Lost Tooth

The Shockley Clan is spending the New Year's Holiday with family... er the whole Shockley extended family in Savannah, GA. More on the visit later with picture to come, but last night after Emma and Hope went to bed Emma came running out of their room. She had big eyes that looked like they just saw the big bad wolf or an alligator outside and said, "LOOK! I ripped out my tooth!" Emma's second tooth came out last night, after showing all the bloody tooth and gum we sent her back to bed to await the Toothfairy... surely she could find her even in a different bed.
This morning, earlier than Christmas day I think, Emma crawled into bed with me and said the fairy had come and look what she left.. $2.00 -- second tooth, two bucks. Thank goodness the fairy has mobile GPS!

Twas the Week Before Christmas...

And all through the house, the kids had Strep Throat....
Poor Rach had throat problems at the Open House and on the drive home from Roanoke last Sunday Hope's voice took a vacation. At least I listened to David and swung Hope over to the dr monday morning and after a quick swipe of the ol' yukkie Q-tip found she did indeed have Strep and got her on medication pronto. Emma was fine and went to school monday, tuesday and had a half day on wednesday... right after she got home she said she had a scratchy throat and a headache... AHHHHH!!!! We were most concerned because her voice started to take a vacation as well and Emma was to be in a Christmas Play at our church on Sunday night. With lots of lozenges and herbal tea with honey and extra prays at bedtime, Emma preformed just fine Sunday evening in the presentation of "Twas the Night Before" -- Emma played the part of the humble but worthy Shepherd. ( Sorry - no pictures on this end, camera was not working whatsoever that night, of course - but you can look at the church website and see under the children's section, Emma is the small girl in the middle of the kids lined up at the end - Sinkingspring.org )

Open House Weekend

Every year Jim and Cheryl have their Open House for one and all to come visit and enjoy some holiday cheer... it is required for family to attend, eat lots of food, visit with family and share presents with the kids... not bad for something required eh?

This year was extra special because after we got Rachel we headed into Roanoke in time to join the Roanoke Christmas parade and we got to ride in the Star Country 94.9 tourbus... Grandaddy was the driver and we got to hang in the windows of the bus and waive to all the Roanokers on the streets. Afterwards back to Memaw and Grandaddy's house in time for snacks and sleepover fun.

Saturday was party day -- forcast was cold and possible sleet/snow... good thing we didn't have to go anywhere, except for poor Rach... she had a temp of 102 and went to the dr for yet another case of strep throat(ish)... with lots of medicine she made it thru the day. We shared the day with Memaw, Grandaddy, G-ma Rachel, Aunt Susan, G-ma Mary, Uncle Billy, Wissie, Sam and Chris ( who grew and grew this year and both now tower over me and David ) Uncle Boo and Aunt G-G, Nicholas, Katie and newkid... Lando (n).

After lots of festivities, food and beverages the day ended at 8pm and all collapsed ready for bed. We had the bonus of seeing some friends we don't get to see that often anymore, like Theresa and Kenny and then Brad and his girlfriend Penny.

Sunday am - bright and early - ok, 9 o'clock we got all the kiddo's up and ready to rip, tear, destroy! It was organized chaos i'd say but all seemed to have a great morning and settled in to lots of playing and trading of new items aquired that day. Later after breakfast the older folks did a round of Naughty Santa. The lottery tickets were quite the hit, poor Billy couldn't trade off his bath soap and lotion no matter how hard he tried to bribe his kids... and then Booboo swindled the dogbutt salt and pepper shakers from his grandmother and Rachel took pity on Uncle billy and gave him her Santa hat for the bath set.

Until next year....

Winter Day???

Ok, really, today is December 11th... December... as you can see it didn't feel like December today as we raked leaves and played outside in shorts and t-shirts. I guess we shouldn't knock it but it felt really weird today doing my holiday baking and looking at the tree while the windows were wide open and a breeze floating thru the house. Oh well, Merry Christmas!

