get a house on if we actually move down there:


He got a call from Harley today & it looks like they're interested in him, so thus begins another series of "negotiations" that I dread! He did finally turn down the job in Memphis, though, so at least that's one option out of the picture.

I'll do my best to keep you posted on any other news around here.

As for the kids, Camden has been babbling "dadadadada" like crazy lately. I'm not sure if I'm ready to call his first word "da da" yet though!!