Meagan Competes and Succeeds!

On Sunday afternoon Meagan competed in her first Bible Drill competition. She earned a rating of Superior. We are so proud of her. She has worked very hard all year to learn all of the books of the bible, lots of scripture references, and being able to find any part of her bible in less than 10 seconds. Her skills amaze me. I am proud of the hard work she has put into learning all of this new material. I also want to thank the wonderful people who organize all of the Bible Drill activities at our church. Miss M, Miss S, and Miss W your hard work is appreciated!

Meagan will continue on to the Association Drill in a few weeks and hopefully on to the State Drill next month. We know she is going to do a great job!

Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas Eve and Christmas day here at our house.

On Christmas Eve, we went to church for the evening service. Meagan was baptised along with another member of the church. It was a beautiful service and, of course, I cried. My mom and dad attended along with Jimmy's mom and two of his sisters and their families.

After church we went back to our house and opened gifts with Grandma Silly and Grandpa. Garrett received lots of Batman goodies and Meagan was thrilled the money that Grandma and Grandpa gave her. The money is for her to go shopping for clothes.

Mom and Dad gave me my very own mixer! (I guess Mom is tired of me always borrowing hers!) What I am very impressed about with the mixer is that Mom and Dad went to Wal-Mart on Black Friday to buy it. If you know my dad, you know how amazing that is!

Jimmy gave me a beautiful Willow Tree angel "Mother and Daughter." He said he felt it fit the theme of the evening.

After a dinner of assorted snacks/finger foods went went to Grandma and Pawpaw Blair's house. We opened gifts there (I got a gift certificate to Barnes and Noble :) Can't wait to go buy some new books!) Meagan and Garrett got lots of toys and Jimmy got an Astros t-shirt and Miami Dolphins salt and pepper shakers.

All of Jimmy's sisters and their husbands and Jimmy and I do a gift exchange. We call it White Elephant. Everyone draws a number and then you open gifts according to the number you drew. You can also "steal" other gifts that have been opened before yours. I came home with $20 in lottery tickets and Jimmy came home with a serving platter that can be kept warm. Of course, Jimmy and I agreed to trade gifts when we got home :) He won $14 off of the lottery tickets.

We got home really late and tucked our kiddos into bed. Garrett was feeling really miserable. He had sneezed and blown his nose ALL DAY and his eyes were almost swollen shut. Whatever blew in with the latest front REALLY bothered his allergies. Wait until you see the pictures - he looked terrible. He even took a nap during the day on Christmas Eve. When he fell asleep I knew he was feeling bad!

Playing around with the self timer on my camera

So what do you think?

We had to try about 5 times to get this one and people were getting frustrated so I stopped with this one.

We went to church this morning - which is why we are all dressed up on a Sunday morning and my hair is done and I have make-up on.

After the service - which was very moving for me - I always feel like Brother R. can read my mind when he preaches - we talked to the pastor about Meagan being baptised. She has been wanting to for a while but I have been a slacker mom. Anyway, she will be baptised on Christmas Eve. How perfect is that? Like Jimmy said, I can't think of a better time to do it.

I am now doing laundry and trying to keep the kids quiet so Jimmy can watch the Dolphins. They are in the running for first place in their division which is FANTASTIC seeing as they only won one game all of last season.

I also need to do dishes so I can roll out, cut out, and bake the gingerbread men I want to send to Meagan's teachers this week. I borrowed my mom's heavy duty mixer and made one batch of dough last night. I love how all of the spices make the kitchen smell. I'll try and post some pictures of them when I am done with them - if anyone of them make it long enough to be photographed!