Semi Formal 2010

Last Saturday was Vicksburg Semi-Formal. We met Tony & Jordon and Tony's girlfriend Abby's house so that we could get pictures of them all dressed up and ready for a night out. Dustin also went this year but we weren't able to get pictures of him.Two of our handsome boys. If I do say so myself, these boys sure do clean up well!The beautiful Abby we have enjoyed having her be a part of our family so much. This was their fourth and final Semi-Formal. They are so cute together and it's been fun seeing them grow from Freshmen to Seniors.
BrothersFun TimesLast but not least our adopted son Josh. We have so much fun when Tony's friend Josh comes over to spend the night and I was so glad that he stopped by Abby's before the dance so that I could get some pictures of him too.

Shenira's Band Concert

Last Thursday was the Holiday Concert for Shenira's band. They did a great job and as always we loved watching her play. It's amazing to see how fast the kids learn how to play their instruments.

Fast As Fast Can Be You Can't Catch Me!

Friday was my day to help in Gabe's classroom. Oh how happy I was that it was my day to help on Gingerbread Man Day! We had SO much fun with the kids and I learned that my son likes gingerbread cookies.

The first thing I got to do was mix everything together.

Mrs. Frakes formed our Gingerbread "Boy"And then each child got to come back and add some yummy candy to the Gingerbread Boy. I was so glad that Gabe isn't a child that has to be a me first kind of kid. He waited until everyone else at his table had gone which left just him and I so I was able to get some shots of just him!I think he is happy with his selections and we are now ready to take him down to the oven. In the oven it goes.Cooking time is done. Time to go and pick him up.Oh NO! He isn't where I left him!!! Ladies did you check on him while he was cooking??? Oh no I forgot to tell them not to open the door until his was all finished cooking. Now we must go and find him. He left us some clues along the way they took us too....The Gym..but he was already gone,The Library but nope we were too late so we had to go to....The Music Room, still not fast enough we are off too....The computer lab but we STILL couldn't catch up to him.Finally that Gingerbread boy was caught running in the halls by the principle Mr. Szabla! We promised to take him back to our room and eat him all up so that he couldn't run away again!!!What a fun day!

Traditions

There are several traditions that we have so far this year we've done two of the main ones. First is my favorite putting up the trees. Yes you read that right I said trees, not tree. We have four trees in our house. Two of the four are pictured below. I have put a tree in Gabe's room since he was born and each year he gets new little ornaments to add to it. He loves it when the tree is in his room. The second tree is the "main" tree where the presents from Santa go(it is also pictured below) This tree has first Christmas ornaments on it and other special ornaments that we've gotten from family. The Third Tree is my "Snowman" tree and it only get ornaments of Snowmen on it and I put it in the Dinning Room and finally the last tree is on our landing going upstairs and this tree is "The Kid" tree. It has the ornaments that the kids have made at school or ornaments of their special interest

Another tradition that we done almost every year is attending the Marshall Christmas Parade. This Parade has always been my favorite and I love taking my son to it now. Each year we try to meet up or take new friends with us and this year we took Chelsey and Hector with us and met the Moody's there.

Gabe with the Moody Boys!

Daddy, Mommy & Gabe ready for the parade to start!

Hector, Chelsey & Gabe.

Kempton Thanksgiving

Family time with the Kempton's is always fun. This year we had Thanksgiving at my sister Jennifer's house. The Kempton crew keeps growing and it's so much fun when we are together. This year Gabe's teacher sent home a little "play" to do on Thanksgiving for fun. With the help of his cousins it was a big hit! The one thing I love most about this family is everyone is game. Most of these cousins are in their 20's but they were still willing to help little Gabe out with his show. They had us laughing so hard and this was for me the best part of Thanksgiving, well except for the deep fried Turkey that Uncle Dan made....OH MY WORD....To dye for!I'm not sure how it is in your house but in our Thanksgiving isn't complete until Papa falls asleep. This is for sure how to measure a great Thanksgiving Day!

Happy Thanksgiving

From our little Pilgrim....Happy Thanksgiving!

From Nothing To A Fun Filled Weekend!

Our weekend started with a Friday night date for just Gabe & I. Daddy went to a football game with grandpa so mommy & Gabe went to a Harvest Party that our Church was having. While we were there we got to make a few crafts, "tried" to learn how to square dance (Gabe was okay until it in voled touching someone that wasn't mommy), went on a Hay Ride, roasted marshmallows by an awesome fire & also had hot dogs. We had a great night. On Saturday daddy had to work so Gabe and I went to the Kalamazoo Holiday Parade with John's parents & Shenira. I love this parade because of the big balloons that they have in it. Someday I'm going to get to the Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York but until then this is as close as it's going to get. After the parade it was off to a birthday party for our niece Karis. They celebrated her 5th birthday at a roller skating rink that was reserved for just our group. This was so nice because you didn't have to worry about tons of people being there. Gabe loved roller skating and came out with only a small blister on his heal. Our Big 5 Year Olds! There is 7 months between Gabe and Karis and he loves it when they are both the same age.
After the birthday party Daddy took Gabe and Karis to the movies. It was suppose to be just Gabe and Daddy because Daddy had taken the older boys out last weekend and told Gabe he would take him this weekend. But Gabe being the kind cousin that he is wanted Karis to go with them as part of her present. We ended our Saturday night at a Jewelry Open House for a great friend and had tons of fun there.
Sunday we headed to Nana's house to work on a scrapbook and stayed there for the entire day. This is our life in a nut shell it's either go, go, go or nothing at all! The holidays are coming so things will for sure start to pick up. We are already going to have our first Christmas get together this Sunday! Can't wait to see family that we don't get to see very often but I also know that this will be a bitter sweet year as this is our first Christmas without John's Grandma and we all miss her very much.