Hope met Santa today...

at Walmart of all places. We were there ( yet again this week ) standing by the deli counter when Hope says in a very excited voice, "Momma, there's Santa!!" to whit I replied, Huh?? Then I turned around and felt like I was in the movie, 'Miracle on 42nd street", there was Santa in his hat wearing jeans and a t-shirt asking Hope what she wanted for Christmas. They had quite a long conversation regarding the fact he knew she was on the good list this year and reminded her not to fight with her sister, he said he would see what he could do about the Island Princess Barbie and then asked before leaving if she and her sister kept their room clean??? Hope noded her little head up and down and Santa told her if they kept their room clean he would make sure they each got an extra little present this year under the tree. ( Santa talked to me for a few minutes too, he told me he has been Santa for 35 years and this is his favorite time of year, he always takes the time to talk to every child and he never goes anywhere without his red Santa hat! ) After he moved on, Hope tugged on my shirt tail and whispered almost too soft for me to hear " When Emma gets home from school today, I'll tell her we need to clean our room! " ( Thank you Santa!!)

PS. for all the parents out there, I wanted to pass on again how we need to think quickly on our feet, as I had to explain why Santa wasn't wearing the whole red suit today... at least I was able to use our unseasonably warm 70degree day as part of the excuse and the fact it was probably at the cleaners waiting to be put on properly the eve of the 24th! Whew.

Santa's Elves are Busy

It's offically the holiday season, not because I've bought any Christmas presents or anything but I have started my baking! I have learned that I have lots of little hands that love to help cook in the kitchen ( which should be a really positive thing in about 5 more years and I can retire from cooking all together I'm sure if they pick up anything from Dad and I ) so I make sure there is plenty of things Emma and Hope can do to help take part. It's neat that we have fun and do something nice for other people but I am teaching them what it means to give of themselves to others. The first thing they asked was who were we cooking for?? and then...when do we cook ours because they know our goodies are last. This week we will be decorating the bags that we give the "goodies" in... again, it's part of the gift to have them draw and design the Christmas present themselves.

Rachel's Band Concert

Last night Rachel had her first band concert - the middle schoolers have been playing their respective instruments for a little over 3 months... now if I were to think back at what my first band concert sounded like versus what hers sounded like, you would think 6th graders have come a long long way. Dad drove into Blacksburg last night to see the show and sit with Memaw and Grandaddy and brought back a few snippets on the camera video player.
Rachel played the flute for me this weekend and gave me a preview show and I was impressed.
I seem to remember my hometown buddy Brion and I playing and seeing our parents in the audience with that 'parental grimace', the parents that were actually smiling were the ones with the earplugs.
No need on this video. Great job Rach!

It's begining to look a lot like Christmas...

Our tree for 2007 - it came out really really good this year, plus it's even cooler than normal because Grammy sent us a thingy that makes it rotate around and around, how cool is that? I knew it looked cool in the store but it's better in person, thanks Grammy - that was the best present!

Here is the gingerbread house... I guess it was worth David risking life and limb climbing all over the roof to get the light strung. I will take credit on picking out the snowflake light, we may get some more of those to hang on the garage. Side note for the day would be to "test" the lights prior to hanging them on the highest points of the house. Just before he finished, we thought about the fact that we didn't plug them in first and sure enough the ones on top needed to be tightened. Poor Daddio.

Who needs store bought ornaments when we have a family of talented kids in the house? Since we need to cover all sides of the tree ( remember the tree spins around so no slacking to the back anymore ) we did homemade dough ornaments and we did some glass balls and wooden bears.

Ok, this is a grandmother shot - just to give you all a heart attack as it gave me watching the two of them up there.

What sacrifices we make to have the best looking house on the block at Christmas time! Santa can't miss us! Did I mention David doesn't care for heights? what a stud!

My angel holding the angel....... man, time flies.

3 Wise Girls??? Notice Em's hair? She got it cut this past thursday, wow , what a babe!

Um, Rach... we're decorating the tree.

Um, dad... again, we are decorating the tree....

This must be my christmas present this year, how many times am I gonna get love like this? and in print ! What a lucky momma.

Yeah, right... they know Santa is checking his list for naughty or nice............