Ainsley's Christmas

John, Colleen, Carolyn, (Colleen's mom), and Ainsley arrived Christmas evening. After watching other grandchildren wait for endless minutes to get their toys out of the packaging, I had Ainsley's gifts assembled and out of the packaging, ready to be played with! She walked in and began talking to her twin baby dolls in their new high chair and cradle. Here she is feeding the baby "yogurt."

Ainsley loves to laugh and once she starts, it doesn't take much to keep her going. Here, she is playing a little game with her mom, which had her pretty tickled.

This was another fun gift from Macy and Marshall...

And even more fun was putting the blue bow on her head and laughing!

Here she is with the baby Jesus from one of my nativity scenes. She liked the story and really wanted to play with all the figures, but after I told her it was "Mimi's toy," she left it all alone. Next year, we will get her the Fisher-Price Nativity Set for children.

We had fun at the park in our neighborhood, and she even inspired me to go down the double slide with her! Look at her face in this photo. She gets really excited on a playground.

Looking at Mommy through a hole.

Going up the stairs to the slide...

Everytime she came down the slide, she stand up, and say, "Again," and she'd go again and again!

This is one of my favorite Christmas pictures of her, wearing her Minnie Mouse scarf, hat and mittens from her great aunt Sandy in California.

When we took her outside, she really didn't want to smile. It was pretty cold, and she didn't have on a coat or shoes...but I thought the lighting would be better.

This is why God made grandmothers. At dinner, she was not happy and didn't want to eat much of anything. Her mom and dad had reached their limits and Mimi was saying something like, "I should have fixed her some macaroni and cheese..." She knew I was sympathetic to her cause and in the middle of a huge temper tantrum, through tears, she looked across the table at me, and said, "I want my Mimi!" Well, that was it. I broke all the rules, and went around to her and took her out of her chair and sat her on my lap. She calmed down and ate a few bits of chicken, had a roll, and some water and milk. I didn't win a popularity contest with Mom and Dad, but it was one of my favorite Christmas memories this year! Ainsley, I promise, next year, I will fix a big bowl of macaroni and cheese for you, so neither you nor I will get into trouble!

Fun under the tree with Daddy.

While her mom and dad were loading up the car on Sunday morning, Papa and I took her down to the pond to feed crackers to the fish. I love this picture of her. The lighting was just right, and you can almost see the gold halo over her head!

We had a wonderful Christmas. Santa was very good to all of us, but the best gifts of all were the grandchildren, who made this a blessing of a holiday!

Christmas with the Gee's

Larry and Ashley had us over Christmas morning for brunch and present un-wrapping. Their tree is always beautiful! Brunch was wonderful with a yummy egg casserole, sausage rolls, fresh fruit, other things, mimosas and coffee.

Sam got some new sunglasses...

A head light...

A Buzz-Lightyear from "Toy Story," and lots and lots of other things.

Hayden was very excited about his Lego City----I think they may need to add a room on the house once it is built! It was so much fun watching the boys unwrap all their gifts.

Sam summed it up when in the middle of unwrapping presents, he looked at everyone and shouted, "THIS IS THE BEST CHRISTMAS EVER!"

The Metcalf Christmas

Julie's family is leaving town on the 23rd to go to Midland to be with the Metcalf family. Our Christmas with them was on Monday, the 20th. We had wanted to go to Bigz Burger's, only to find out they were closed, so we went to Longhorn. Marshall wasn't feeling well, and ate nothing, then fell asleep in Julie's arms. He had been coughing for a few days and lost his voice, so Julie already had a doctor's appointment scheduled for the next morning. Here we are before we ate, with Mia in her new Christmas dress and the ever-present, Bear!

Macy had already guessed that the American Girl Doll Bitty Twins were in her big box under our tree. The girl has her coloring and the boy has Marshall's. Only one problem: Marshall really thought the boy doll was for HIM! But, he got lots of other toys and soon was happy about his Toy Story dolls that talk and his Trio blocks.

Papa is always ready with his glasses and screwdriver! Finding the place for Woody's batteries was a special challenge this year, but soon, he was working like a charm! The packaging on these toys was amazing. It took a good 20 minutes to get Woody and Buzz Lightyear out of their boxes!

Earlier in the afternoon, Macy and Marshall had to demonstrate their new bicycles, gifts from their other grandparents. Macy's is a Hannah Montana bicycle and is a lot bigger than the one she had been riding, but she adapted quickly and loves it!

Marshall bicycle is called "The Wasp." Here's why....

What's funny is that last summer, Marshall would run into the house if he ever saw a wasp. He was really afraid of them! Then, this is the bicycle he picked out! Such a brave little boy! Oh, and the doctor said he had a very red throat and some slightly swollen lymph glands, but the strep test turned out negative. Since they were going out of town, she gave them a prescription for an antibiotic, which they started today.

Macy's Weekend at Mimi's

Macy spent the night with us Saturday night. For dinner, she wanted to make a menu, so I wrote down everything we were having. She then wrote, "Mimi's Restrot" on the left. She's really getting pretty good with sounding out words and spelling. I love the way she comes up with words like "restaurant" which is clearly a very hard word to spell! She circled what Papa (Popoy) had for dinner, then made him pay for it. She charged him a dollar per bowl of soup. He had to make some play money and pay me.

Macy pointing to a package under the tree that has her name on it. She said, "It's too big for one American Girl doll, so I think it's the "Bitty Twins!" Darn!

When we got home from church, she wanted to go feed the fish in the park. We had heard the song, "Mary, Did You Know" at church and she kept singing it over and over again. She didn't know all of the words, so she kind of made up some of them. Then I downloaded the song by Kenny Rodgers and Wynona Judd on my cell phone and we sat in the park, on this beautiful afternoon, and sang this song several times. For the link to this song go to http://www.andiesisle.com/didsheknow.html. Macy has a beautiful voice, and I will always remember her sitting in the park singing this song with me.

Here is a picture of Macy sneaking up on a butterfly. When we got to the park, there were several butterflies flying around near us. She was upset about this and said, "Oh, no, the butterflies are supposed to be in Mexico where it's warm. We have to save them, Mimi! We need to find them some flowers." (This could have easily been a "Dora the Explorer" episode!) There were no flowers in the park, since we had had a hard freeze last week, but I assured her they would find the pansies in our yard and survive. We saw one butterfly that landed on the sidewalk, and here she is trying to sneak up on it and catch it. Of course, it flew away about the time I took this picture. We spent the rest of the afternoon taking her babies for a walk in the stroller and collecting special rocks which she wants to write blessings on to give as gifts. By the time we got home, we had a stroller with three dolls in it and a load of rocks!

The Little Blue-Eyed Boy, AKA, The Stud

Doesn't he just steal your heart?

Marshall Metcalf, age 5 1/2