Our Super Star!

Ty and I get such a kick out of Maclaine. She really is just a witty little girl. She's creative and independent, and she comes up with the funniest little sayings. But, if you saw her outside of our home you would think she was quite shy. When she started Kindergarten she went through this VERY shy stage and she would turn bright red if someone talked to her. It broke my heart because I was and still am sometimes, just like that. I can remember being called on by my teacher in school and turning beat red and just wanting it to go away so bad.

We put Maclaine in Karate last year and all of a sudden she started coming out of her shell a little bit. She starting getting back some of that confidence. When I help in her class though I see a piece of that shy, subdued little girl. I'm hoping her confidence will continue to grow and she will be able to be herself at school.

As I was looking through some home videos I took last year I found this one of Maclaine when she was just letting loose at home singing one of her original songs. It just reminded me that we're all more comfortable to be ourselves in our own home. Thank God for home!

My little helper

The tree in our front yard loses it's leaves every January and I always dread cleaning up the leaves. But, this year Maclaine was my little helper and she actually had lots of fun raking up the leaves and then jumping into them. We still haven't quite finished the project because we had to get to Karate so she will be helping again soon.

Our Christmas Festivities!

I look forward to Christmas all year. I love the decorating, the special time spent with friends baking and exchanging cookies, ALL the eating, going to our favorite neighborhood to look at Christmas lights and doing the walk-thru Bethlehem, but most of all I really enjoy our Christmas Eve celebration with our family. All of our family, which includes my sisters and their families, Ty's parents, my mom and George, my Dad and Lin, and Granny all go to the Christmas Eve service at our church and then we head back to our house. We eat Mexican Food which has been a tradition since I was a kid, we sing Christmas carols around the fire pit, we sing Happy Birthday to Jesus and eat Birthday cake, and of course we throw reindeer food out on the lawn so Rudolph doesn't skip our house. For the past two years we've actually seen Rudolph's red nose guiding Santa's sleigh in the sky. It's been quite a thrill for the kids :) We have lots of fun watching the kids sing and dance and just look forward to what Santa will have waiting for them in the morning. We always make sure the kids remember why we celebrate this special holiday though.

This year was a little tough because it was the first Christmas without my Papa. We were thrilled that Granny came up and she actually spent the night at my sister's house so that she could wake up with the kiddos Christmas morning. My mom made some pillows for all the kids with some of my papa's jeans and they loved them. Actually, it ended up being one of Maclaine's favorite gifts. After my papa died in April I took all of his shirts knowing that one day I wanted to make a quilt with them. It took me quite awhile before I could even think about cutting them up but I really wanted to make a quilt for my granny and my mom for Christmas so I started sewing away. It was bittersweet. I miss my Papa terribly and shed some tears as I was going through the process but I loved looking at his shirts all sewn together knowing that my Granny and Mom would be able to wrap a little piece of my Papa around them. My Granny says she wraps herself up in it in the evenings...it makes it all worth it to know that.

I hope our children will have these memories locked away in their little heads as I do of my childhood and all the special things my parents and grandparents did to make it so magical for us.

Aubrey's special day!

Now that my nieces and nephews are getting older, instead of giving them a gift at their birthday party we kidnap them for the day or night and do something special for them. It's always so nice for me to get that one-on-one time with them so that I can get to know them a little better. Aubrey's birthday is in December so we decided we would keep her for the night and go to zoolights. Aubrey wanted chinese food for dinner so we went to P.F. Chang's first and then off to the zoo we went. It was our (the Morgan's) first time going. The weather was nice and crisp and the lights were beautiful. The next day the girls had fun decorating a gingerbread house and just hanging out having special girl-time.

Welcome to our Blog!

Well, since I've become a HUGE blog addict (reading about other people's lives) I've decided to make my own. Now, that I have this pretty background I have no idea what to say.........ummmmmm...Any ideas? I'm thinking my life might not be quite as exciting as I thought, so bear with me. This blog, you may find OLD, OLD pictures or maybe OLD, OLD videos (if I can figure out how to do that) or you may get just a sentence or two of what's going on in our lives. Since I'm not scrapbooking anymore I thought this may be an easier may to document my photos. So, you're welcome to check-in every now and then to see if I've actually kept up with it.