2012 jam session

Featuring Ray and Dj Denny...

Delicious

And oh so easy!

The decorations are up

And the food is made. Now I must grab a nap so I will make it till New Year's Day! Happy New Year's Eve!

Bar hopping...

New Years Eve Eve...New Years Eve is for amautures!

Ballet Memphis...

Performed scenes from The Nutcracker for our Thursday Night Supper Club Christmas Party! The children loved it and they were perfectly well behaved until the final scene (when the guy only wore tights!).

A huge Thank You to the JL Sustainers for making these stockings for all the children. The Hill/Green family smile with their stockings...

Tiera and Hayden can't wait to see what is inside!

I enjoyed this Holiday season so much. I just hate that it went so fast!

Catching up...

We attended some great Holiday parties, but unfortunately I didn't get pictures of them all. However, I had the honor of hosting some amazing women for a GROW leadership reunion/Holiday party. We had appetizers, soups and desserts. I know I had a blast and I think a good time was had by all.

Santa hats! (note for next year...try icing instead of cool whip!)

Individual banana puddings in the fridge...please excuse all the 'cream' in the background!

I so love my Santa dishes and am excited to have a full 12 pcs now!

As we were finishing up someone noted that if it wasn't for GROW we probably would never have gotten the opportunity to know each other...GROW has meant so much to me on so many levels.

I think Layne likes shopping

With me!!!

Some of my favorites (part 2)

from Christmas day! We went with mom and dad to Cabot to spend Christmas lunch with Grandma Deen at Aunt Marca and Uncle Mike's house. Lunch was delicious, but for some reason I didn't take many pictures. On our way, we made a quick stop to make sure Santa found Palestine and to enjoy some delicious breakfast pizza that Emily made!

So glad Santa found Smokey the Talking Firetruck...Lily loves it!

How about a game of hungry, hungry hippp...

Grandma was not wanting to get out of bed, but I think in the end she was happy she did. I definitely think getting out and Aunt Marca's cooking did her some good!

Some of my favorite...

pictures from Christmas Eve at mom and dad's house. It was perfect on all levels. Love, love, love spending time with family!

Reading Lily The Adventures of Betty Sue and Hunt, which is a story about the Seaside 4th of July parade and uses pictures from our week at the beach.

Quick pic before Christmas Eve Church Service...

Loves her twins...Peanut Butter and Jelly or Lily and Layne?

Modeling their matching Patagonia's.

Quick Christmas pajama picture with Nonna and Poppa. Thank you for all our fantastic presents! Layne feel asleep in his Poppa's arms, but Lily was too excited to sleep!

Lauren shows us her new kitchen...

Looks like she has been good this year!
So cute!!

Opening presents...

With grandma! Glad we got her up and out of bed! Thanks Aunt Marca and Uncle Mike for having us. Lunch was delicious!

Our new Christmas centerpiece

Is so handsome!!

Always love being here...

Layne's ready for church...

Craft time

With Nonna!!!

I think Lily likes her blocks...

I know Uncle Ray does!

These my friends...

are pretty tasty...

The Reason for the Season...

Lily said today that she wanted Jesus to have a Birthday cake and I was happy to make sure he had one!

Drinks for the weekend...

Check!

Lovin' my new pen!!

Thanks Kim!!!

Christmas Vacation is on tv...

This movie always reminds me of Emily and Ashley which reminded me that I was so busy the first of December that I never recapped Emily's 30th Birthday! We started the day at Elite Nail Salon for mani/pedis. I highly recommend Elite (at Massey and Poplar behind Chickfila)! They are more of an upscale Chinese nail salon and they can do 8 people at once.

It was so fun that Ashley, Lee, Julie, Ms. Kim and Megan celebrated with us.

We enjoyed lunch at Memphis Pizza before heading out shopping.

We came back to mom and dads to meet up with the guys and enjoy a delicious steak dinner prepared by dad! Happy Birthday Emily! We love you!

O Christmas Tree...

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas tree, How lovely are your branches! In beauty green will always grow Through summer sun and winter snow. O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree, How lovely are your branches! O Christmas Tree, O Christmas tree, You are the tree most loved! How often you give us delight In brightly shining Christmas light! O Christmas Tree, O Christmas tree, You are the tree most loved! O Christmas Tree, O Christmas tree, Your beauty green will teach me That hope and love will ever be The way to joy and peace for me. O Christmas Tree, O Christmas tree, Your beauty green will teach me.

Trisha did not disappoint...

Every year my mom gives me a new cookbook for Christmas. Every year I get so excited and enjoy reading and cooking from it. I got Trisha Yearwood's cookbook last year and I have enjoyed every recipe I have tried in it. Tonight was Fancy Chili and sour cream corn bread. Both were unique and delicious! The chili has fire roasted tomatoes, so while Ray was not crazy about the smell he definitely enjoyed the taste! I'm excited to see what this years cookbook has in store!

My vendors know me too well...

Chicago mix and everything!

Love...

Christmas cards!

Goodies...

My team loves the goodies this vendor produces, but you can only imagine the disappointment from everyone when I opened the box to find a fleece blanket with their logo! Wonder who was responsible for their gift this year?!?

Dozens and dozens

Of cute cupcakes for tonight's party!!

The Night Before Christmas...

So much fun with the PreK. We read to the kids, made stockings and had snacks. They were all so excited to get to take the stockings home! They will be even more excited when they see we filled them with a new hat, scarf, gloves, socks, pencils, tablet paper and a book! A huge thanks to Natalie and the PreK committees!

A 'lesson' on Giving...

For the December Saturday GROW event, we hosted a Holiday Market. Rebecca and her committee gathered presents from league members, sustainers and even purchased some so that we had a wide selection of gifts that we thought the kids would like to give their mom, dad, grandma, etc. At sign in Monica and I had the opportunity to tell the children about the activity. It was so awesome to see some of their faces light up as well as how long it took some of them to decide who they wanted to get their one special gift for. I'll tell you there will be a lot of happy Grandmas on Christmas morning. We only had a couple (mainly older boys) that said they wanted to get their gift for themselves. At that, we talked to them about the 'joy of giving.' We also had a room for the adults to get to pick one present for each child.

Each child was escorted by a volunteer.

Then they went to a wrap station, were the presents were beautifully wrapped with bows and tags.

When the shopping was over, we iced cookies and sang Christmas Carols.

This tree has all the ornaments they made last month with Seize the Clay. They were very excited to take them home!

And a Christmas party wouldn't be complete without a visit from Santa! Here, this mom tried to bribe her son to get in the picture, but the son thought he had to pay Santa to think he had been good...

All events at Lester take HUGE planning and I'm lucky to have the best committee...

Monica for Thursday nights, Rebecca for Saturday and Natalie for PreK.

I truly enjoy Giving much more then Getting so today was so amazing.