Christmas Galore

This has not been that great of a weekend for me. After a mental meltdown on Friday night, I slept in until 1 on Saturday afternoon. So give me some slack on the blogging schedule (Aaron!) Huge thanks to Kris (my counselor :o) for listening to me.

Here are some pictures of our Christmas celebration with the Collingsworth side of the family. I have no idea what Jay is trying to say or do here.

Trying to act like they are 'normal.'

Christmas punch

Christmas munchies

Christmas soup buffet - yummy stuff!

Waxing 'elephance' as my hubby would say

Waiting for the Christmas blessing so we can eat

Christmas cookies

Uncle Phil getting the fire just right.

Doesn't it look just perfect?

Tonight is the big night. Everything that could go wrong, has. (Murphy's law) The sound system has a short in it somewhere, so Jay had to get his parent's sound board from Anderson, Indiana. One of the kids has hardly been to practice at all (not entirely his fault.) The professional lights that Jay went to Indy to get are fine electrically but they didn't work well where Jay had first wanted them, so now they are on both sides of the center aisle (exactly where we didn't want them). The powerpoint projector (also from Jay's parents) is working fine, except we need the video cable from the projector to the laptop to be longer than 6 feet. Walmart doesn't have any longer than that so we are still (yes, at this late hour) trying to figure out how to do this since the cord is now suspended in the air between the sound board and the stage (cute, huh?) We had to arrange the actors differently otherwise they would be running right into the cable and jerking the projector and the laptop from their respective places. One of the actors only had a sleeveless dress for one of the scenes so I tried to find a small white sweater last night but no luck. Thank goodness one of the ladies at church had the perfect thing.

Now for the dinner afterwards - we are small so there aren't a lot of us to make food for all the visitors. So as of this very moment, I am cooking 160 meatballs in the crockpot, 3 peanut butter pies are chilling in the fridge, I just took a large corn casserole out of the oven and I have 3 pounds of corn to put in the crockpot for later. Oh and a large package of dinner rolls.

....Sigh....

Last night was an adventure. We had Christmas program practice before service and the girls had to be back home by 7 p.m. So while Jay started his Bible study at 6:30 I took the girls home. On the way there, we had a slight problem. It looked like a garbage truck had lost it's load on the road, but I didn't have time to slow down and slowing down wouldn't have helped. It was across both lanes so I chose the least cluttered area and drove through it. Immediately this loud "whapping" sound took all three of us by surprise but after about 3 seconds the sound went away. I figured some of the trash had gotten caught in a wheel well.

I took the girls back home. They live at the top of a hill on a dirt road with huge potholes, but Jasper made it up the hill just fine. (This hill is so bad that the kids have to walk to the bus stop about 3/10 of mile down the hill. The bus can't made it up the hill.) I was headed back home when I thought something didn't sound quite right so I figured I would find something stuck in the wheel well when I got home or that the bumper was falling off...again. It's rusting out where the bumper clips on the car and it has fallen off before. I rolled up our driveway and popped out of my car. I had a flat driver side tire, like completely flat. I smelled the hot rubber odor and realized how God had really taken care of me. Kenton County sent us a notice to pay our registration on this car and they based our taxes on Jasper's value, $930. So total I drove about 12 miles on a flat tire, up a dirt hill and lots of holes and then back home in a bumper-defected $930 car with a flat tire :o)

I have not been in the Christmas mood. I haven't put out the first decoration or put up any lights. The farthest I have gotten into Christmas stuff is going to Jay's Christmas program practice. I had even told Jay maybe we should use the money we would use for our own Christmas tree to purchase one for a community family who can't afford one. My dear hubby, being a Christmas baby, just can't imagine Christmas without a tree. He hung icicle lights on the porch and put out the green garland around the columns on our porch. Tonight when I came home this is what greeted me from our living room.

Our mini tree

I took this so you could see how small it is.



I think this is the most adorable Christmas card ever. A friend of mine, Jenny, makes really neat cards and I saw these on her blog. I ordered a few to give out this year. You should check out her blog and I believe she also has an Ebay store.

Christmas 2007

Don't ask 'cause I don't know.

BJ and a new t-shirt.

Ally and the tote that I got her.

Dani (I hardly have any pics of her so here is a good one!) and her tote.

Dad enjoying the new Glenn Beck book that I got him. It's even autographed.

Mom's village atop of her fireplace.


The Lavy Christmas tree.

Jay's birthday is the 25th and mine is the 28th. Mom made this icecream cake for us.

Dad sporting some of Christmas gifts. The santa pants and hat and his new OSU shirt.

This HUGE bag was for me from my brother! I dug and dug and finally found a dinky little card at the bottom - a gift card to Joanns! Now why did he need that huge bag??? I love Joann's so it is a great gift.

Dad still reading his Glenn Beck book.

Jay LOVED this gift.

Me holding little Maverick at the Baker Christmas gathering. Isn't he a doll?

Jay found 100 gold dollars in the bottom of this treasure chest.

Aaron had to work for his $100. They were one dollar bills stuck in a box of peanuts. I helped him find them.

My $100 was much easier to find. It was in a bag and they were in a little book. My mother-in-law took them to Kinkos and had them make a little book. Such a neat idea.

The Baker tree and fireplace.

My mother-in-law wearing a Colts blanket!! What is this world coming to?

Collingsworth Christmas

Aunt Kim explaining how awesome Gordon Mote's new CD is.

The cake I got for my mama, who has lost quite a few pounds in the last year. Doesn't she look great?


The 10 1/2 foot tall Christmas tree in Kim's living room. She figures it has about 2,600 red and white lights.

Two blonde mono babes - Courtney has been battling the same virus.

Ally and Court.

Me and Jay - it's the only photo I have and my eyes look terrible.

Due to Aaron's insistence.....

...Aaron insists that I am not keeping up with my blog. He doesn't think that my excuse of being tired is valid. So here I am....remember that post a couple weeks back about having strep? Well the doc was wrong. This appears to be my second bout with mono...yes, I know it is known as the "kissing disease." I am just tired all the time and I don't have much of an appetite. The first bout was back in college. That was sooo much fuuunnn! (wink)

I ordered several gifts via one particular company. I ordered these gifts back in November and they guaranteed that the gifts would arrive before Christmas. They didn't tell me they were going to cut it so close. I need some of the gifts for tomorrow and Saturday and the gifts haven't arrived yet. Hopefully they arrive tomorrow as the company said they should, otherwise....I will just sit home and cry.

Christmas Party

Jason and I were invited to my boss's Christmas open house. She has a beautiful house and she is a great decorator. I asked her to take a couple pictures of Jay and me in front of her 10 foot tree.

Frazier Fir

This year I insisted that we get a Christmas tree that wasn't prickly. I hate those needles when you step on them. Since I am still not feeling the greatest Jay agreed to tackle the Christmas tree buying while I found all the decorations. He found a nice little tree and strapped it to the top of Jasper and the needles aren't prickly at all. It has a few holes and is totally perfect. Fake trees are too perfect sometimes.

I am not a decorator at all, but I love all the gold and cream decorations. I am not a colored lights person. I just like plain white lights.

I found these cute little cream colored boards with sparkly gold paint at Cracker Barrel a few weeks ago in Virginia. I thought they would be perfect for my tree.