A Merry Little Christmas!

Here are some pictures of our seven Christmas get togethers! :) It was a fun time of celebrating Jesus' birthday! :) Enjoy the pictures!

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Check this out! A personal message! :)

Pretty cute!

Click on these words to see.

Allie loves to watch this

awesome email from Santa!

She will say, "Ho! Ho! Ho!" and

then do her sign language sign for

more and please. :)

Pretty adorable. When he says

something about her being one year old,

she holds up one little finger.

All the while- never taking her eyes off of Santa! :)

Cutie Pie

Allie found a package of new hair bows and wanted one put in. I put one in and she took the package and looked at it and then did her sign language sign for more and pointed to her hair. I touched the one she had in and told her she already had a pretty in. She did the sign language sign for please. :) So- I kept putting them in until they were all in. Silly girl. She kept asking- so I kept putting them in. :) She wore them for about a half hour or so before she took them all out! :) The first picture isn't the greatest but she wouldn't look at me- so it's the best I have! :)

Cookie Day!

We had cookie day on Saturday! Dad, Mom, Sis, Allie and I all baked/made cookies all day. Mom started making dough around 8 and I think we left around 6. We made cut-outs with decorations, town house/peanut butter dipped in chocolate and decorated like snowflakes, buckeyes, rice crispy treats with Christmas M and M's, pretzels dipped in chocolate, and Peanut Butter Hershey Kiss cookies! Yum-o! :) We were talking and realized we didn't do cookies last year. :( Not sure why- other than it is always such a busy time and lots of work. It is so much fun to spend the day together though! It is fun to make memories and a cool tradition to have! I want Allie to be able to remember fun times like this. We had made cut-outs a couple weekends ago with Grammie (yeah those are long gone- so yummy!) and decided to do the whole nine yards with Nana! Nana was very ambitious! I was impressed with how much we got done!! Little Allie girl was pretty miserable as she was working on an eye tooth. Everytime her mouth got bumped or she touched it in anyway- she cried. :( She enjoyed watching us though and loved playing too! :)

Saying Goodbye for Now

This past week was a rough one. We made a trip to Arlington, Virginia to say our good-byes to Grandma (great gramma for Allie). She had been very sick for a while and is resting peacefully without any pain now. My grandfather was a Master Sergent in the USMC and served in WW2, Vietnam and Korea. He is still living, but they had decided together that they wanted to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery! We went this past week to honor that wish. The whole experience was a very neat last memory of Grandma. The amount of respect shown was UNBELIEVABLE! My grandma was a huge supporter of my grandfather and was such a strong woman! I can't imagine being a single mom while my husband was away serving our country! They were married for 56 years and were so cute together! There are lots of really fun memories! The service at Arlington was a great tribute to her life as a Marine wife! I had been there when we were in 8th grade, but going back at 30 was really different. We went to the main building and waited in a waiting room (impressive in itself) for the Chaplin to come. While we were there, they had a TV with a live feed of the Changing of the Guard. It was so humbling to think that all the people who were buried there had served our country at one time and helped to give us the freedoms we have today. I had such an overwhelming feeling of amazement. When it was our turn, (They do four services each hour (usually 30 a day) but you would never know that others were happening while yours was.) we made our way to her resting place. It was impressive because there were four Marines who were the pallbearers and they were in perfect step and motions. They carried the casket way high above and strattled the row of markers. It was a very respectful walk to her site. Then as quickly as they came- they also left- again in perfect step and with the most respect possible. The service was a quick but powerful one, and much respect was shown to my grandmother and my grandfather. The Chaplin ended by saluting my grandfather and telling him Seimper-Fi (sp?) - which I later found out is the Marine Motto and means "Always Faithful". (A true speaking of my grandmother for sure!) (Brought chills to me when I heard what it meant!)

After the service, we decided to drive the short drive over the Memorial Bridge and into DC. I was so proud of hubby because he drove like he owned the place! :) He had his map and knew the route he wanted to take. There was traffic, but he didn't let it intimidate him or make him nervous (although later, I found out his hand was very tense and tight from gripping the wheel so tightly!) :) He took us through the town and we saw many of the famous buildings.... Jefferson Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, Treasury Building, Capital Hill, Smithsonian, Library of Congress, Front AND Back of the White House, and many more. I snapped pictures as we were driving through.

Following this, we began the drive home. We drove through the mountains of Maryland and through weather typical of home. WE had intense fog, heavy rain, blinding sun off the wet roads, snow in the mountains and the most gorgeous rainbows ever! It was amazing because there were four vehicles traveling together- (but not together.... we were all headed home, but in different areas and times)... Three of the four vehicles saw the most brilliant, huge rainbows we've ever seen, and realized it was all around the same time. My mom texted my aunt who was back home and told her that we all three saw these rainbows and how neat it was following my grandmother's service. We thought it was a sign from God that Grandma was with Him and she was looking down on us. Almost as soon as she texted this, my aunt called my mom to tell her that she was doing some running and came out of a store and had grandma on her mind and was feeling bad because she couldn't go along, and she looks up and sees the most brilliant rainbow ever. (and it wasn't even raining here at home!!!!) She said she thought maybe it was God telling her it was ok that she couldn't go- but then when she heard that we all saw one too- was totally in Awe and knew that it was a God thing!!! SO COOL!!!! Some might disagree- but we all know that there is no other explanation! God is with us always!

Here are some pictures of the two day trip... I left out some of the more personal ones- but you can get the idea. :)