Merry Christmas...SMILE!!!

You may have already read this one and not realized that I have a really long post after this one below it....so if so, read on.....

Our church did their annual Christmas caroling Monday night and Aubrie dressed quite festively....She will KILL me one day over these pics! Remind you of anyone?Sorry, I couldn't help myself! I laughed everytime I looked at her!

Rudolph and the rest of the McCarter clan wish you a very

MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

December Activities....

Aubrie has an obsession with shoes as I THINK I've mentioned before. She was exhausted and fell asleep with Daddy, but refused to take off her shoes. These are her favorite pair....Sunday best. Our favorite babysitter Bailey came over the other night so that Michael and I could have a date night and she got some really good shots of the kids. This is Aubrie with Bailey's little brother Daniel who came along to play with the girls!




I had so many different sets of pics to post that I decided to shorten the post a bit by combining some in collages. This was our family's day of hanging up the outside lights.

A couple of weeks ago our friends the Kerby's hosted a Rudolph party for the kids at church. It has become an annual event that we really look forward to. The kids watch the classic movie Ruldoph and also have a very special visitor...SANTA!

Emma wasn't quite sure what to think about him and wanted down from his lap pretty quickly....
until she figured out Santa had a present for her....her favorite thing....a book!

This is Emma's buddy Anna Claire, but getting them to pose was not gonna happen, so I took what I could get....

Here they are this time last year!

It was so much easier when they weren't mobile yet!

This was the first year that Aubrie hasn't screamed when she saw Santa.

Here she is right after he walked in the door....

For the sake of my time and your time, I collaged the pics of Aubrie getting her gift from the big guy....




Some attempts at a group pic! A couple of cute poses of Aubrie before church last Sunday....





The 19th was Kaitlyn's 8th birthday! Can't believe she is so grown up already! We had her party at Family Fun Center. This is what she did when we sang Happy Birthday. She gets embarrassed so easily these days. She was very excited to get her Ipod from her daddy and me.Emma spent the evening reaching and wanting either her daddy or me as you can see in this pic. She has been sick the past few days and this was the night she started to feel bad. Poor baby!!! But Nanny & Papa tried to keep her occupied. Kaitlyn and her little brother, Brayden....such a cutie!and cousin Dillon...doesn't she look thrilled?!The girls....Aubrie, Keraghan, Halle, and Chandler....Aubrie tried her best to stay vertical in regular skates, but it didn't take long for her to wear herself as well as daddy out!Then we switched her to skates that fit over her shoes....much better!She still got tired pretty quickly and had to take a rest under one of the benches (germ central)!
Ofcourse her new Barbie had to get her pic taken too!Chillin' with her friends!
We opened presents with Nanny & Papa Sunday night so that everthing wouldn't be so rushed on Christmas Eve & Day....Emma got a new baby...check out her tongue sticking out!
Aubrie got a doll that eats and pees her diaper! Fun!
Both got strollers to push their new babies in..And a giant pencil to doodle with which is something she loves to do!!Mikey thought he got a catepillar that sings his ABC's...look how excited he was!!! Sorry, daddy...its for Emma!"Well, then can I have the new doll?"Thank you Nanny & Papa for all our new things!!!The girls LOVE dress up and if we are at home Aubrie is in a princess dress of some kind. So, Mimi & Poppy got them this cool storage thing with a full length mirror that they are really going to enjoy! Emma has already used the mirror to give herself lots of kisses! Big sisters are always dressing her up too!This princess would not show her face to the papparazzi this day!We had a wonderful treat this year in having my great Aunt Joy & Uncle Bob come all the way from California for a visit. Uncle Bob is very popular for his magic tricks and ofcourse Aubrie had to get in on them!"I'm gonna try and figure this guy out!""WOW! How did he do that?""Gran Gran, do you know how he does that?"

Its Christmas Day and I am just getting around to publishing this post that I've been working on since Saturday....so MERRY CHRISTMAS to all my readers. I hope that God has blessed each one of you like he has the McCarter family! Aubrie and I are sick today and didn't get to go to Christmas on my dad's side of the family, but Emma and Daddy went. This is the 2nd year in a row that I have had to miss out...last year it was strep...but when I count my blessings, I could never complain! More pics of actual Christmas stuff later!!!!

My Little Christmas Girl!

It was going to take me forever to upload all of these pics of Emma by the tree in ONE of her Christmas outfits, so I just chose to create a collage of all of them. She wouldn't look at the camera and wouldn't even sit still until we gave her the singing snowman to play with! Some of her expressions crack me up!!! I'm still working on a post with many more pics of the past couple of busy, busy weeks....and its not even Christmas yet!!! You can click on the whole collage to see individual pics closer.

My Day Job!

I've posted before about how much I love my job, but I'm here again to tell you that I've really got the perfect job for me!!! I love my students (for the most part....all 450 of them), my co-workers, and my boss!!! I'm off on holidays and in the summers AND most importantly I get to teach the one thing I LOVE...MUSIC! So...although, most of my blog readers read for pics and updates of my own children, I can't help but brag on my school kids every once in awhile! Last week was our annual Christmas play....here are some pics of some of my favorite parts of the play! AND I promise I'm working on another post of the McCarter girls, but I can only upload those from home and my time there is very limited!

Here are a couple of my 5th grade choir opening the show! I promise they did smile despite this first one....

A group pic of PART of the play participants....there were 110 in all.....
This year's play had adults in it too! This is our art teacher in the middle and her husband on the right. The left is Santa Claus played by my preacher and good friend Patrick Cannon.
A couple of the soloists...

Football players doing part of the Nutcracker ballet.....they stole the show!
This little girl was the CUTEST!!!
Christmas shopping online...
One of the songs was "Christmas Fiesta" showcasing our bilingual class and their celebration of "Las Posadas"