Nothing???

I titled this post as Nothing. Not that there has been nothing going on in our lives but for once things are calm and I feel like we aren't running like mad people from one place to the other. The last two weeks have been so nice to actually have days on the calendar where there was nothing going on. This week I had some friends over for a Tastefully Simple Party and we had a great time talking and hanging out, my husband was able to do a little more work on our Kitchen/Bathroom remodel project which has been going on since May so seeing some progress being made there this past weekend made my heart sing (I'm a very simple person!). Gabe had another great appointment with his lung specialist which we are so thankful for. But perhaps the funniest part of this week was that very appointment for Gabe, he had to get a shot, now before you tell there isn't anything funny about that keep reading, when we were done with the appointment he called his friend Kelly to tell her that he had to get a shot. She asked him what kind of a shot and he told her that he had to have a "flea" shot instead of a "flu" shot. This was extremely funny to us because this year we had a terrible problem with our dog having fleas and Kelly knew this so she said to me after she was talking with Gabe wow I knew you were having flea problems but I didn't realize that it was this serious!!! Now of course she was kidding but we all found it very amusing. Ahhhhh, the things a 5 year old says.

If you can believe it I actually have no photos to post as I haven't taken any since Halloween. But the next time I post I will have all kinds to share with you this weekend will be a very full weekend with the Kalamazoo Holiday Parade (Dustin's band will be marching, don't miss it they are FANTASTIC) & our niece Karis' birthday party is a Roller Skating Party that same day so I'm sure I will have lots to take there.

Hope you all have a blessed weekend.

Jammi

Marching Band

This year was the first year any of our kids have participated with The Vicksburg Marching Band A.K.A "The Big Red Machine". Dustin is an incredible trumpet player and agreed to give marching band a try for just one year. His love is football but he is so talented with music that we just didn't want him to give that up. Plus this year the band is going to be playing at the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans so that was also a great incentive to give it a try. Their band is AMAZING John and/or I attended all of their competitions this year and were blown away. What an incredible thing to be a part of . This band took MANY first place trophy's and other honors every place they played at except for one. I still get goose bumps when I hear them play their first song. I feel that this will be the only year that he will play but I am so happy that he stuck it out for at least a year.

Dustin your dad & I both think that you are totally awesome!

This is what makes a football game worth going to!

Just a little side note the trip that Dustin will be taking to New Orleans cost $1100.00 per student and we have been selling pillow cases that John's mom makes for $10.00 each. If you are interested and would like to help out let me know.

Halloween 2010

This year like always we enjoy doing many Halloween activities. On October 24 our church held their annual Trunk or Treat and I thought this year we would do a Hawaii theme in honor of John's Grandma. When she passed away in July we were given the Moo Moo's that they bought when they went to Hawaii. She knew that we want to go there for our 10th anniversary and wanted us to wear them on our trip too. Anyway getting off track back to Trunk or Treat. This is John and I with our car decorated.

Jordon has wanted Gabe to be Yoda since the day he was born and this year I decided to give in. So below Gabe is with a family that attends our church. He just happened to fit right into there theme!The next event was Gabe's Halloween Party at School. The kids had fun walking through a couple of the other classes to show off their costumes. We played lots of games and had lots of good snacks. As you can see he even had a few Star Wars character in his class too! Finally it was Halloween. Our lives have be so busy this year that I almost didn't think that we were going to get pumpkin carving in which to be honest would have broken my heart more than it would have Gabe's. You know you are too busy when you have to resort to buying your pumpkins at Wal-Mart!!!!! Sadly it's true that is where they came from. But on Halloween afternoon Gabe and I sat down and got the job done. I LOVE watching him do this because he hates gutting out the pumpkin and makes the funniest faces and sounds as he works on it. The smile you see here is totally forced by mom saying "Give me a smile Gabe".

But in the end both of our pumpkins turned out great and my little Yoda was dressed and ready to hit up the neighbors for some candy!! I will say however from this year on there will NEVER be another costume with a mask. He hated it and would not wear it. This is Yoda with the pumpkin that he carved.

And this was the one that Mommy did.

We started trick or treating right at 5 when it started so that we would be back home before it got dark and so that we could come back home and hand out some candy too. He loves to hand out the candy almost more than he likes to go around and get it.
Another Halloween in the book.

Happy Halloween All!

The Party

Just as I promised in the last post here are the pictures of the Birthday Party for my mom. We had such a good time. Since we were going to the Apple Orchard that day I decided to do our theme around the Apples. I made a chocolate cake that looked like an apple and used it for my center piece. Anyone that knows me knows that I'm not much of a cook or a baker but for some reason I love to make cakes. Below was the table all set and ready for the guest of honor to arrive.

My beautiful mom with her fun apple cake.Once we were finished with lunch and cake we headed out to Gull Meadow Farm in Richland. Oh did the kids have a blast. Of course more than a few adults also had a lot of fun too. I absolutely love this picture my mom is the bus driver and each of the 5 "original" grand kids are on the bus. My Dad, Brother, Mom, Sister & I are in the faces and the grand kids are below. Another favorite picture. The Fab 5 with the "Original" 5. (For some of you that may not know my brother & I both have step kids so that is why I call the other kids the "original 5". Our step kids weren't with us on this trip)

This picture is here because I just couldn't resist. I love this kid!