Numana

our family team

What an awesome opportunity we as a family had to help the poor and hungry. My dad invited us to El Dorado to put together meals for the children in Haiti. A little worried at first that Evie would quickly lose interest, she stuck with it and together we as a family put together 2,000 meals. And within the 2 hours we were there a total of 30,000 meals were packaged. Over the weekend, close to 300,000 meals were put on the container to be shipped to Haiti. WOW! It's amazing how much people can do to help others in a weekend alone. What a gift to be a part of such a great event and to be together as a family made it even more special. Thanks, Numana, for all that you do and thanks, Dad, for being such a big part of it.

Christmas Morning

I think I was more excited than anyone to go downstairs to see what Santa brought. I couldn't wait to see Evie's reaction to all of her gifts...Honestly she was more excited to look at the cookie plate we left out for Santa and eat what was left of the half nibbled cookie.

Santa brought her the new scooter and helmet she asked for and is liking it more everyday...thank goodness!

The cookie plate we left out for Santa with some carrots for Rudolph Christmas Eve

First spin on the new scooter

The adorable chef's outfit from her Uncle Rich, Aunt Ney-Ney & Sallie

Christmas Eve-Eve

This year, the Morris family gathered the day before Christmas Eve to celebrate together. The Shanks family hosted and everything was just perfect, as always. Santa even showed up for a last minute check to make sure all of the kiddos were being nice. What a thrill! It was so cute to see Hampton and Evie run to the door to greet him.

the girl's table

"a scooter and helmet, huh?"

the boys

all of the grands with Me-Maw and PaPa Woo-Woo

Baking Christmas Cookies

The long-lived tradition of baking Christmas cookies continues on in the year 2009...we've been baking together since we were little girls and are so enjoying carrying the tradition on with our little ones and Dodger, too! I must admit, it seems to get more labor-intensive every year but for some reason this year, Dana and I 'figured it out' and created "pfeffernusse perfection". Hopefully we'll remember what we did this year for the year 2010! The kids had so much fun decorating their snowman cookies (thanks so much, Molly, for the idea!) while Dana and I worked on the 21 batches of pfeffernusse. What a wonderful time we had - most definitely an event I treasure and look forward to every year!

Let's go to the movies...

Last Friday, my sister and I ventured out to see the new movie "The Princess and the Frog" with the girls. I was so excited to take Evie to her first movie and also a little nervous - "would she sit still? would she be quiet?" So a quick trip before hand to Dillons to pick up every candy imaginable would surely do the trick, right? I mean, bribery works all of the time! Well, she did a super job for the first, oh, 20 minutes...then she began saying, "it's over, no want to, let's go". Oh no, I thought...how are we going to make it another hour? Well, thanks to Aunt Dana who apparently has a better lap than mine, she sat there for quite a while - thank heavens! For all of those who haven't yet seen the movie, it is super cute! Definitely one for the DVD library once it comes out!

I heard the bells...

A couple Saturdays ago, we ventured out to the Dillons down the street to "ring the bell" for the Salvation Army. It is such a blessing to do such a thing and we are grateful to Paul Longhofer at our church for opening this opportunity up to the congregation. It was especially fun this year with Evie. She loved ringing the bell (for about the first 10 minutes) and swinging around on the bucket. Thank goodness for Trevor who kept the bell ringing! What a treat to witness people giving to those in need especially those who looked as though they had nothing to give.

gingerbread house tradition

This was the second year for the annual gingerbread house building with Hope and Evie. I remember last year well - Evie sorted and ate the candy and Hope worked super hard at making the house look perfect. This year was a little different...Evie actually got into the decorating (in between bites, of course) and Hope, again worked meticulously at decorating. I love that the house sits on display in my kitchen as a reminder of how time quickly passes and how these sweet moments are definitely memories in the making.

Through the eyes of Evie

Evie LOVES to take pictures...she must get that from her Aunt Dana. Whenever she is in reach of my camera, she snaps away. It makes deleting one by one a real chore! But it's always fun to see the world through Evie's eyes. I decided to share only a few of her shots with you all - so enjoy "pics by an almost 3 year old".