Happy New Year!

We rang in 2008 a few hours early at the Clines' house tonight - the second of what I hope will be many New Year's Eves together! Lil picked out the accessories at the party store earlier; she was very serious about coordinating hats, necklaces, and horns.

Happy 2008!

Christmas

I have been terribly negligent about posting because we've been so busy! Grammy and Papa Harry were here for a nice, long Christmas visit, and Susu and Ga also came to Raleigh for Christmas Eve.

According to Lil, all of her Christmas wishes came true - she got all sorts of toys from the Cars movie. Reid was also pretty excited about his new train set and big wheel, but there was definitely a little toy envy going on once he saw Lil's cars.

We had a wonderful holiday - definitely a great end to 2007!

Lil was high on the holiday all of December - especially the last day of school, when they had doughhuts and hot chocolate and watched the Polar Express - in their pajamas. Santa even dropped some frozen bells down from his sleigh for the class!


Lil and Mae on Christmas Eve


Grammy and Papa Harry


Susu and Mae


Luke and Mae


Oren tells Ga and Lauren what he wants from Santa


Lil sang with the cherub choir at the Christmas Eve service and spent the rest of the night belting out five or six lines from her favorite. "Hurry, shepherds, to the manger bed!"


Lil and Reid pose with Zach, our elf on the shelf, before he returns to the North Pole for the year.


Cowboy Rooster tries out the new cowboy accessories from Aunt Stacey and family


Lil checks out her new Cars toys on Christmas morning


Reid on his new big wheel on Christmas morning


Grammy coached Lil on the new pitching machine she and Papa Harry gave Reid for Christmas...


while Papa Harry and Reid kept the machine loaded.


Lil and Reid after raiding Trey's closet

Mr B!

Yesterday, Blan, Aunt Dailey, and Uncle Aaron came to town, and Reid was absolutely delighted to get to meet his dear friend Blan at the museum after school.

One lamb and one (surprisingly well-behaved) angel

Tonight was the Christmas pageant at church. The kindergarteners were stable animals - Lil was a lamb - and the 3-year-olds - meaning Reid - were angels. Believe me, I seized the opportunity to photograph the occasion. He led his class into the church and behaved quite nicely. It was a Christmas miracle in and of itself.

Party!

Tonight we went to a Christmas party at the new children's museum downtown. Trey and I discovered pretty quickly that Reid has quite a knack for 80s dances (though he has no clue he's doing "the robot") and karaoke (everyone give it up for "Twinkle, Twinkle One More Star").

Introducing... Zach the elf

This morning we discovered we had an "elf on the shelf" in our living room. Legend has it that this elf flies up to the North Pole every evening to report the day's activities to Santa and then reappears in new spot every morning. After much debate (Reid wanted to name the elf "Big Red Car" - always a devoted Wiggles fan), Lil and Reid decided to name him Zach. I'm not sure where the name came from, but Lil suggested it and Reid liked it because it was a "boy name."

Truth be told, Zach looks a little creepy, but Lil and Reid have both already had deep discussions with him about their Christmas wishes.

Gingerbread Houses

I spent part of the morning at Lil's school making gingerbread houses with her class. It was a little messy but a lot of fun!

Lil's Christmas Party

Lil had her Christmas party at our house this afternoon with 9 friends. They decorated cookies and reindeer ears; made reindeer necklaces; enjoyed this amazing 80-degree weather outside; and ate lots of pizza and ice cream. Lil is already talking about what we can do for next year's party - I'm just having a glass of wine and trying to regain whatever sanity I had prior to 4:30 this afternoon.

Sally, Leslie, Tucker, Kate, Gracie, Lil, May, Jett, Margaret, and Annie

Lil and May

Front: Annie and Kate

Middle: Leslie, Jett, Margaret, and Sally

Top: Gracie, May, Lil, and Tucker

Gracie, May, Lil, and Tucker

Jett, Leslie, Margaret, Lil, May, and Gracie

Annie, Sally, Jett, Tucker, and May

Gracie, Lil, Margaret, Molly, and Kate

Happy Birthday, Mae!

Mae's 2nd birthday party was this afternoon. She had all of her grandparents, aunts, uncles, AND 8 cousins in attendance!