All I want for Christmas

Christmas Eve 2008

We went to the childrens mass tonight at Sacred Heart followed by a quick shopping trip and then dinner. 

We came home, snapped a few shots in front of the tree and let the kids open up their "elf present".  A brand new pair of pajamas.

"I'm a great artist"

Direct from the mouth of Tina.

Hunter is not too happy with the way she made his ears look so they had to be erased. haha

Even now, as I upload the picture he says to me " Mom, I dont like that picture."

Christmas Program Take Two

Part One Hunter.

The Not so Angry Elf

Need I say more?

They had a fundraiser at the squadron and this was one of the "reward". He was a great sport and had a good time. I think the best part was when I came home with the kids right after Adam got dressed. Tina saw a glance of red and heard the jingle of the hat and said "OHHHH I SEE SOMETHING!" and went on a mad dash to find the elf.

Surprise Santa visit

We stopped by our friends store yesterday and the kids were shocked to see Santa Clause. Our friend snuck over and told Santa what the kids names were so you can only imagine how shocked the kids were when they heard "HO HO HO>> Well HELLO TINA!! And you must be HUNTER!" It did not take Tina 2 seconds to jump up in good ole Santas lap. He was so sweet saying things like "Oh my Tina, you weigh more than you did last year".. Tina replied "I'm 5 now." haha
Hunter warmed up after he saw Tina being so brave.

I forgot to mention our ELF visitor at the house. He sits on a shelf in our house and keeps an eye on the kids during the day.. Each night he goes back to the north pole where he reports to Santa on the kids behavior. He comes back before they wake up but the trick is, he is in a new spot each day. He has only been in the house a few days but it has been a hilarious few days. Hunter thinks sucking up will help "oh Mr Elf.. I love your hat and I love your shoes." Tina tells him hello and goodbye every time we leave the house. This morning, Tina found him first and all we could hear was "OHHHHH there he is.. there he is."

Painting Pottery

We had so much fun at the pottery store painting pottery. Hunter painted a car and I kid you not, he used every color in the store.

Tina painted a unicorn. He is brown with a pink horn and black spots.

Displaying their finished products before they had to be dipped in the purple stuff to be cooked.

Over the river and through the woods

To Grandmothers house we go..


Tina showing off her new dress and "beautiful " necklace from Great Grandma

This is actually his pouting face.

Hanging out with Great Grandma and Great Grandpa

Delivering a Christmas Wreath

Hunter getting ready to go to work with Grandpa.

Making Salt Dough Ornaments

Big Changes ahead

Well as most of you know we are moving. We still do not have official orders in hand yet, but we are 99% sure we are going. So much so that we went ahead and put the house on the market before we left for our thanksgiving vacation. We put the house on the market on a Sunday and by Friday we had a contract put in. We close this Thursday!!! The new owners are being very generous and are allowing us to stay here until February.

I guess I forgot to mention WHERE we are moving. Melbourne Beach, Florida!!! How perfect of a location is this going to be for the kids? Disney world, Sea World, the beach, warm weather. I am so excited! Adam will be going back and forth from Georgia to Florida until June (don't ask.. it gets complicated.. but its a good thing for his career in the long run). I do think that the kids and I will be moving as soon as we find a house though. I have found a school that seems very promising. 178 total students; the principal is planning on coming in to give us a tour during Christmas break.

We are heading down the day after Christmas to do some serious house hunting. We have already narrowed down the choices to ohh about 30.. HA!!

The kids are super excited to move to the beach. I guess all those trips to Daytona this past year paid off -- I don't think we are going to have any problems with transition.

Anyways, that's the big news. I'm going to miss my friends here terribly, but they all know they can come on down and visit whenever they want. Its not goodbye, its "see you soon."

"Fall is Fun"

That is what Tina said to me this morning as we came in from a quick walk and some play time in the leaves. We only have one tiny tree in our yard and the leaves have finally dropped so I turned the kids loose to go play in them. They quickly told me they wanted to go "Pawpaws" to go play in "the big big big leaves". I caught some serious grief for not having the massive amounts of leaves to play in like granny and pawpaw have up in Arkansas.

Everything was great UNTIL we came inside. Turns out the fun fall leaves were home to some not so fun fireants and poor Tina was their morning snack. She didnt get bit by them too badly, but to me, one bite is enough when it comes to those nasty little bugs.

Enjoying the sunshine. Life is good.

Do not even ask. He has been playing with this hat for a few days now.

Whats a picture without a crazy Hunter face. :)

Sing... sing a song

Blogger: The Neil Family - Create Post

Check out Tina in the lower left.

A few words from the Kids *LOOK THEY HAVE CLOTHES ON!!

Tina wanted to talk to Grandma and Grandpa tonight so I let them make a little video.
She is saying "Do you want to make Holiday stuff and Winter stuff" in case you cant make it out.

Say Cheese

Finally... Someone is starting to like the camera again.

Trick Or Treat

Tina was a "Beautiful Kitty Cat" and Hunter was Spiderman.

Now, we can never get Hunter to run at soccer, but you put a spiderman costume on him and tell him that there is candy to be had and he is off like a bolt of lightening; and never stops.

The kids had a BLAST this year. They were so excited and so well behaved. What is even more impressive is that they are not even going nuts for the candy. They have accepted that they will get one piece a night AFTER they finish dinner. There has not been a tear shed over it. :)))))
Yesterday, I caught them sitting on the floor in the kitchen trading candy. Tina held up a box of Lemonheads and asked me what they were. When I told her she said something like "LEMONS?? YUCK" and gave them to Hunter. hahah

October Happenings......

I totally forgot to post pictures from the fair a few weeks ago.
We had a great time. Tina and Hunter thought they would jump into the car with this gentleman and his granddaughter. He was so sweet and was totally ok with them riding with him. They ended up having to get out because of safety stuff but I still thought it was sweet.

We had to leave early the night we went to the fair because it started to rain. Actually, it was a downpour. We (NOTE: Adam and the kids) had a great time running to the car in the rain though.



Lets see, we had the fall festival at the school. I was in charge of concessions and had so much fun doing it. I actually cant wait to do it again next year. I was so busy inside that I actually did not get to see anything outside but Adam had the honor of taking the kids around (plus two more 4 year olds) while I was making some more cotton candy. Hunter managed to fall in the duck pond within the first hour he was there. What ever happened to him being graceful??

Being involved with the school has truly been the best thing I have done this past year. I have met so many wonderful people this year and best of all. NO DRAMA!!! Gotta love that!



We had pumpkin carving on Wednesday night. Tina wanted a tall skinny pumpkin and she wanted it to be a "Jesus Pumpkin". It had to have rectangle ears, Heart eyes, A cross for a nose, and A fish for a mouth. NO joke. Adam, being the trooper he is, managed to fulfill her request.

Hunter wanted a round pumpkin and wanted his pumpkin to "throw up" typical boy. :)



She didnt really like having her hands in the "guts" But she still thought it was pretty funny.