Christmas Baking

Christmas baking is not for the faint of heart.  Because it kind of sucks.

Monday we had a lazy morning in pjs and then baked Christmas cookies in the afternoon.  The kids find this to be a great time but I don’t.  I made the dough up in the morning and we rolled it out and cut cookies out and decorated in the afternoon.  It was just me this year and it was hard to supervise the baking and take too many pictures.  I had to control the flying sprinkles.  We do have cookies for Santa now.

Tuesday Drew and I got busy in the kitchen – making home made cinnamon rolls for the staff at Drew’s church.  I made up homemade dough Monday night – which was a first for me.  Tuesday we made 14 pans of cinnamon rolls.  Thankfully they weren’t too bad and they are pretty yummy – it was just a lot of them.

Tuesday night we had our Eve Before Christmas Eve service at church.  We delivered most of the cinnamon rolls that night. 

Rolling, rolling, rolling
Cutting, cutting, cutting
Pan for each

Dumping, dumping, dumping
It’s hard to see, but that is a serious cinnamon roll log if you’ve never seen one!

Cute shirt she wore to church last night.

We have some snot and sniffles going on in our house.  Mostly from Lindy.  She has had fluid in her ears for a week or so now and she”s not hearing well at all.  Hearing aids don’t help much when the fluid is there.  I was hoping she’d get all better and healthy over the winter break but on Sunday her nose started running and she has a cold.  Hoping it just stays a cold and we don’t get that nasty flu that is everywhere right now.  Hoping for a Christmas miracle that we don’t get it!

Christmas–Bob Southern Style

Saturday we celebrated our first Christmas of the season.  We got up and headed to GrandBob and Suzette’s house. 

We got there and got right to the good stuff – presents!  The kids all got to go first and then adults got to finally open.  Lindy and Will both got some neat stuff.

Lindy got a fur real friends dog.  It’s a cute little dog she walked all over the house.  She had seen a commercial and had started talking about one so she was excited.  She also got some crazy sand and she intensely played with it that afternoon.  She was in her own little world going to town on that stuff.  It really is fun stuff!

Will got his own set of golf clubs.  Real golf clubs – just his size.  They are so cute!  He loves them!  GrandBob got him some balls and tees as well as some wiffle balls.  They went out and hit some wiffle balls for awhile and he was having a blast.  The driver is a serious driver.  I think it’s as big as his head.  GrandBob showed him a few things and now Will thinks he is an expert.  (We had to have a little talk about letting people teach him stuff yesterday!) 

After presents Drew and Corbyn had to head back to Winston.  Drew had a church service Sat. night and church on Sunday.  The kids and I and Ed, Jamie and Molly all spent the night with GrandBob.  I convinced them all (except Ed who was sick) to go to the Lowes Motor Speedway to see the lights.  I’m not really sure how I did that.  We had fun though –even if the lights were pretty lame!  GrandBob and Suzette took the kids (their idea – not mine!  But I liked it!) and Anna drove Jamie, Molly and me.  The best part of the event – not the lights – was driving on the track at Lowes Motor Speedway!  Pretty cool to be on the track and see how steep the banked corners are.  They had most of it coned off but they let you drive up a little bit and even that little bit felt like you could tip over.  It was crazy!  They had a Christmas Village in the middle we stopped at.  The kids did an inflatable slide and the petting zoo.  Lindy slept through most of the lights at the beginning and after we left the village she fell back asleep.  She didn’t miss much.  The last little tunnel you drive through was the best part of the whole thing.  Saving the best for last!

Sunday morning we all got up and got ready and the kids and I rode with GrandBob and Suzette to Landrum, SC for the extended Southern Family Christmas.  Bob’s brother, Mike, and his wife, Joy, live in the area and own a Thai restaurant there.  They invited everyone for lunch.  It was almost 2 hours there.  We had a great lunch and the kids got to open presents.  About 10 of us headed to the nearby park to play in the Southern Family Kickball game.  Which apparently back in the day was all about the kids playing but now is more about the adults playing.  Will played a few innings before heading to the park area to play with his cousins.  It is always nice to get together and see everyone and see how the family keeps growing.  Not too long ago it was just a handful of second cousins and this year it was 8.  With another one on the way next year.  Fun to see this big family keep growing!   After a fun afternoon we headed back to Bob and Suzette’s where we met up with Daddy.  Poor Daddy didn’t even get to come to the Southern Family Christmas.  It was a 3 hour drive to our house and he wouldn’t have been able to leave until after church.   We had dinner at GrandBob’s and then we finally headed home Sunday evening.  It was a fun weekend with the Bob Southern side of the family.

Before we left for Charlotte last Saturday it was snowing!! 
First presents!
A Paw Patrol game!
Corbyn got an old family dulcimer!
I made GrandBob a book of pictures from his surprise birthday party in Sept.

