Graham Crackers

We had some fun over the weekend. We willingly submitted ourselves to a Graham Cracker House building contest...(we used graham crackers cause we are too cheap to use the real gingerbread.) Several young couples with kids from the church got together for a little Christmas competition. Hannah was so excited about the contest and Chloe was more interested in playing with Max's toys. We had a lot of fun and for all the hard work and perseverance... we came in second! It was a pretty fun night!




Also, Sunday night Hannah was in the "Miracle on Main Street" children's Christmas musical. She did great! Shelley made Steve move down to the front row so that we could get the best pictures... of course so did every other dad! She was wonderful and like usual knew all the words!

Last but certainly not least, the Spence's are providing to the staff at the church with our famous cinnamon rolls and Hannah is elbow deep in flour! She's learning young! Mimi, we are carrying on the tradition. (pictures coming later)

Chloe's birthday is Friday and Elmo is making an appearance! She is pretty excited... mainly about the birthday song. Friends are coming over and yes, pictures will be up this weekend. Have a great week!

Thanksgiving Trip

Thanksgiving was a wild adventure this year! We loaded up the truck and headed to Jacksonville, Florida to visit Steve's grandmothers. We drove a total of 26+ hours round trip over the course of four travel days---wow! One funny travel story: on our way through Mississippi, we mentioned stopping for dinner in Hattiesburg, MS. Chloe overheard this discussion and began talking about "cheeseburger dinner at Hattiesburg-er." Guess ya had to be there---She was too cute!

It was a really good visit with family. The girls LOVED playing with Mimi, Papa, and their cousins (Jacob and Hallie). We helped Nana by raking and bagging her leaves---the kids "jumped in" and helped too! :-)

We spent the night with Grandma. The four cousins had a slumber party in the living room! Chloe was the last one to fall asleep each night---go figure!

We watched the parade and saw Santa ride in---then we enjoyed a yummy Thanksgiving dinner. Mmmm!! The kids did art projects, played UNO and flew paper airplanes with Mimi and Papa---lots of giggles! Plus, we were able to take some "generational pictures" with Mimi, Nana, Papa, and Grandma with the kids and grandkids---pretty special!!

On "Black Friday," the boys (and Shelley) hit the mall at 5am to bag some bargains. Unfortunately, Papa didn't quite move fast enough to get his Sony Blue-Ray DVD player---but it was still fun (for the rest of us!?)

On the way home, we stopped for a night in Pensacola, Florida and spent the morning playing on the beach. Hannah ended up wet from head to toe---she REALLY enjoyed her time at the beach! Chloe even warmed up to the idea of barefeet on the sand and got in on the fun...

We've updated the slideshow to the right with pic's from Thanksgiving days, as well as pics from our quick beach detour on the way home. Enjoy!

Tonight was big! Hannah was playing with her loose tooth, just wiggling it as hard as she could. Daddy tried to pull on it but his big fingers just couldn't get a good grip. Then Hannah said... let me try... and next thing you know, out it comes! She was so proud and you can tell by the picture, she was really excited! Fun day!

Today was Hannah's Thanksgiving program at school. She and her class traveled to the nursing home to sing a bunch of songs for the residents. They also had the opportunity to talk with them, wish them a happy THanksgiving, and give hugs. Each child brought fruit to leave for the residents. They were precious "loving on" those elderly residents. I was so proud of Hannah. She was much more brave than last year (preK-4)---she walked right up to those residents and began talking with them!



After the nursing home, the parents had Thanksgiving "dinner" at the school and Hannah's group performed their Thanksgiving songs. Very cute!!

More fun pictures... we're starting to have fun with this!

Here are some random pictures of the family. Steve's birthday! Gymnastics practice in the living room and daddy being attacked in the driveway. Fun times! Enjoy!

Oh we have slideshows! Woohoo! Pretty excited that I figured this one out... it took a while! So enjoy!

Well we've been trying to set up a slideshow with Flickr here on the blog. Hopefully sometime real soon I'll be able to figure it all out...and when I do it going to be "slideshow city" around here!

Here We Go!

This is the first of many "blogs" to come. To be honest Shelley is the one who is going to be updating this so, it might come few and far between. But we're going to try this and see what happens.

Steve celebrated his 35th birthday in style.. teaching the girls gymnastics. Fun times! Hannah even made Steve a mug that he can take to Starbucks. (click on the slide show to the right)

At the fall festival... the girls had a good time. Hannah discovered she is good at the coke walk...we'll pretty much every game she played... Chloe was pretty much on momma's hip cause the crowd was so big and she couldn't run around. We had a great time after everyone left helping Mr. Kenneth clean up the gym. They were some pretty cute cheerleaders!

We are looking forward to the trip to Jacksonville to spend some time with Steve's family. Pretty excited about the trip but not really looking forward to 13+ hours in a car with a 5 year old and a 2 year old. So pray everything goes smoothly. Shelley see's it as a challenge... so "bring it on!"

Enjoy the pics and after the Thanksgiving trip we'll update you... hopefully :)