Christmas Day

Christmas was a good day.  I would be lying  if I said it was an easy day, but it was a good day.  I guess more than ever I just appreciated us all being together.  Thankful we were all under 1 roof and celebrating all the blessings we have.  I know Dad would not have been happy if would the day would not have been filled with laughter and smiles!  I did get family pictures of everyone, but I did not do a great job of getting snapshots from the day. 

 

We all got there around noon and had a nice dinner, followed by pictures, presents and more food.  We spent the day mostly visiting and hanging out.  Kyle, Dusty and Kevin went to the movies in Norfolk while the rest of us watched old home videos.   It was fun to see how much our family has grown and changed!

We headed home Thursday morning. 

 

The whole crew!

Lacey's family

 Danielle's family

Dusty's Family 

 My Family

 

 Whitney working hard on opening her gift

Brooke & Aubree in matching outfits.



PJ party!!

Christmas Eve 2013


We had a really fun Christmas Eve.  I worked until 3:00 so it was a little hectic getting girls dressed and hair fixed but we managed!  Whitney was sleeping when I got home so stayed back at the house with her until she woke up while Kyle and the big girls went over to Chip & Marilyn's to start celebrating Christmas.

We went to Church then back to Chip & Marilyn's for supper.  Marilyn fixed a yummy prime rib with all the fixings. 

The kids had a great time playing and opening gifts. 

 

The Whitaker Grandkids on Christmas Eve.

Trey & Aubree



Trying to keep the kid occupied before supper

Not sure what is going on with my blog, but sometimes I can not post the big picture.  It is very random as to what size it will post. 

                                                                                        Whitney eating her supper

Chip and the Grandkids

Chip & Marilyn with the grandkids

Time open presents.

Aubree got a vollyball

Jenae roping the new dummy Chip and Marilyn gave the girls.  It has been a really fun Christmas gift.

 

 

Jenae & Trey with the puppy

Whitney with the puppy

Aubree and the puppy

Santa Came Early

We had a nice relaxing weekend,  we got everything done that needed to be done before Christmas.  I have to work Christmas Eve Day (The day we usually have our little Christmas at home, so we decided to do it Saturday morning)  The girls had a great time opening their gifts and playing with there new things.  Other we spent a lot of time snuggled up in the house watching movies and playing games.  It was the perfect weekend to rest up for the next couple of days!

 

 

The girls opening their Santa gifts

 

My Silly 2 year old pretending she is a baby!



 

The girls making ginger bread cookies.

Aubree all curled up ready for Christmas!

My little Curly girl!  Of course since Aubree and Jenae had curlers in, guess who else needed them!!  I was not sure what curlers would do to already curly hair and this picture does not do it justice, but she had a fro!!!

 

 

 

School Christmas Program/Cookie Baking/ Noble Christmas

As you can tell by the title of this blog post it was a BUSY weekend!!!  I will try to hit on the high points of the weekend! 

 

 

Christmas Program

• Duck Dynasty Theme
•  
• I LOVE watching the kindergarten kids.  They are so cute and it is there first time in front of a crowd.  They are the only kids that get to wear a cute Christmas Dress
• Older kids participate in more of a play than a traditional singing performance.  They are dressed in costumes for their part.
•  
• The music teacher writes the program each year & always includes Santa & Huskers.
•  
• Ben offered to watch Whitney while Hope, Trey, Grammy & Grandpa came to the program. 
• It lasted almost 2 hours...very thankful Whitney was not there!



Jenae & Aubree before the Christmas Program in front of the back drop for the program.  It was a Duck Dynasty theme.

Aubree & the girls in her class.

Aubree & Clair doing giving the opening to the Duck Dynasty program.

Aubree's class during the program.  I love it!!!  Not sure any of them knew what they were supposed to be singing.  She has such a good little group for her classmates.

Jenae was a Gator in the program.  It was hard to get much for good pictures of her this year.  She was always in the back row and was at the opposite end of the gym from where we were sitting.

Jenae & her fellow gators.


Baking Day At Danielle's

• My sister Danielle, hosted a baking weekend at her house. 
• Erin & Lacey went Friday and started making things
• We came Saturday since we had the program on Friday night
• Danielle, Erin & Lacey were very busy on Friday... we did not make too much on Saturday.
• We did frost sugar cookies on Saturday.
• Fun to all be together
• Kids were very busy!!!
• I suggested next year maybe just us "moms" will do a baking weekend :-)
• Kid did have a lot of fun!
• Whitney was up at her normal 6:00 am
• Found it very difficult to keep a 2 year old quiet in  a house full of sleeping people!
• Got lots of yummy goodies to bring home

 



Taking a break from baking to eat some lunch at Danielle's house.