We went in with Ed and Jamie and got Bob and Suzette new chairs. To replace their bag chairs.  Because the old man can NOT get out of a bag chair.  He popped right out of this one!  It looks like it could triple as a walker or potty chair sometime in the future if we put some wheels on the bottom and  cut a whole in the seat! ha!
Playing with the crazy sand.
Future golfer?  He has dreams of playing golf on TV.
At Lowes Motor Speedway!
Two cute cousins!
Four cute Southerns.
Four of the second cousins – doing what everyone does now – play on electronics all the time.
The restaurant had this stage area in it the kids all played in.
”How much is that cute girl in the window?”
Jackson is such a cutie.  The second youngest cousin.
The second cousin crew!

Lindy’s Special Day

We’ve been in Christmas mode so let’s see if I can remember what we’ve done.

Last Monday, the 15th, Drew and I went to Will’s class and we talked about a holiday tradition.  His teacher made it sound like everyone had to do it so we signed up and pulled a tradition out of our butts. We talked about sleeping in front of the Xmas tree and going to see lights.  We also read them a book.  The nicest thing was just being in his class.  I don’t feel like I know the kids very well at all.  We left there and were going to move Drew’s car and it wouldn’t start.  Thankfully Uncle Ed was in the area and came over to give him a jump start.  Monday night I had a family advisory council meeting and we toured the Children’s Hospital.  Which was packed with children.  There is so much sickness (flu, respiratory stuff) going around right now.

Wednesday night we had a couple Drew is marrying over for dinner.  The crazy thing is that this couple was once in our youth group at our old church.  Somehow they have grown up, gone to college (gotten master’s degrees too!) and are getting married.  Doesn’t seem possible.  Makes us feel old!

Thursday morning Lindy had her annual kidney testing.  We started with an ultrasound and then met with her nephrologist.  Nothing has changed with her kidney situation.  Her right kidney is small and not growing.  Her left kidney is growing normally.  As long as it keeps growing she should be good.  I knew she’d have to give a urine sample so I got her a Sprite (her fave) and she sipped all morning.  Our first attempt at collecting urine was a major fail.  I was holding the cup and dropped it in the toilet.  Thankfully I didn’t lose any pee because she hadn’t gone yet.  But then I had to get it out of a public toilet.  Good times.  I made her get off the toilet and wait for me to get another cup.  And by the time I got back she didn’t have to go anymore.  ugggg.  We went back to the room and she kept drinking and after our appointment was over we tried again and finally had success.   Then she had to get blood drawn.  I distracted her but when they stuck her she said “Ouch.  That hurt!” But it was over before she knew it.  She showed everyone for days where they pulled blood out of her.  I took her back to school around 10:30am.

Friday was a big day for Lindy Lou.  It was Lindy’s special day!!  On December 19th, 2007 we finally brought her home from the hospital.  She’d been in three different NICU’s for 143 days but we finally got her home – just in time for Xmas.  We started her celebration day with cinnamon rolsl and Drew and I went and ate lunch with her at school.  Then we also got to go to her Xmas party at school at 1:30pm.  The kids ate and did a craft and then acted wild until it was time to go.  After I got off work I met up with them for her special day activity.  She has been super into dogs all fall so I suggested we get some dog and cat stuff and take it to the Humane Society and then play with some animals.  So we did.  We got some toys and food (and sweet Ms. Martha gave her some stuff to take too) and took that.  We got to play with the cats first.  They had a room where a bunch of them were out.   They were all sleeping when we got there but most woke up after we got there.  Will had a ball playing with this one kitten.  Lindy wasn’t sure at first but eventually did warm up to the them.   Jack (our cat) isn’t a very lovable cat towards the kids and she thought they were all like Jack.  In fact though, these kitties were all super loving.  She finally figured that out and then started trying to pick them up!  After the cats we headed down to see the dogs.  There really weren’t many there and a lot of them were big dogs.  They had one small dog they got out for us to play with and pet.  Snowflake was a puppy and jumped a bit but she really liked him too.  Some other people there were interested in Snowflake so I hope he goes home soon!   We enjoyed our time with the animals.  We left there and went to check out a Christmas activity that was going on downtown called “Christmas for the City.”  Our neighbor is really involved so we found them and walked around.  We ate dinner and walked through the kids area.  There were a lot of people so we didn’t do much but what they did they enjoyed.  We finished the night at Krispy Kreme getting a special day treat.  Per LIndy’s request, she wanted ice cream from KK.  We went to the closest one and the rest of us got donuts and when we asked for her ice cream they told us the machine was broken.  We bought our donuts and then headed across town to the one near our house to see if their ice cream was working – and it was!  We finally all ate our treats and headed home after a big day. 


This girl keeps us on our toes.  She woke up at 6am and was in my spot in the bed when I got out of the shower on Friday.  I had to quickly get her sign and balloons up so when she went back in her room they would be there.  
Special Breakfast for a special girl on her special day!
Lindy at her school Christmas party.
Observing the cats at first.
Will wasn’t shy at all with the cats.  These two were so sweet!
Testing the waters, with Daddy.
Will got this kitten to play and they had so much fun!
Warmed up now!
Checking out Snowflake.  Not sure what Will is doing in the background!  Looks like he’s running.

Warming up to Snowflake.

Sweet girl!