Merry Christmas!

 What a year this has been! There have been hard thing and great things to come out of this year.  I am choosing to focus on the great things. We have so much to celebrate and be thankful for this year.  

This is usually the other way around. ha!

She has been asking for this for years. I'm not sure how much she will enjoy eating what food comes out of here, but she will never be able to say, "I always wanted an Easy Bake oven, but my parents never bought me one."

The air hockey table has been a huge hit.

Macy decided she wanted to join the robotics club in January, so we got her a robot to build and she can learn how to program it.  She's pretty excited. 

It has been such a special season. Different, but special. We're praying that we are going to be moving back to a more normal life in 2021, but these three girls and their daddy make life during a pandemic about as good as I could ask for. 

School's Out!

 School is officially out for break! We took a ride to Kennesaw to check out Lights of Joy.  This is one house that has decorated their front lawn.  You can walk around their circular driveway and enjoy the lights. 

Christmas Eve Brunch looked different this year too, but a pandemic wasn't going to stop this tradition.  Macy helped me with the cinnamon rolls this year. 

Somehow this furry creature managed to hurt her paws on a walk a couple of days ago.  She kept licking them and they were bleeding occasionally, so we decided to bandage her up for a bit and allow them to start healing. She was pretty pathetic with the bandages.

We enjoyed Christmas Eve service.

We had some flurries before service and then they started up again when we were home.  This one loves precipitation, so she went outside  and froze while catching snowflakes on her tongue.  I don't think she even felt much of the cold through her excitement. 

December Happenings

 The girls performed in Canton at their Holiday Festival. 

Macy helped Marc gather firewood from the trees that were knocked down in the tropical storm.  She also overcame her fear of driving the lawn mower.  

Macy's science fair project was chosen to from the Monday/Wednesday session to compete school-wide.  She had to share her project and findings with judges, and she placed 3rd! We were so proud of her! This puts her in the running for moving on to the next level, depending on how many students they are allowed to take.

She dressed up for senior citizen day.  

Watching their pasta being made.  They were excited to try this place with fresh pasta mixed to order. 

I think there was probably a sign somewhere discouraging kids from sitting on the llama, but this girl was determined to get a quick picture. 

We had a truck load of mulch delivered from the tree company.  We spent a lot of time spreading it out.  Marc thought we would need 2-3 truck loads, but apparently the trucks were larger than he anticipated.  We used about half of the mulch for our projects and now we are just finding places to spread the leftover. 

Thanksgiving

 Most things this year look a little different, but we try to keep as much normalcy in our lives as we safely can.  Watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is part of our normalcy.  Although the parade was more of a "made for TV" parade, they did very well keeping this tradition alive.  

By the time I have everyone's favorites on the menu I pretty much have a normal, large Thanksgiving meal. ha!

We took the girls to drive though Candy Rush at White Water. The line was SO long to get in, but we all enjoyed it.

 

Christmas season is officially here!

November Randoms

Riley likes to lay on the pool cover.  I think she likes the heat from the sun with the coolness from the cover.

The sunsets have been amazing recently. 

Christmas season is here, but  Marc and I managed to squeeze in a date night to celebrate his birthday earlier this month. 

 

Mountain Classic

 The girls last clogging competition was in January. Actually, that was Kayla's last competition.  Macy and Brooke haven't had the chance to compete yet this season.  We finally had one that didn't get cancelled, so we headed up to Gatlinburg for the weekend. Of course that meant heading up early for a day at Dollywood.

Masks are required at all times.

The girls rode everything they wanted to, so we headed out as it got colder. 

The competition was set up differently to help with covid precautions. Kayla competed on Saturday, and the other two competed on Sunday.

This was the first year that she competed on a combined PowerTaps Juniors team.  She had 4 routines, and therefore she had to be a quick change artist. She taught herself one of the smaller group routines, and she was so excited that she was able to compete with them on No Roots.

Awards were announce online so they could clear the auditorium out and clean. They were up against some tough competition this year now that they are a Juniors team, but they did great!

We enjoyed dinner at The Apple Barn.

The fritters and apple butter were favorites.

Sunday was an early wake up to get Macy and Brooke ready to compete.  

The girls are on a Starz team, which basically means they compete against themselves.  They are scored as bronze, silver, gold, or platinum.  They scored a gold on both routines which qualified them for Nationals!

Busy weekend. Fun weekend. Tired kids. 

Cherry Coke Zero hasn't made its way back to the stores here in Georgia, so when we are out of state and find some, we grab a few. This will last us a while.