Christmas 2018

We headed to North Carolina the weekend before Christmas this year.  We went up on Friday evening and came home Sunday night.  Another quick trip!  But we got to see almost everyone this time.

Saturday, we started out by visiting my Grandma Perkins.  She's 91 years young now.  It was good to get to spend some time with her.   

Then we spent the rest of the day with my mom and Jim...and Jeremy & Cathy and their kids.  Rachel and Jackson always love spending time with their cousins.

Cousins...

Nana with her grandkids.  All of them this year...  

We stayed at my dad's house this time and Rachel and Jackson loved their new dog.  

That afternoon, we went over and celebrated my grandparent's 65th wedding anniversary.  Almost all of the family was there.  Samuel played the piano for everyone (he's SO good!) and Julia, Rachel and Tori sang a few Christmas carols.  

The whole group.

The originals...

We drove  home Sunday night in the dark the whole way.  They watched a movie and then slept most of the rest of the time.  Jackson wasn't feeling good - we could tell he wasn't when he didn't want to eat and went over and laid down and went to sleep when everyone was eating dinner that evening... by the time we got home, he was running a fever.  So we didn't do anything for Christmas Eve - his fever was off and on.  Christmas Day, he was mostly okay...a little puny that morning, but then got better.  And he's been okay since.  

We stayed home and watched "The Santa Clause" on Christmas Eve.  They got their new pajamas.

Jackson actually got two pairs because the first one he felt was a little small.  I had saved another pair because I thought they were going to be too big, but he liked them better.

And Christmas morning...look what Santa left for them!  Two new big stuffed animals!!

Rachel still loves sloths (in case you couldn't tell)... 

Here she is in a sloth costume with her big sloth beside her...

All of us on our way to Michael's parent's house.  

All of us - minus Jeffrey, Constance and their kids - they are out in LA and weren't here for 

Christmas this year. 

I got a selfie stick for Christmas and both kids liked playing with it...

Overall, it was a nice Christmas.  The kids are out of school until January 8th...so we'll enjoy the slower paced days while we can.  

Lately and Pre-Christmas

We've been busy over the last couple of months but I don't have a lot of pictures evidently.  

Enjoying a pretty fall day!

Rachel swam in her first non-competitive swim meet since she started the year-round swim.

Rachel had her first band concert earlier this month.  She plays percussion, so she's always at the back of the group.

He always looks so handsome when he gets a haircut!

And we have our house ready for Christmas.  Michael and Jackson worked hard at decorating the outside of our house and we all worked on the inside.

We went to see the new Grinch movie.

We finally found an evening to go see Santa at an outside event in Acworth - it was free and it wasn't raining for once.  Our weekends this month have been very limited because of all of the rain.

Christmas is in less than a week!   The kids are excited.  Tomorrow is their last day of school and they can't wait.  Looking forward to seeing family this weekend!

More Camping & Halloween

Jackson's Cub Scout group had another camping trip a couple of weekends ago.  This one was much larger than the last - with MANY more groups there.  Rachel went with them this time and loved it!  It was a cold weekend and started out wet but they pushed through and still enjoyed.

They got a new and bigger tent since the last time - they had lots of room inside.  Rachel took it upon herself to unpack and organize everything the first night after they arrived.

Cooking breakfast on the stove.

Jackson doing the climbing wall - he went all the way around all four sides without touching the ground. 

Bathroom, anyone?

Not too many pictures but they did enjoy it and can't wait until next time.  

A couple of other scouting events from lately - they had a clean-up day at the lake...

And this was a day at the Art Barn learning about different birds and such. 

And this week was Halloween.  Rachel went as Rosie the Riveter (she's wanted to be this since she learned about her in school last year)...and Jackson was Bumblebee (the transformer).

This next picture was taken the next day, after a haircut...doesn't he look so old here??

With Sherry, the Minion.  

And Michael even got in on the action this year...it was more of an inside joke between him and some of the other neighborhood dads...

Her friend, Lily, borrowed Rachel's rubix cube costume from last year...

Now we move into Thanksgiving and Christmas!  My favorite time of the year!!