Christmas Band Concert

 The boys wanted to buy this hat for Greg and I did-though I can't see him actually wearing it-at least not out of our house!  When Scott's band director said that Christmas apparel was welcome, Scott asked me if he could borrow this and wear it!  Love the Yoda ears and "Happy Your Holidays will be"

 Below-I have decided that I don't like Scott playing the tuba!  He is impossible to photograph during a concert-all the way in the back and his tuba covers his face most of the time!  That is the top of his tuba next to the girl wearing the Santa hat

 Mr. Bell-their teacher-They sounded great:  played Rudolph, Frosty, a song called Instant Christmas Concert, and a few others!

Decorating the Christmas tree

 Scott's turn to put the star on the tree this year!

 Max was lonely and wanted to join us!

 We have tall enough ceilings in the den for a REALLY tall tree!  My dad would like this.  I remember going to a warehouse with him and Mom one year to buy a new artificial tree and Daddy saying "yes, I'm sure that it will fit in the house!"  We had to mash down on the star on top and wedge it between the top of the tree and the ceiling.  He and Mom also had the conversation every year about why she didn't want to have a tree with ALL RED lights on it-Daddy's favorite color was red!

 We had to do some more adjusting later, including finally a pair of clippers!

 Looking at the feet ornaments!

 We love these glass ornaments with the kids baby footprints etched in them.  They think it is fun to see how little their feet used to be!

 Love that our tree is covered with ornaments from my childhood, Greg's childhood, favorites of Mom and Dad's, ones the children have made, and ones from Germany, Russia, the Philippines, Australia, Singapore, China, Cayman, and several more.  There are MANY wonderful memories hanging on this tree!

 LOVE these 3 sillies!  After we hung all the ornaments we could find places for, we ate pizza, and curled up to watch A Christmas Carol with Patrick Stewart as Scrooge-he is great!

December Fun

 So Greg does not like AT ALL two of my favorite Christmas things-music from Alvin and the Chipmunks and my car's Rudolph antlers and nose!  He hid my antlers TWICE before he left on a business trip so the children and I decided to do something in return!  One of them suggested we put the antlers on his car but I didn't want them to get thrown away so we made him a set of cardboard ones.  The colors in this picture are bad because they are taken in the parking garage at the airport where we found his car!  We also filled his backseat with balloons and put a sign in his trunk that he'll find when he opens it to put in his luggage.  We made everything easy to pull off and left him a water bottle and some cookies since he will be getting home around 11 pm.  Hope it will make him smile!

 Max was very excited when this branch came off of our tree!

 He loves his greatest new "stick"

Thanksgiving in Atlanta

 We went to Atlanta on Tuesday before Thanksgiving and had a great time staying at Grammy's-there were cousins everywhere!

 and their musical instruments.  Above is King Kong-the tuba that lives at our house.  Thank goodness there is another one (named Gigantor) who lives at school.  I think a tuba would be a lot to manhandle on the bus-even for Scott.

 Katie is playing the clarinet now and we got them to play the same song together a few times!

 Abby and Maggie were playing Spot It

 Scott was playing an old trumpet of Larry's too

 Ashley and Maggie started out with their blankets arranged to be bird's nests and then decided they were treehouses!

 At the Sudderth Thanksgiving lunch in Norcross at the church where I grew up.  This is the fellowship hall where Greg and I had our wedding reception.

 Uncle Alvie and the triplets

 Uncle Dickey who is 91, below reading scripture-the one remaining Sudderth sibling in attendance today.  We have one other-Aunt Becky who lives in Birmingham and is 97 but can't travel that far any more.

 The kids table-our 3 plus Ian Gregory who wanted to join us and the Killingsworth triplets

 Steven running the video in front of the family picture quilt

 a cousin picture getting arranged by Jeanne-including Tim, Gail, Bob, Kay, Jan, Jeanne, Cheryl, Becki Ann, and

 Back at Grammy's eating again!

 We had a large group of family, friends, and neighbors here!

 Uncle Chris snuck away for reading that turned into a nap in the "jumping closet"

 This year the 9 cousins each bought a gift for one other cousin.  They were very excited about choosing something the cousin they were shopping for would just LOVE.  My boys have never had so much fun shopping at Hobby Lobby!

 It was fast and exciting!  The Gregory family will be in Alabama for Christmas this year so we opened early while we were all together!

 We were blessed with beautiful weather!

 canoe rides and no one got wet!  a miracle if you know some of these boys!

 Happy 65th ( hard to believe knowing that she ran a half marathon Thanksgiving morning!) birthday to Grammy.  The kids made a list of the 65 things they love most about Grammy and here she is reading them with the kids.  We had a great time together as always.

I should have gotten an our generation cousin picture since Melanie (a cousin who used to come with her 3 sisters and parents every year for Thanksgiving or the Elliotts would go to Ohio to their house) came with her mom, Debbie, and children-Emma, Claire, and Joshua.  We had not seen Melanie and Debbie in a while and never had met Mel's kids so it was super fun!!!!

So glad we will get to see most of them again in just a few weeks instead of having to wait a whole year!  Definitely one of the best things about being home!