Eating lunch!  I guess I was too busy during the baking process to actually get pictures of us making anything.  Just took a couple during lunch time!

 

 Noble Christmas

• Mom is now all settled in town, so the Noble Christmas was moved from Albion to Newman Grove.
•  
• My Grandma was not feeling well, so she did not get to come :(
•  
• Mom had the basement all set up so we could all be down there together to eat and open gifts.
•  
• Aunt Jean was very busy planning for the day.  She does a lot for the kids to look forward to.  Lots of traditions come with the Noble Christmas including

• Annual visit from Santa & Find the Pickle on the tree
• Also did something new: Had kids tell what they wanted to thank Jesus for for this year
•  
• Ate way to much, but everything was so yummy
• It was a great day!

 

Santa made his annual appearance at the Noble Christmas.  The kids were all so excited to get to tell him what they wanted for Christmas. 

 

Jenae and Whitney.  Whitney was not sure what to think of Santa.  When he gave her candy she decided he was nice ;-)



All the kids waiting for their turn with Santa.

Whitney and Jaxson eating their lunch together. 

Brooke, Cooper, Aubree and Allyx eating their lunch in the storage room. 

Jenae, Kellen, Tyson & Riley eating their lunch in the store room

 

 

Cooper finding the pickle

Allyx found the blue pickle!

The kids telling Aunt Jean what they were thankful for to put a note in Jesus's stocking.  It was super cute to hear what the kids were all thankful for.  We heard everything from being thankful for Creation, Family, Grandpa Dan, to being thankful for having a stick to hit Pepper (the pony) with on the butt!



Aubree found the pickle!



 

Jenae looking for the pickle.  Tyson hit it really well!!! 

 

 

 

 

 

Viva Las Vegas!

Last weekend our good friends Al & Brenda treated Kyle and I to a trip to Las Vegas.  Kyle has done a lot to help their son Pete get started Bulldogging and Brenda also wanted to do something nice for me since 2013 has been a little rough.  Well it turned out to be an amazing trip for so many reasons! 

 Al & Brenda made sure we were well taken care of. We stayed at the Vdara Hotel and Spa.  It was beautiful!  So clean & new!  Brenda introduced me what taking a vacation was all about.  (Getting pampered in the spa) something I had never really done before.  It was awesome!!! 

We took in Fremont Street, The South Point Bucking Sale, NFR, Cowboy Christmas, Dinner with friends a couple of times and lots of walking/checking out the casios on the strip.  Of all the fun things we did what topped the whole trip off and made it AMAZING was the Cowboy Church Service, Elevation Sunday at the MGM Grand.  Music was by Jonny Diaz and the guest speaker was Mike Huckabee.   I felt like God had lead me to Las Vegas to attend that service.  It was as if Mike Huckabee was talking directly to me.  He started out by saying how something can feel like the worst thing in the world that was happening, but in the end, it is those things that get you where you need to be.  Sometimes it feels like a major detour but for those who follow the Lord all things work together for good.  He was clear to say that even though all things that happen to Christens are always good, but when everything is put together all things work together for good.  Of course I have heard this time and time again and it is stuff I know deep down I know, but the way he worded it made so much sense.  I wish I had the service recorded so I could watch it over and over again!  One of the stories he shared was how a broken finger when he was 11 years old set the stage for his career in radio and paid for all his schooling.  He was the first male in his family to graduate from high school let along go on to collage and end up with his Masters Degree.  If it wasn't for the broken finger at age 11 his life could have taken a drastically different path.  Lesson in all of this is that we just have to have Faith in God's plan and it will all be ok :-)

 Me and Brenda on our way from the airport to our hotel in the back seat of our rental car.

Our Rental Car! Now you understand why the picture above, Brenda and I are a little crammed! 

 Me and Kyle on Fremont Street.

 Me and Kyle waitning for the watershow to start.

 Al & Brenda at the NFR

 Kyle and Me with Margaret and Lewis at the Monte Carlo


Brenda in front of a HUGE Christmas tree at the Crystal's shopping center.




Mike Huckabee speaking at Elevation Sunday. The most amazing church service I have ever been to!

View from our hotel room in the day light.  

The view from our room at night....it was beautiful!!!  We were on the 50th floor.   

Inside our room