Bolivar Christmas parade

On Saturday, December 11th Rayden set off to referee a wrestling tournament. The rest of us stayed at home and waited patiently until 2:00. Why 2:00 you ask? Because that was when the Bolivar Christmas Parade started. We bundled up and grabbed almost every blanket we own and marched up to the church parking lot. We waited....and waited....and waited for the parade to start. It was late getting off and in all the waiting Kaleb decided that the parade wasn"t worth freezing for so he walked back down to the house and watched a movie. And I must say that after seeing the parade in its entirety I wished I would have joined Kaleb. It was disappointing, to say the least. Most of the floats consisted of pickup trucks pulling flatbed trailers full of bales of hay and freezing kids throwing candy. But, we had fun....and we got lots of candy to show for it. And next year we'll be sure there is at least one awesome float in the parade....SHBC plans to enter one next year!

Advent activities

Our advent calendar...ahem...our homemade advent calendar (thank you very much!) had an activity every day in the month of December. One day the kids came home from school to find a crafty scavenger awaiting them. I starting by writing clues and cutting out all the pieces needed to make a beautiful work of art.

Then I hid the pieces one by one according to the clues. One was in the coldest place in the house...
Another could be found where you might go to watch a movie....

And others made friends with the soap and shampoo...

And once they found all the pieces, they went to work.
(random rabbit trail here....but it's my blog, so you'll just have to deal with it....is my husband a total hottie or what?! Man, I am a blessed woman!)
And together we do make some beautiful babies....if I do say so myself (which I do).

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving with Rayden's family in Branson. We scoured the Black Friday ads looking for the perfect deals. We ate a whole lot of delicious food. And we greatly enjoyed each other's company.

At midnight Tommy, Deanna, Rayden, and I were at Walmart (with everyone else in that region) waiting for the awesome sales to begin. I was shocked that Rayden joined us this year. I ask year after year if he'd like the brave the crowds with me, but his response is normally something like this..."I would rather gouge my own eyeballs out than do that." But this year the stars aligned just right I suppose and he joined us. I scored a Cricut machine, Rayden waited in line for a wii game that we gifted to Tommy for Christmas. And Tommy and Deanna scored some pretty sweet remote controlled cars. After a bit of browsing through Tanger outlets we were home and tucked into bed by 1:30am.

What did Aubri think of the experience? Well, I'm not sure they want her review!

Later that Friday we went for lunch and a show on the Branson Belle. My kids have been on this particular "lake cruise" with their grandparents before, but this was my first time. And let me add that this will have been my only time. It's not that the food wasn't good....it actually was fairly tasty. And although the entertainment was a bit cheesy, I did laugh quite a bit. My vowing to never set foot on the Branson Belle again has everything to do with a cruise they took only a week or so later. This boat took off for their afternoon cruise and got stuck....with no electricity....in the middle of the lake for over 24 hours. There are stories of the patrons ripping the curtains off the stage to wrap up in due to the frigid cold. Let me make myself very clear. I will N E V E R go on that boat again. Just thinking about how I would have reacted to that situation causes me to search for the nearest paper bag....or Xanax.

The weekend was fun, but over way too soon. Before we knew it we were headed back to Bolivar. At least we had some fun waiting for us....it was time to decorate for Christmas!