New Years South Carolina Style

We went to South Carolina to Carmel's sisters house for a Weed Christmas and New years celebration. On New years eve we had a rare treat, my brother in law cooked a whole pig. I wish now I would have gotten a picture of it. It was delicious!!!! Maybe we should start buying our own pigs and cooking them if they taste that good. Here are a few highlights from out time there. Starting with the youngest Weed member Savannah. She is such a sweetie. Carmel's parents

Griffin and my brother in law Mike

Ella and her marble tower. She begged for me to put it together. I opened it up and saw how many pieces there were and closed it right back up. I told her we would wait until we got back home. I did not want to loose any pieces. That was code word for Griffin can do it. He loves that kind of stuff.

The New Years Eve bonfire

And last but most important( to the kids at least)....fireworks.

My nephew Michael.

Christmas Day 2009

For the first time in several years, we did not have to go anywhere Christmas Day.Usually the kids open there presents, choose one to take with them and we're off. We had a relaxing and enjoyable day of being with each other. We wore our pajamas all day and it was a no makeup day for me. I also have a little confession to make. I have never made a Christmas dinner. I've never had too! I made a ham, hash brown casserole, green beans, Christmas pasta and bread. We ate in our dining room which was a special treat. Come to think of it I don't think the kids have ever eaten in there. One in particular who will remain nameless is a very messy eater. We ate on my never been used Christmas plates and drank sparkling grape juice from our crystal glasses( you know the nameless messy eater I mentioned before she broke her glass). Here are a few pictures from our morning. I hope your 2009 Christmas was as wonderful as ours. Oh yeah....Santa was way to kind to my kids again!

Christmas in Helen Take 2

Christmas Eve day we celebrated Christmas with my parents, sister, grandmother and nephew before heading back home. I don't know about you but Christmas does not feel like Christmas without a tree. As part of my parents gift I brought them a tree decorated with ribbon and ornaments to help replenish what they had lost in the fire. I thought it turned out nicely. My grandmother kept saying the whole week, "That is such a pretty tree". I guess she liked it too. My kids thought it was agonizing torture for us to make them wait all week before opening gifts. They were not happy with me when I told them to go outside for a picture while we waited for the others to finish getting ready. If you have ever been to Helen during the summer you have probably seen people tubing in the water. The place we stayed at was right on that water. Too bad it was not summer. We could have had hours of endless fun by people watching.

Our Santa for the day.

Laney and Ella with my mom. Finally...PRESENT TIME.

Ella is at that perfect present age. She is thrilled with every present she gets. My dad kept grabbing different items around the condo and giving them to Ella. Every time she opened one she would say, "This is so awesome or it's what I wanted". Even when it was the remote to the condo TV.

Okay I know what you moms are thinking. 600 PLUS PIECES! That is what I thought too but Laney is all into fashion so this is the perfect present for her. I did make her wait until we got home to open it and yes first thing I did was give her a Rubbermaid container.

My mom loves rooster actually just about everyone on the Parker side does. It reminds us of our MawMaw. My sister did an oil painting of a rooster for my mom.

You remember the gift Santa gave me early. Well, it was because he saw me slaving away at making my parents scrapbook. He thought it would come in handy. Here is everyone gathered around looking at it. Many long hours of working on it but so worth it. Now I just need to update my own!!!!

Here are a few photos we took in front of the tree before we left.

Christmas in Helen Take 1

My parents used there timeshare points and got a place in Helen, Ga the week before Christmas. We left Sunday afternoon and headed that way for 5 day Christmas vacation. Anytime I have been to Helen it has been in the summer. They are known for there German town atmosphere and the tubing. Obviously, we could not participate in the tubing portion. To my surprise, it was extremely quieter than in the summer. There was not alot to do but we spent time together and that is what was most important. Here are activities we came up with during our stay in Helen. They kids enjoyed playing on the playground.

You can't go to Helen without tasting some of the German cuisine.

My dad and grandmother. She is German and was born in Germany. If you remember from a previous post, we were doing Christmas around the world. Germany was the last place we traveled to. We took advantage of my grandmother being there and had her explain what Christmas is like in Germany.

Laney with our German waiter.

We walked around the town admiring the Christmas decor and shopping. My sister purchased this head piece for Ella. She wore it all over town.

They had horse carriage rides to show you the town. We opted to walk.

Since Helen is no Disney, I brought crafts for the kids to do. As you can see the adults wanted to do them as well. We made ball ornaments. Thanks to this old light fixture we had a place to hang them.

My grandmother was the first to sit down when I called out craft time.

We made these glitter ornaments and painted gingerbread men( not pictured).

We went to the local area Swanee and visited museums, waterfalls, covered bridges, pottery shop, old store and shops.

We ate alot and snacked alot, played games and even made time to accessorize with my grandmother's wig