More pics (non-wedding)

Wow, I can't believe it's been a whole week since I last posted. We are currently on snow day number 2. I grew up in WI and you didn't get out of school in WI unless there was an actual blizzard. Here in TN, the schools closed before a flake even fell. Sigh...it does get bad on the back roads and we just don't have the equipment to clear the snow like they do in WI. Either way, we are on our second day of missed school due to weather. J is out in it right now.

A few people have asked me how he did over Christmas and with the wedding and all. He did great. I guess things that are out of the ordinary can throw adopted kids off and out of control. He really did well even with the excitement of Christmas and all the wedding stress, meeting new people, etc. It didn't seem to throw him off at all. He did a great job in his role as ring bearer in the wedding. We are thankful.

Here is a pic of this year's tree before Christmas morning. Pics coming up of New Year's Eve.

J is following in his sister's (and mother's-I used to dress the cats too) footsteps and dressing the poor cats. Here is Dexter in the first vest that I made for J which was too small.

The day after the wedding we spent with my cousin and her family who had come down from WI. The kids swam in the pool and then we went out to eat before they got on the road. We both have birthdays in Jan so we celebrated together.

Here are their girls. J enjoyed playing with them.

We finally convinced him to turn off the tv for a while and he made a cute swimming pool scene out of play doh.

Okay, New Year's eve. This is the tree fully engulfed. Well, not fully engulfed as only half of it would light. But the fireworks were good. It was so cold that we all wanted to get back inside anyway.

R and JT opened up their wedding gifts that night too. They had just gotten back from Gatlinburg.

J can't find his camera so he took mine and went upstairs and took pics of the kids up there.

A self-portrait. He is his Bampa's grandchild (dad is always taking self-portraits).

The boys.

A and her friend C.

A and her friend E.

A laying on her friend E. Don't ask. We don't know either and we don't really want to ask.

J decided that he should play the piano. I put some sticky notes on an octave and gave him some very basic instruction and he was able to play 3 songs before he lost interest. Oh, and that's the keyboard I got for my birthday. It's just like the one at church. I love it.

A drew this pic of R and JT from that wedding pic beside it.

She did a good job, didn't she? The kids never cease to amaze us with their artistic abilities.

J made and decorated this cake for me (with some help from me of course) for my birthday. Yeah, again. Don't ask. We don't know either. He just thought it was pretty.

And this pic brings us up to this morning, day 2 of snow days. A's friend E is here and she always "tortures" Misty. At least it sort of looks like Misty is enjoying it. Sort of. Either way it's a cute pic.

So that pretty much catches us up for now. R is busy packing up her stuff and getting her name changed and getting her own car ins. and stuff like that. JT graduates on Thursday and then if nothing changes he will head to CO. We're not sure when R will be able to go. Sigh...such is life in the army.